Interviews With Teachers Who Use
The Snare Drum Plays The Zoo
Ginger Zyskowski has a successful private percussion school in Hutchinson, Kansas. Each year, her students combine efforts in their Stickpeople concert, which attracts audiences from hundreds of miles away. In addition to dozens of performances on a wide variety of percussion instruments, this year’s Stickpeople featured sixty students playing sixty drum sets on stage—all at once!
Jason Kenyon grew up in New Hampshire, studied at Berklee School of Music, and now plays and teaches professionally in Seattle. In our discussion, he had a lot of great insights into his experiences at Berklee, as well as his work with private and classroom students.
Brandon Runyon is a busy teacher and performer in Chicagoland. With a growing studio of private students, plus leading percussion classes at Hinsdale South, Hinsdale Central, and Metea Valley, his teaching career is taking off quickly. Amazingly, Brandon grew up in the same town (Oswego, Illinois), and even attended the same junior high and high schools that I did. His high school band director was the award-winning Margene Pappas, who had been my junior high band director decades earlier.
Chris Baker is a professional drummer and private teacher in the Akron, Ohio, area. He’s been teaching at the Aurora School of Music for over six years. Chris was kind enough to take time out of a mixing session with his rock trio Dave Hammer’s Power Supply to talk to me about playing and teaching percussion, as well as his use of The Snare Drum Plays The Zoo with his students.
