Zach
Zach spent his summer working on developing a method book for the snare drum. Zach said that his inspiration initially came from a class on percussion pedagogy and diving deep into studying nearly every method book for percussion. He said, “As a part of the course, I came up with concepts and tables of content for two books of my own and designed a curriculum for a beginner student. Learning about the pedagogical side of music got me interested in exploring it more deeply. I wanted to know the specifics about why certain exercises worked better or worse at targeting areas of weakness, and how connecting musical ideas to nonmusical ideas could be an effective pedagogical strategy. I hoped that by writing my own method book, I would discover answers to these questions and in the process, make myself a more effective teacher and a better player as well.”
To make his method book a reality, Zach’s primary percussion professor referred him to the OUR to find out about summer grant opportunities. Here, he found out about the SURG three days before the deadline! Zach worked with the OUR to learn the details about the grant and wrote a successful proposal! He said, “Grant writing was completely new to me, so I was very grateful for the help I got from my advisor. She went through my drafts and helped me make my writing much more accessible to the panel and explained the standard outline for a grant proposal in depth. I was lucky to have such a knowledgeable advisor, I couldn’t have done it without her!”