A clip from the Broadway Drumming 101 Podcast. Sean McDaniel on the Broadway Drumming 101 Podcast As a substitute on Broadway, he has performed in 11 different shows at one time. Sean has performed in 20 Broadway shows including Frozen, The Book Of Mormon, and Spamalot. He helped develop many other musicals, including Hamilton. He…
Read moreShannon Ford – Drummer for Beetlejuice on why you must bring your “A” game to each show.
This is an excerpt from the Broadway Drumming 101 Podcast featuring Shannon Ford. Shannon grew up in the Washington DC area where he was active in various school bands, local orchestras, and drum corps. While in High School, Shannon performed with jazz greats like Clark Terry, Urbie Green, and Mundell Lowe. The experience of…
Read moreBroadway Drumming 101 – Coming soon!
How To Use Social Media Effectively – A Broadway Musician’s Guide To Social Media Networking
In my post How To Become Better At Networking, I discussed five ways to begin building your network. Today, I will talk about social media and how to use it to your advantage. Fun fact: if you are a monster on your instrument but can’t seem to gather the strength and courage to talk to people…
Read moretick, tick…BOOM! – Therapy
Before Rent, there was tick, tick… BOOM!. This autobiographical musical by Jonathan Larson, the Pulitzer Prize–and Tony Award–winning composer of Rent, is the story of an aspiring composer who questions his life choices on the eve of his thirtieth birthday. It was first performed as a solo rock monologue by Larson back in 1990. I…
Read moreBehind The Scenes: Memphis The Musical Recording Session
I never knew this existed! Wow, is this fun to watch. This recording is by far, my favorite cast recording I’ve done. I like what I played, how the recording sounds and I really like the songs. The whole Memphis The Musical experience was fantastic. I remember when David Bryan, the keyboardist for Bon Jovi…
Read moretick, tick…BOOM!
This is the first cast recording I played drums on. The date we were supposed to release this? September 11, 2001. The release party never happened. The recording included a booklet with production photos, the lyrics and an essay by the late Larson’s father, Al. The cast album also included a 1992 demo tape of…
Read moreWhen To Say No To Gigs
I recently had a discussion with some colleagues about the crazy gigs we all used to have when we first started in the music business. I chimed in about one gig I did in Jamaica Queens that started at 9PM and ended at 3AM. We played six 30 minute sets, playing be-bop all night long…
Read more30/90 – Tick Tick Boom
This was the opening of the show …tick..tick…BOOM! My first musical here in NYC. From the original Playbill listing: Larson’s Autobiographical tick, tick…BOOM! Opens June 13 in NYC On the edge of 30, lyricist-composer-librettist Jonathan Larson wrote about a songwriter named Jonathan at the edge of 30, at the crossroads: His girl wants to marry,…
Read moreLouder Than Words – “tick…tick…BOOM!”
This is my first TV appearance. The Today Show – Saturday on the Plaza June 2001. Geez…I think I had dreadlocks back then. No kids, no wife, no real responsibilities (yet). Rent was SO much cheaper and everything was relatively new. Man was I lucky to be playing with Matt Beck, Konrad Adderly and Stephen…
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