John beck percussionist biography of martin

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It’s pretty much seven days a week if you want it to work. The incentive really came from watching that local fife and drum corps, which was quite popular in the 1940s. Your arm hurts? There’s a lot of scheduling that has to be carefully arranged. Rehearsals are in a smoke-free environment and temperature limits are strictly enforced.

We were ensemble players; we had to hone in on those skills and become good players in orchestras and bands and so on. This continued until I auditioned for the Eastman School of Music. If I don’t practice, I can’t demonstrate certain things. Let’s take the top twenty music schools in America. Let me start with the social aspect.

So in that sense I see a difference between the earlier students and the later students. 

There was also a period of time in the late ’60s and early ’70s, during the drug-cult era, when the attitude of the students was that they were coming to the Eastman School to tell the teachers how to teach. Since retirement in 2008, he has been awarded the Distinguished Service Award from the New York State School Music Association  (2009), The President’s Award from Rowan University  (2010), the Lifetime Achievement Award from KOSA International Percussion (2010) and the Life Time Achievement Award from Giornate della Percussione, Fermo, Italy (2010).

I never want specialization in the Eastman School because I don’t think its healthy. But what they didn’t understand was that they didn’t know what they were talking about. At that time the orchestra was primarily an all male organization, except for the harpist. Ironically, he had been my father’s high school band director. 

He wanted me to play clarinet but it looked too complicated, so I decided to take drum lessons from Oscar Angstead.

That’s why schools are trying to develop new programs so that students are diversified and can do many things to earn a living. Stan Leonard, Mitch Peters, Jimmy Dodson and Gordon Peters were at Eastman at the same time. Any leader should never do something without telling others what they are doing. Gradually it became more of a marimba-type of world where we had marimba soloists along with the ensemble players.

And I’m still a reviewer for Percussive Notes. They also have to grow, but they’re growing from a different root. A former member of the United States Marine Band, for 10 years he performed regularly with the National and Baltimore Symphonies, Washington and Baltimore Operas, and the Theater Chamber Players of the Kennedy Center.

He retired from Eastman in 2008 and continues as Professor Emeritus of Percussion and teaches a class in The History of Percussion

Beck’s career as a performer and teacher includes posts as percussionist, timpanist, marimba soloist with the United States Marine Band (1955-59); principal percussionist with the Rochester Philharmonic (1959-62); and timpanist for the Rochester Philharmonic (1962-2002).