The Portland Summer Percussion Academy is a summer camp for young percussionists in the Northwest. Taking place in late June, PSPA provides an intensive week of workshops, masterclasses and performances for high school students interested in studying percussion. For the last decade the camp has brought on an illustrious faculty of well-known percussionists from around the country, along with members of the Portland Percussion Group and the Oregon Symphony. Oregon Symphony percussionists Jon Greeney and Sergio Carreno taught the students about the timpani, for instance.  

The camp started in 2013 and is currently under the directorship of Portland State University Percussion professor Chris Whyte. The camp initially took place at Lewis & Clark College before finding its current home at Portland State. In past years they sometimes have had to cancel the camp due to low enrollment, and some years fill up. This year, the camp hosted thirteen students. No matter how many enroll, all students get a lot of time to work with the faculty. 

A Typical Day

Early on Wednesday morning, students gathered in a messy PSU percussion room, dotted with posters of Sō Percussion, Keiko Abe and past PSU percussion concerts. PPG member Jon Brown hosted a session about combining music with other passions. “Nothing is safe from making art,” he said. Students shared their interests outside of music and brainstormed ways to incorporate musical practice into those hobbies: soundtracking books, sampling sports highlights, and rapping Dr. Seuss among them. The presentation was a bit impromptu and thrown together, but it served as a good reminder for the students that they can be creative in myriad ways. 

There were some great nuggets of wisdom he shared, such as his creative mantra: “The concept of the ‘mass audience’ has had a largely deleterious influence on art. Create art for at most thirty sickos at a time.” Camp director Whyte, fellow PPG percussionist Garrett Arney and the student teachers stood in the back, watching while sipping iced coffee. 

After this workshop, students spread out around the ground floor of Lincoln Hall for private lessons. Private lessons are a new thing for the Percussion Academy. It’s difficult to coordinate and accommodate every student’s needs to work with specific teachers or on specific instruments. But it seems like they made it work, even if there was a bit of confusion as to where each student was supposed to go. 

During the private lessons, students got thirty minutes to work one-on-one with an instructor on an instrument of their choice. I sat in on a drumset lesson with Brett Paschal, also a member of PPG. In thirty minutes Paschal gave the student a year’s worth of insights. It was one of those lessons that immediately corrects years of bad habits, opening the mind up to new dimensions of the instrument. Paschal did this by fixing the hi-hat stand, adjusting the height of the snare drum, where one plays on the snare, and how one plays a basic swing beat. Paschal would demonstrate the principle with intense eyes, followed by a smile as the students eyes lit up with the spark of realization. He gave information that makes one sound more professional, wisdom that can only come through decades of experience. 

I even picked up a few things for myself, like keeping the quarter notes the same dynamic level on a swing beat and how to use standard drum books like Syncopation or Stick Control creatively. Later, Paschal told me he wished he had something like this when he was a young percussionist. It is really vital to give young students the fundamentals for various instruments. High school students may not know the right way to hold a triangle or tambourine, for instance, and those little details can make the difference in an audition tape. He’s noticed a rise in skill level and technique amongst high school students from his time judging OMEA Solo & Ensemble competitions. Students attending the PSPA evidently bring their insights back to their schools and show their fellow students what they learned. 

Sponsor

I also sat in on a marimba lesson with recent PSU graduate Ian Charlton. The student was working on a standard piece of the Marimba repertoire, Yellow after the Rain by Mitchell Peters. Charlton’s recent time in school informed his feedback, sharing what helped him master this piece. Yellow after the Rain is not strictly a pedagogical piece, but learning it teaches the essentials of four-mallet technique. Charlton demonstrated how to balance the hands, bringing out the melody over the blocky chordal accompaniment wherever that melody may appear across the wide span of the instrument. He also demonstrated how to master the sixteenth note runs, staying relaxed, and achieving a good tone from the instrument. 

Classes on taiko, gamelan and samba exposed students to different ways of learning music. Courtney Danley from Portland Samba taught the students by rote, for instance. She shows them their parts and guides the ensemble through hand signals, shouts and whistles, while leading tempo changes on her drum. The focus of the rehearsal was more on keeping a steady groove and interplay over playing things perfectly.

Another masterclass I attended was hosted by marimbist Sijia Huang, who is currently working on her doctorate from the University of Miami. She went over how to warm-up, how to practice, and how to make your warm-up exercises relevant to pieces you are learning. For instance, if you are learning a piece with fast scale runs, you should warm up with legato major scales. She also presented ways to make basic, fundamental marimba exercises like scales, laterals (double stops), splits (playing one mallet at a time), and arpeggios more fun. A lot of times, young musicians are constantly told by authority figures to practice practice practice, without much guidance on what or how to practice. Knowing how to practice smarter saves time, as students hone in on the most important skills to work on. 

In the evening, they often do something fun after dinner and chamber ensemble rehearsal. That night, they gave a series of solo performances. Whyte gave a performance of Andy Akiho’s Stop Speaking one night, an unusual piece for snare drum and synthesized voice that gives the students a taste of what oddball things one can do as a percussionist. On Friday night, they held a drum circle with Terry Longshore (also of PPG). 

In years past, they also took students on field trips to percussion concerts happening in Portland that week. This was often Makrokosmos, where Portland Percussion Group often performed a set. This year, however, Makrokosmos performed only piano music. In lieu of this, the students got a treat: a semi-private performance by Portland Percussion Group of Alejandro Viñao’s Patterns & Form, which PPG premiered in January 2025 and are recording for a CD release. 

During down time, students were encouraged to practice their parts for the chamber percussion pieces to be played at their final concert. But given how much they do every day, I’m not surprised many of them chose to sit on their phones or chat. The first class started at nine am and outside of meal breaks, students had their days full until nine pm. They had to relish every opportunity they could for a break. But I’m also glad that they jam-packed the days with everything they need to know as a young percussionist. 

Sponsor

Students mostly come from around the Portland-Metro area. A few stay in the dorms for the week, while others get daily rides from their parents. All students participated together for most things, creating a strong sense of community amongst them. At lunch, most students sat together at one large table, with a few smaller cutaway groups of two or three. No one sat alone. 

I spoke to a few students. Ellie, a junior at Mountain View High School in Bend, said she liked having different experiences with music. She got exposure to different instruments and styles from around the world, referring to the taiko, samba and gamelan classes. Owen, a senior at Mountain View, appreciated the opportunity to play music that foregrounds percussion. 

From my observer’s perspective, it felt like the students were getting a quality education. Some students at the camp may go on to pursue a career as a percussionist. Others may take their knowledge to other musical endeavors. PSPA has a partnership with Tapspace, the Portland-based publisher of percussion music whichhelps easily find music for each cohort’s skill level. The Portland Summer Percussion Academy provides a valuable role in the state’s education of young musicians.