I’m a classical percussionist/timpanist and jazz drummer.
(As you can see, timpanists get the best view of the orchestra!)

I came to philosophy through music.

One day, my orchestra was working on a rhythmically challenging piece, and to keep them on track, I became a human metronome on the snare drum. And to keep me on track, I had a light-based metronome in front of me, a moving dot traversing from one end of a line to the other signaling each beat.

Then I had this trippy experience where depending on what the orchestra was playing, the dot’s movement would speed up or slow down! The happy coincidence of reading Augustine’s Confessions shortly afterwards (ugh, book XI is so good) got me hooked on philosophy of time.

I dropped my economics major and picked up philosophy… and now I like to say that I do “applied philosophy of time” on the drums!

I played the glockenspiel and xylophone for the world premier of Richard Prior’s Third Symphony.

Here’s a haunting passage, and the xylophone solo starting at 13:13 is especially epic.

I performed with my jazz combo* throughout my PhD. We played original music and arranged standards in fun ways (like a Reggae “Misty” and an Afro-Cuban “Belle”!)

* Thanks to “Confused Goose and the Rage Guys” (Diana Rypkema, Quinten Stedman, Sarah Woodward, and Geoff McConohy) for the recordings, permission, and memories.