David is a native Austinite who relocated to the East Coast as a teen, where he began his drum studies at The Percussion Center, an old-school brick and mortar drum store in Newport, Delaware. He studied with Dick Kenny and Joe Brancato (Musicians Institute) and took occasional lessons from four-way coordination master and visiting instructor Jim Chapin. Summer camps at Towson University in Maryland exposed David to the Stan Kenton Orchestra and lessons with Peter Erskine, and over the years, David was fortunate to have opportunities to study further with Erskine in Los Angeles, along with occasionally study with master drummers including Ed Soph, Randy Jones, Ron Davis, David Garibaldi, and Mitchell Peters. Odd meter explorer Hank Levy conducted extended jazz ensemble clinics in Delaware which introduced David to Levy’s unique and Indian drumming-influence brand of jazz, and he later attended Towson University as a music major to study further under Hank Levy. A brief study with Terry Bozzio in Los Angeles inspired David to write The Elements of Rhythm, Vols. I & II, a systematic introduction to the underlying structure of rhythm pattern development and vocabulary patterns. Music theory has long had hundreds of texts addressing the study tonal organization, while rhythm pattern theory has received relatively little attention paid to rhythmic organization. The Elements of Rhythm series is one of the most comprehensive studies of the subject, with David having been invited to offer a presentation on these books at Rhythm Production and Perception #14 conference at the University of Birmingham, in Birmingham, England. In addition to his focus as a drum set educator, David continues to play locally in Austin returning to Texas after many years in California, where he played in jazz and blues bands in Santa Cruz, San Luis Obispo, and the greater Los Angeles area. To date, his highlight musical experience remains having recorded with the legendary Crazy World of Arthur Brown on the classic Requiem, with a featured song (“Busha-Busha”) earning rotation on MTV. David’s secondary focus is the conducting of kids drum circles, with an emphasis on addressing children with Tourette Syndrome. Beginning in 2013, David held drum circles in Southern California with support from Remo Percussion, which also helped David conduct a joint-teaching opportunity for kids in Birmingham, England. As Covid-19 subsides, David will be resuming this special area of focus to bring percussion experiences for kids to explore. As a composer and multi-instrumentalist, David believes drummers should be exposed to not merely learning how to play the drum set, but also how to listen to and interact with another instrumentalist. To facilitate this learning process, he occasionally doubles up on bass or guitar to help students learn how to work best a band member.