"I've been practicing for over a month for this piece," said New Baltimore freshman Anna Anger, who devoted as much as two hours each day readying herself for the performance. "It's going to go great."

The concert featured an array of genres and instruments, from marimba performances to a jazz-flavored vibraphone solo to Rapid City senior Sarah Riegler's Ghanaian piece "Bediako/Yan Yan Koli," which she performed on the gyil, a Ghanaian marimba-like instrument known as the "grandfather" of the instruments on stage.

The concert, held Sunday, showcased just one side of the multi-faceted musicians the percussion studio produces, teaching them to be fluent on a variety of instruments. The percussion studio’s next performance will be a percussion ensemble concert, scheduled for 8 p.m. Thursday in the Music Building's Staples Family Concert Hall.

The wide array of styles and forms of music becomes apparent with a look inside the studio’s storage room; wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling storage holds glass bottles, cowbells, gongs, hammers, cymbals, and of course, drums.

Grabbing a mallet, Riegler demonstrated how many ways you could tease a different sound out of a drum; “like this” — she hit a drum with the mallet — “like this” — she used the mallet’s handle — “like this” — she played with her hand — “like this,” and so on. Riegler said she has seen an automobile brake drum used for percussion.

“That’s a pretty standard instrument for us,” she said, “even though it sounds bizarre.”

Romulus senior Kevin Stobbe is a member of the percussion studio and a veteran of the annual marimba recital.

"Playing was nerve-wracking," Stobbe said of his time preparing for performance, but added that when it comes to watching other students' progress through the studio, he’s pleased to watch them develop. "It's so cool to see the growth of people."

Instrument fluency

Midland junior Kevin Keith said it’s more valuable to be fluent in many musical situations than to specialize on every instrument. But more often than not, percussionists specialize in one niche of their field.

“You don’t have to be a master of everything,” Spencer said.

Students often take a shine to an instrument, and “we try to water that plant as much as we can,” he said.

Although the percussion studio at Central Michigan University is made up of about 60 to 70 percent music education majors, they’re headed into all kinds of different career fields within the industry.

After they have graduated, alumni of Spencer’s percussion studio turn up in a lot of places. Spencer said he has students who have attended graduate school at the University of Michigan, the New England Conservatory and the University of Texas at Austin. Some of them have jumped straight into the workforce, though, notably, one student who is based in Los Angeles, touring with a Persian rock band.

Keith said he is planning on a professional performance career, possibly in conducting, and it’s something he will likely pursue with a graduate degree in music performance.

Spencer said he wants to give his students a wide variety of skills they can use in their playing and can take out into the real world.

“If the Midland symphony calls them, can they play the timpani part for Beethoven? If the local Elks club calls, can they kick around a big band on drum set?” he said.

Commenting not only on the diversity of the performances, but of the performers themselves, Spencer said Sunday’s concert was a lot like recitals often seen outside the school of music — the kind that have all ages of students.

This concert provided a look at CMU percussion students in multiple stages of their musical development, with students from the freshman to graduate level all bringing something different to the stage.

On the other end of the experience spectrum is David Abaham, a first year graduate student from Oregon, who said he is enthusiastic about the studio.

"(Spencer is) one of the greatest teachers in the country," Abraham said. "(It's) tough, but one of the coolest majors ... one of the most satisfying things you can do"