Adam Tan, a marimba soloist and composer based in Australia, shares his journey as a self-made percussionist. He emphasizes the importance of goal setting, community support, and gaining experience through volunteering to build a successful career in percussion. Tan founded Marimbafest Australia, the largest marimba festival in the southern hemisphere, and has sold over 5,000 copies of his sheet music. He highlights the significance of social media in promoting his work and connecting with the global percussion community, encouraging others to create their own opportunities in an increasingly competitive field.

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Despite percussion’s status as one of the oldest musical instruments, the idea of someone striking an instrument with an implement, beater, or even their own body parts can still be an odd principle for many in the general public. And so, in 2024, it can be difficult for percussionists to find a career path that works for them and can provide adequate income for their future. It is also the exact question I ask myself whenever I’m thinking of expanding my own career possibilities: Why would anyone pay to see me perform?

I have been a self-employed percussionist for almost a decade, building my career as a marimba soloist, composer, and educator on my own. Despite living in the small city of Perth, Australia, where our warm but small percussion scene has a history of only about half a century, in the past eight years I have had the honor of performing and presenting as a soloist across Argentina, Australia, Honduras, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, resulting in me presenting over 50 masterclasses in 30 institutions worldwide. I founded and still direct Marimbafest Australia, the largest marimba festival and competition in the southern hemisphere, which just concluded its fifth instalment in July. In that time, I’ve also sold over 5,000 copies of my sheet music on my own online store, and my music is now on repertoire lists for auditions, juries, and festivals across the world, including the Texas Prescribed Music List, the Florida Bandmasters Association, Trinity College London, and more. I also have designed signature mallets (Encore Mallets Adam Tan series) and even a signature percussion backpack (The Traveller by Adam Tan).

All of this happened before I turned 30 this year.

I did the above in my little rented office space known as “The Studio by Adam Tan,” which is named after my YouTube show, where I began my adventures in percussion content creation in 2016. Today, my combined social media reach sits at a reasonable 50,000 followers with over five million views. I don’t upload on YouTube nearly as much as I used to (I prefer Reels now, which I will talk about more in my masterclass), but this YouTube channel and the world of social media was a key element in getting me to where I am today. 

This brings me back to the focal point of this article: What is a “self-made percussionist,” and how do we create opportunities for ourselves in this increasingly competitive and fast-paced world of percussion? Everything moves so fast in 2024; gone are the days when you had to fax Steve Weiss Music to order gear, or find an obscure CD so that you could listen to what a percussion work was supposed to sound like before learning it, or sign a publishing deal so that you could finally release your own compositions. 

Nowadays, it looks like almost everyone is releasing self-published sheet music on websites they made themselves on a service like Wix or Squarespace. Almost everyone can get millions of views on Instagram and TikTok from some relatable percussion content they made that the algorithm liked. Almost everyone has professional-looking headshots, biographies teeming with global competition victories, and an endorsement list the size of a Subway menu. 

But I’m really happy to see it; the world is moving on, and more people from all walks of life are being put in the spotlight of the percussion universe. So how do you stand out in this bright world of ours? Here’s a small backstory to give you an example of what you can do to become your own shining star. 

When I was in my first two years of producing content for “The Studio,” I learned something very quickly as I bought all of my instruments, gear, and equipment with my own savings from multiple part-time jobs. Picture 22-year-old me standing in a near-empty office space staring at the beautiful five-octave marimba I had just bought with cash. There was a modest collection of second-hand camera gear, my self-built website was up and running, and I was thinking that I had a good idea of how to use all of the above, thanks to my many years of part-time work in event photography and videography.

But why wasn’t anything happening? Why wasn’t I being invited to do anything interesting? Surely with all the nice gear, a huge skillset, and having completed my university degrees up to the master’s level, there should be people banging on my door asking me to work with them! Everyone needs an Adam in their life, right? 

It turns out I’d forgotten about the most important question, which I mentioned at the start of this article: Why would anyone pay to see me perform? I was just a small chicken in a small Australian city, while my less-than 1,000 subscriber audience was mostly based in the United States. That wasn’t going to help much for my day-to-day living, so I had to switch my mindset. 

I started with goal setting: if I wanted to get noticed, I would have to view my future in a different way so that I didn’t regress into doing nothing, or conversely become overwhelmed and burn out. I started separating my vision of becoming a well-known marimba soloist and composer from my goals, which were things like learning a piece of music for an upcoming gig. Instead, I tried to make these goals more achievable by simplifying them: “Let’s just learn eight bars of this piece today.” It felt good to tick off these simpler goals more regularly, as opposed to staring at a growing list of pure unobtanium. 

I also decided to be more supportive to the others in my local community; if I wanted their support, I would need to support them first. I started simple, by attending more concerts and events that were happening in town, so that I could not only learn more musically but also show support to our percussion (and even non-percussion) community. I would always try to greet the performers and congratulate them on their performances, while making mental notes of what they were doing (e.g., their pre-show routine before performing, or the way they presented to the audience) so that I could be a better performer myself. 

A fresh graduate from university doesn’t really instill confidence in most employers, so I decided I would make myself more employable by getting more percussion-related experience. I put my hand up to volunteer at more events like friends’ recitals and local community orchestra concerts. I offered to record people’s gigs and would help promote their events even if I wasn’t involved in them. Although very few of these were paid gigs (or I even lost money), many of these experiences became some of my fondest memories! 

And, sure enough, things started to change. As my simpler goals allowed me to perform more, as I showed my face in the community more often, and as I appeared as a supportive figure in many different circles, people started to remember me as “the percussion guy.” “Hey Adam! I saw you at my gig the other day, thank you so much!” “Hey Adam! I saw you were recording for this group. I’ll pay you if you can help me with my recording.” “Hey Adam, we need a percussionist for this gig, and I saw you playing in a community orchestra. Are you free?” Suddenly, I was getting paid offers very quickly. 

I started using these experiences as portfolio content, and my websites and social media started filling up quickly, giving an impression to prospective employers and organizations that this Adam person was actually doing a fair amount of percussion-ing in his day-to-day life. And, sure enough, as my social media gained traction I started to get invited to more international events, which gave me greater growth opportunities. 

I believe these three small things — simple goal setting, showing support, and volunteering for more experience — are easy yet effective ways to help reinforce your percussion career path, and I still do all of them to this day. Combining these things while putting yourself in challenging environments regularly (i.e., not surrounding yourself with “yes” people all the time) results in you working towards being the greatest percussionist you can be, and that is a good feeling! I don’t want to give away too much of my PASIC presentation, but I love talking about these points on my tours, as they are often the key ingredients many highly skilled percussionists in my generation are missing. 

If you are interested in hearing more on this topic, I look forward to seeing you at PASIC 2024! This will be my fifth PASIC and my seventh visit to the United States. I will share even more methods that can help you with your percussion dreams, including marketing hacks and musical tips. I’m often reminded that the percussion community is truly a global one, and I look forward to seeing all of you continue your own unique and interesting percussive paths.