Drumming Up History: The Percussion Marketing Council Celebrates 25 Years of Advocacy

For decades, the Percussion Marketing Council (PMC) has heralded May as International Drum Month, but for 2020, the PMC is taking their plans farther than ever before.

The quarter-of-a-century-old association has long served as an advocate for the percussion segment of the MI industry, working to create and maintain a nation of drummers and overall percussion players. Celebrating their 25th anniversary this year, the PMC looks back on their impressive history, while also keeping a firm grip on the future of the percussion industry.

“25 years ago, we had meetings like these in closets,” executive director Karl Dustman told the PMC members gathered at the Hilton Anaheim’s Vista Ballroom for their annual NAMM meeting on January 16.

That’s not an exaggeration, either: the PMC initially started as International Drum Month, a month-long series of promotions to bring more players into the fold of the music industry and music education world.

In 1995, drum giants like Remo, Yamaha, and Drum Workshop commenced a campaign to push and raise awareness of the benefits of percussion education. After about two years, the companies formed an official non-profit trade association, keeping the already-existing International Drum Month in place as the centerpiece. As executive director, Dustman leads the PMC alongside additional board members with his 62 years of drumming experience and 54 years in the MI world.

“The fact that you’re still in business, still growing, still being productive 25 years later, I think, is a key milestone,” shares Dustman. “In this day and age, there are not a lot of trade associations within the music products industry that are having that type of track record. As an example, we lost the existence of the MDA (Music Distributors Association) just this year.”

While growth remains an obvious and integral part of keeping any association running, Dustman says that diversifying their roster of members has also been key. From cymbals to vibraphones, there’s much more to the percussion world than just drummers, and the PMC strives to represent all of them.

“It just cannot be a drum association for people playing drums – it involves every and all types of percussion musical instruments,” he notes. “And the organization has diversified in its membership, and it has, in turn, diversified in its programs that it offers to grow that market. The newest entities coming into the percussion industry, they’re looking for visibility. They’re looking to be part of a big pool of manufacturers, distributors, publishers, and the little guys are looking for market visibility.”

Citing electronic instruments and hand percussion as major movers and shakers in the industry these past few years, Dustman sees these areas as important components for growth. Electronic percussion, of course, offers players a quieter and more portable option, and hand percussion presents a great starting point for classroom players in schools for all ages.

“We’re working closely with John Fitzgerald of Remo through our Hand Drumming For Life program, which is taking an organized industry and focusing on the recreational music element, specifically for percussion, and the music therapy element, specifically for percussion,” Dustman says. “Both of those areas are using John Fitzgerald’s expertise and contacts to get more drums and drumming into those hands for the first time. This is not preaching to the choir that already knows it. But what about all those perimeter organizations in medical treatment and various different diseases and so on, that can all use drums and drumming, more so than any other instrument, for a form of self gratification and release?”

Sharing the unique benefits of drumming and percussion playing remain at the center of the association’s mission, namely by homing in on the ease of playing and instant gratification for beginners of all ages.

“Immediately, drums are a physical exertion, and you don’t have to read music at the beginning, you don’t have to know rhythms,” he adds. “It is the truest form of self-expression. From the very first moment that instrument is put in a person’s hands, they want to play it. And it doesn’t take a huge amount of expertise, other than self-expression, to receive immediate gratification. That’s kind of our slogan: ‘Everyone’s a drummer with a heartbeat. They just don’t know it until we put a drum in their hands.’ And that’s true with everyone that is breathing. You can’t do that with a guitar, you can’t do that with a piano, you can’t even do that with a harmonica. But with a drum, you can achieve that immediate gratification and connection through self-expression. And there’s not a wrong way of doing it.”

For 2020, they’ve rolled out three new initiatives to enhance percussion education throughout the country. The first is called “get your sticks together,” and offers players the chance to win 12 free drum lessons at the music shop of their choice. Each month of 2020, the PMC selects one random online winner to receive 12 free 30-minute lessons. In turn, the PMC will pay whichever retailer is identified on the consumer’s contest entry form for a standardized flat private lesson rate.

“It could be a starter, or maybe it’s somebody that’s been playing for three or four years, and wants to get better,” Dustman explains. “We don’t care, as long as they’re over the age of 10. We have instore counter cards that invite their own studio students to sign up for 12 free drum lessons.”

Also on deck for 2020 is an ongoing giveaway of limited-edition commemorative drumming and percussion products. Starting in this May’s edition of International Drum Month, the PMC will hold drawings for items like one-of-a-kind snare drums, cymbals, cajons, conga drums, and bongos, all featuring special 25th-anniversary logo badges. Winners will be selected through the end of the year.

Finally, “lesson with a master” will also launch in May, offering chances for players to win a one-hour teleconference lesson with one of four internationally recognized drummers and celebrity artists. Rich Redmond, the drummer for Jason Aldean, Rick Latham, international drum educator, player, and teacher, David Stanoch, international educator and online video teacher, and Gordon Campbell, international celebrity artist, will all be available. These new initiatives for the May International Drum Month campaign will replace the widely-recognized Roadie for a Day contest.

“You need to liven things up every so often,” Dustman notes. “And in doing that, we have completely redesigned International Drum Month for 2020.”

Taking a page from one of their main inspirations – NAMM – the PMC has strived to make self-analysis one of their strengths, even if that means repurposing or stopping certain initiatives. One educational program called Roots of Rhythm was even sold to its developer, Dr. Craig Woodson, who now runs and independently owns the course.

“We divested ourselves of it and replaced it with a drum set program based on his template, called ‘Drum Set in the Classroom,’” Dustman says. “[Woodsen] wrote the program, he administers the program, he takes drum sets into the same classrooms that he used to take hand drums into. And now, he’s teaching how to get drum set in classrooms, both acoustic and electronic kits.”

As for what’s hot now, Dustman says he’s seen djembes and cajons captivate the industry in recent years, followed by the current trend of electronic percussion, including electronic drum kits and mallet keyboard instruments like the MalletKAT.

“What I do see evolving is that the manufacturers and brands that make these keyboard instruments – like a vibe, or a marimba, or a xylophone, or a glockenspiel. They [brands] are looking at this, because that is a direct extension of the Orff-Kodaly classroom instruction that has been going on for decades. So if somebody is learning on a xylophone, a glock, and so on, and they’re just playing it on a little eight to 12 to 15-note classroom instrument, how do we keep that interest going? The answer is to have a two-and-a-half-octave electronic keyboard that can sound like any one of the mallet instruments that are out there in the percussion section. And I see that as an opportunity, and I see that those companies are signed up to attend our meeting.”

Looking ahead at the coming years of the MI world, the PMC’s focus is on keeping their growth consistent as they tackle the 2020s and beyond.

“If we were sitting around the conference table, we’d probably all unanimously say, ‘Figure out a way to have this thing survive another 25 years,’” Dustman says. “But the real answer to that is to maintain the momentum. And the momentum increases, quite honestly, with each year.”

Still, Dustman and the PMC practice their elevator pitch whenever possible – and since the percussion market hasn’t bounced back the way that other MI segments have since the recession, there’s no such thing as creating too many new players.

“The long-term established companies and brands spend all of their time, money, effort, and knowledge, trying to differentiate their brand from everyone else that is competing with them,” he says. “They don’t have the time or the expertise to devote to creating new markets, creating new players. And yet, the entire industry realizes that if we don’t create more players, we are oversaturating the market with more supply than there is demand. The answer to this industry growth is to create more players, which become consumers for any and all percussion merchandise.”

It all circles back to that one, determined slogan: “Everyone’s a drummer with a heartbeat. They just don’t know it until we put a drum in their hands.” And as long as the PMC is around, the MI world might just see the largest generation of percussion players yet.