Having worked with a number of accomplished dancers, educators, and choreographers including Nancy Bannon, Darshan Bhuller, Michael Blake, Kara Conder, John Evans, Ginny Skinner-Haynes, Randy James, Merceditas Manago-Alexander, Laura Marchese, Stephanie Milling-Robbins, Julia Ritter, Raegan Wood-Sanders, Paulette Sears, and Christian von Howard, Peter has developed abilities to meet the needs of most any dancer's choreography.  He has played for dance at Rutgers University, ACDFA, Manhattan's Sandra Cameron Dance Studio, New York City Center, NJPAC's Summer Youth Performance Workshop, University of North Texas, Terpsichore III in Pawley's Island, South Carolina and Texas Women's University.

        In addition to a unique drum setup (detailed below) that has evolved through experience, Peter uses his 4.6 Octave Malletech marimba as well as piano, vibraphone, and cajon.

        Instruments:  14" Remo Jembe, 3 congas, 14" Chinese Tom (played with foot pedal), hi-hat (played with hands, implements, and foot), 8" Wuhan Splash cymbal (played with hands or implements), LP Mambo cowbell, Rhythmtech Drumset tambourine.

        *** I can be seen playing this setup on Tigger Benford's upcoming instructional video for dance accompaniment! ***

Original Score to "Rippling Waves" (2006) (performed by the composer and percussionist Michael Knight, June 2006)

Patterned after the sound collages that many dance pieces employ, the instrumentation morphs from marimba and double seconds to marimba duet to marimba and jembe to marimba and drumset to hand drums and drum set.  The binding element is a six beat rhythm that is used as a tihai (a type of classical Indian rhythmic cadence) in the majority of the sections.  This piece was written for choreographers Christian von Howard and Stephanie Milling-Robbins and premiered in June 2006 in Pawley's Island, South Carolina at the Terpsichore III: Making Waves festival performance.

(Here is a picture of the setup used for this piece)

  Modern Dance Technique Class - Music Excerpts

• Video Sample 1 - Floor Exercise (Piano)

• Video Sample 2 - Adagio (Marimba) - Phrased in 8 + 9 measures of 9/8, I used a sus chord at the end of the phrase to keep the phrase extension 'logical.'

• Video Sample 3 - Tondue (Cajon) - (NEW)

• Video Sample 4 - Long Combination (Hand Drum Setup) - It's worth mentioning that the complex, mixed-meter count structure in this combination (given to the dancers as 6+6+7+9+8+5+3 and played as 4mm of 3/4, 1mm 7/4, 3mm 3/4, 2mm 4/4, 3/4, 2/4, 3/4) is quite common in the choreography of this particular instructor.  When playing the class, she'll typically demonstrate the given sequence, sometimes having even more segments, a few times and then hand it to me to keep the form constant.  This video captures the first time this particular sequence had been done and proceeds through a tempo change, covering at least 10 minutes of total repetition (condensed here to about 5).

• Video Sample 5 - Battlement (Hand Drum Setup) - The density of notes in this clip reflects not necessarily the visual elements, but rather the exertion the movement requires in the leg movements and jumps.  The aim was to aid in the propulsion.

• Video Sample 6 - Ensemble Improv I - Part of a music and dance improvisation session led by Tigger Benford and Julia Ritter featuring Rutgers University dance majors and staff accompanists Tigger Benford (marimba), Peter Saleh (vibraphone), Andy Sapko (perc.) and Vinnie Smith (perc.)  Photography by Vinnie Smith. (NEW)

• Video Sample 7 - Ensemble Improv II - A 7/8 improv by the same crew at Sample 6 (NEW)

• Video Sample 8 - Across the Floor (Hand Drums)  A tasty little groove made to match the release in the dance. (New!)

• Video Sample 9 - 'ALL the Notes' (Hand Drums)  My own little tribute to Tom Aungst (see if you get that reference), this is something one can only really get away with playing solo.  The title should explain itself.  (New!)

• Video Sample 10 - Red from "Coloring Outside The Lines" (Multi-Percussion)  (New!)  This is the final selection from a 20+ minute dance I scored in the Summer of 2006 at NJPAC's Summer Youth Performance Workshop, an audition based program held in Newark, NJ.  In what was an original concept I brought in that became the theme for the entire work, each section was based around one of the primary colors.  While the dance is based on movement that is based on associations with each color, I used a similar process for the music.  For each color I chose both a musical and visual association with the corresponding section (I say visual as well because I was to be performing on stage with the dancers instead of in the pit). 

          For example, in 'Red' (the final section) I used what people would call 'hot' rhythms based on Latin and Afro-Cuban musics combined with two large red Chinese tom-toms used as the centerpieces of the percussion setup.  In Blue, I used chords associated with the blues (#9 chords in particular) along with a 12-bar blues form and bits of Wayne Shorter's Footprints, all played on marimba with purple-blue mallets.  In Yellow, I used a known phenomenon  called Synesthesia to choose the key center E (sometimes associated with the color by well known composers including Amy Beach) and used my 'one-man-band' setup which is based around my pale yellow pair of congas.

More recordings of Peter's music for dance will be available soon. . .