Peter Tanner UMASS-Amherst Music Department Percussion 1970-1999

Peter Tanner (1936- ) was born in Rochester, New York.

Peter was awarded a B.M in 1958 and a M.M. in 1959 from the Eastman School of Music. Peter was awarded a Ph.D. in 1967 from Catholic University.

Peter Tanner’s teachers included Robert Hall Lewis, Thomas Canning, Louis Mennini, and Bernard Rogers.

While completing his studies at the Eastman School of Music, Peter Tanner performed professionally with the Marimba Masters.

Dr. Peter Tanner served with distinction as percussion instructor for the UMASS-Amherst

Music Department from 1970-1999.

The Author of this essay was an instrumental performance major as well as an instrumental music education major at UMASS-Amherst from 1967-1972.

As an instrumental music education major, Applied educational courses that revolved around a large variety of percussion instruments were required courses.

In 1970 or 1971, the Author of this essay had the good fortune of having Dr. Peter Tanner

as the instructor for the applied percussion course.

Dr. Tanner had a marvelous disposition coupled with a droll sense of humor. Dr. Tanner’s applied percussion course was excellent. All study materials were well organized and Dr.
Tanner always made the classes a very enjoyable learning experience. This Author learned a lot about percussion instruments as well as percussion musical notation in Dr. Tanner’s applied percussion course and this Author was awarded an ‘A’ grade by Dr. Tanner.

Dr. Tanner also enjoyed attending student instrumental musical performances as well. Dr. Tanner attended most, if not all of this Author’s student trumpet recitals as well as brass ensemble performances at UMASS-Amherst between 1970-1972.

Not only did the music major percussion students really like Dr. Peter Tanner, the rest of the music department student body did as well. Not long after joining the UMASS music faculty, Dr. Tanner established the outstanding UMASS Percussion Ensemble in 1970.

And, at the first performance by the UMASS Percussion Ensemble a noteworthy event took place.

At the very first public UMASS recital, the Percussion Ensemble performed a particularly note worthy composition that concluded the program which was one of Dr. Tanner’s own arrangements. This particular arrangement was particularly interesting to listen to, and unexpectedly transitioned into a very clever, and quite humorous rendition of the famous movie theme song from the 1966 Clint Eastwood, Spaghetti Western, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (music theme).

And, the skillful percussion based arrangement that Dr. Tanner scored was based on the Hugo Montengro Version– of the film theme song. At the end of the arrangement, the percussion instruments stopped playing completely. The last two bars (8 beats) were a tape recording that Dr. Tanner spliced together of the famous movie theme Ennio whistle  (named after the film score composer, Ennio Morricone, and whistled by Alessandro Alessandroni…“OOIE OOIE OOOOHH – OOH OH WAH” – “OOIE OOIE OOOOHH – OOH OH WEE” .

Someone backstage in the recital hall started the recording right on cue which was piped through the recital hall public address system. The harmonic structure of this simple 8 beat music phrase ended on a note that gave the listener the impression that the arrangement ended by asking the listener a ‘question???’ which provided the illusion that the arrangement had not completely ended.

The recital hall for this marvelous UMASS Percussion Ensemble performance, was packed with students as well as many of the faculty members which included, Music Department Head,  Dr. Bezanson in attendance.

After a brief pause after the final unexpected ending, the the program drew thunderous applause and a standing ovation from all but one person. GUESS WHO?? Dr. Bezanson did not stand nor applaud. Before the enormous ovation ended, Dr. Bezanson walked out of the recital!

The week of that performance, Bob had a group “Applied Percussion Education Class” that Dr. Tanner taught. At the conclusion of this class, this Author told Dr. Tanner how much he enjoy the Percussion Ensemble recital and the Peter Tanner arrangement that segued into “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly’ film theme.  Dr. Tanner told this Author that Dr. Bezanson gave Dr. Tanner a tongue lashing for performing a recital that included even a small measure of popular culture.

The Music Department at UMASS-Amherst was very fortunate to attract and maintain the services of such an outstanding instructor of Music Theory and Composition as Dr. Peter Tanner from 1970-1999.

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