@NMSU
Passion for percussion leads drummer from Bangladesh to New Mexico
Bangladesh is a focal point for Ed Pias' life and his music. He was in the Peace Corps in Bangladesh following his love of music and the advice of his father when he met his wife, Sally, who was also in the Peace Corps.
Pias' father had an obsession with freedom and not being close-minded. A Holocaust survivor, he encouraged Pias to listen to music from all cultures and to be open to them.
"It (Bangladesh) totally inspired me because the music is completely entwined with the culture. It's not a separate thing," Pias said. "You get to do something you love that is part of popular culture, instead of fringe music or avant-garde music as it is here."
In Bangladesh, Pias had his eyes opened. "After one or two years, it changes you. It changes how you see the world."
Drums are Pias' source of inspiration. He's played drums since he was 10 years old. He was working jazz gigs in the casinos of Reno by the time he was 16. Pias started teaching percussion as an instructor at New Mexico State University in 2005.
Every Monday between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Pias teaches drum set and frame drums. Frame drums are what led him to Bangladesh. They originated in the Middle East, India and Asia with a history dating back 5,000 years. Pias shares his Bangladesh experience with his students each time he demonstrates the frame drum.
"The moment you begin to teach one of these instruments to a student, it just has an effect on them. The moment they start to play they're in contact with it."
Pias has added his brand of alternative drumming in the recordings of the music of popular American artists Nirvana and David Byrne (of Talking Heads fame), among others.
"I've always been interested in the melody of drumming. I love how drums fit into music," Pias said. "These types of drums also involve movement, stepping and speaking. There's a language that goes with it. It's a holistic approach; it uses the whole person from its beginning lesson."
Pias is the distance education coordinator for the music department. He started teaching online in 2005. Today, the department has about 300 online students; due to its success, the department created its first online master's degree in music education this summer.
Pias earned a bachelor's degree from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, a master's in jazz composition from the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles and a doctorate in percussion from the University of Washington in Seattle.
His wife's doctorate at NMSU in biochemistry and her hometown of High Rolls brought the couple to New Mexico five years ago. They have a 2-and-a-half-year-old daughter named Miriam. Pias commutes to the Las Cruces Campus from High Rolls each Monday to teach drums for eight hours, but he also teaches six undergraduate and graduate music courses online.
His passion for drums is outweighed only by his pride in his students. Pias has a special fondness for his online students.
"I had a student in Deming. All he wanted to do was be a U.S. Marine," Pias said. "When he graduated high school he joined the Marines and his second week in Iraq he got shot in the face, got half of a leg blown off. [He] contacted me late and said, ‘Can I join your class.' He aced the class and didn't miss an assignment. That same semester I had a woman who was nursing her dying sister at home. I also had a woman on an oil rig in the Gulf Coast."
It's this ability to reach people across the state and across the country that makes Pias' job teaching online courses particularly satisfying.
"It's an amazing thing to be able to provide the same education to these people, to people in our rural areas of New Mexico and to be very inclusive."
Written by Minerva Baumann.