My Electronic Press Kit (EPK) was designed to target work as a session percussionist alongside stand-in work in the same field, as well as targeting session work and opportunities in areas such as pit bands in a drum-kit based space. When choosing the colours, I went through various options before deciding on black and white, as I felt that this created a more professional design due to its more streamlined, minimalist aesthetic. Alongside this, I chose to create a professional email address to allow an easier filtering of any work which may come from this EPK – this seemed like a decision which would greatly impact my work, as it would easily create a method for defining any music work and any other emails which would get buried had I not made this decision. I tried to make each section of my EPK clear and well defined, with titles for easy navigation. In the future, I intend to use the structure of my EPK as the basis for a website, using the pictures and other information as a starting point for a more professionally designed, streamlined experience. I would need to factor in the cost of a website domain name – the domain cwhitmusic.com is currently £9.99 for the first year and £18.99 after on GoDaddy (n.d.) – and a website builder fee – plans often range from £16-£25 a year for a standard plan (GoDaddy, n.d.) – but in future I feel this would yield benefits for further work in the industry.
I chose to start my EPK with a strong header photo. I chose this photo as it shows the formal side of the work I intend to target my press kit towards, as well as being professionally taken and therefore being clear and well framed. I also think it shows me as a percussionist, as a lot of the pictures I have are balanced towards my work as a drummer, so having the head picture as percussion shot was a decision I made in order to try and balance the two fields.
I then chose to include my biography and skills section. From looking at EPK’s from well-respected drummers in the industry, such as Larnell Lewis (Larnell Lewis, n.d.) and Simon Phillips (Simon Phillips, 2025), I noticed that they all start with an extended biography, which aided my decision in where to place this. I divided this section into two parts, separating the information about my work as a drummer and a percussionist to aid anybody looking for only one of the two aspects. I included information about releases and live performances in order to try and give a varied perspective on my work, with a particular emphasis on some of the highlights in my percussion credits, which I deem to be of high value to anyone wanting to work with me in the future, as well as my skills section including information about the work I think I would be suitable for so any employers can see quickly if I am a good fit for their project.
I included a section for any upcoming events, which I aim to keep up to date regularly with any performances I have. I will also make clear whether they are for percussion or drum-kit, as this is an important aspect to anyone wishing to gain an insight into my work beforehand. I chose this over various statistical values such as followers and streams which often are placed in this section of an EPK, due to the fact I felt from research into percussionists such as Simone Rebello (n.d.) that statistics such as this are not commonplace in a more classical or orchestral field of work. As my EPK is tailored for both fields, I felt that replacing this with an “Upcoming Events” section would make my EPK more well-rounded for both disciplines.
I chose to add the media section in next, as some of the EPKs I took inspiration from placed a particular emphasis on these. I would like to have some more professional percussion focused pictures taken in the future, as I feel the percussion aspect is under-represented in this section. This is something I would have to budget for in the future. I also feel that some headshots without an instrument may prove useful in the future, as they can be used for more general work in the industry which is less instrument specific. However, the portfolio of pictures I chose to put on have a range of scenarios represented, including studio work, practice rooms, and gigs for drum-kit and percussion. This shows the wide range of skills I present and work I am available for, and I think the combination of media I have chosen well represents me as a musician in both aspects of my playing. From my research, I learned that promoters would use pictures from your EPK when advertising any work you are offering, which added to the importance of this section, and led to the widespread range of media I wanted to present, giving as many options as possible in order to provide options should a promoter wish to employ this tactic.
The included links to social media pages were incorporated into every EPK I looked at, so including these seemed like a necessity. I chose to include YouTube, Instagram and TikTok as these are the platforms I intend to use for promotion and social media presence, as well as being the most commonly used for artistic promotion according to various web sources such as Venice Music (n. d.). I created public social media accounts on all 3 platforms, as I felt this was necessary due to talks from industry professionals. I have placed particular emphasis on my use of Instagram and my online social media presence, as I have prior experience with acquiring work through my connections on the platform. Whilst these platforms are mainly tailored towards work in more Popular Music spaces, I believe that the inclusion of these links will lead to more work in the future, as they allow a preview into my playing ability and also give a direct line of communication. I have also made investments into the content which I am posting on these platforms, which despite having costs attached will provide benefits for further oppurtunities.
I also noticed that EPKs such as Larnell Lewis’ (n. d.) included videos of works which he has released. I chose to include videos showing work which has been produced and also including a live performance. In the future, I intend to change out these videos for some of my more recent work, and – if the opportunity arises to get some videos of any classical work which I have played in – to include this. I believe this section will be useful in conjunction with social media links for any session work people may wish to hire me for, as it shows the genre of music I am suitable for.
The final section of my EPK is the testimonials section. This to me was a section which didn’t appear on the majority of the EPKs I used for inspiration. However, I believed it was an important piece of information for anyone looking at my EPK, as it gives an insight into work I have done from other people. I reached out to conductors I had worked with previously, band leaders who had asked me to cover parts, as well as people in Leeds Conservatoire who I had worked with in various contexts in order to give a well rounded set of testimonials which span many genres and playing settings. I believe this will assist in the work I have tailored my EPK towards, as the included testimonials link to all types of work.
When developing certain aspects of my EPK, I workshopped ideas with friends and tutors. When I started with writing my biography, I went through various iterations with my tutor, where we discussed structure, wording, and which information to include. We worked on trying to balance out the weighting of the different aspects of my playing, changing certain words – such as sociable to personable – and writing in the third person to make reading it a more streamlined and well thought out experience. This led to the final version which I included in my press kit. I also spent time looking through various ideas in terms of colour and structure in both seminars and with friends, where I used the examples of the EPKs I had found to help determine the structure I used for my own version. The colour scheme was chosen after various options in order to provide the most professional experience.
Bibliography
Lewis, L. (n. d.) EPK. Available at: https://www.larnelllewismusic.com/epk [Accessed 5th May 2025]
Phillips, S. (2025). EPK. Available at: https://www.simon-phillips.com/epk [Accessed 5th May 2025]
Royal Northern College of Music. (n. d.) Simone Ribello. Available online: https://www.rncm.ac.uk/people/simone-rebello/ [Accessed 5th May 2025]
Venice Team (n. d.) The Best Music Marketing Tools Artists. Available online: https://www.venicemusic.co/blog/best-music-marketing-tools-for-artists [Accessed 10th May 2025]
GoDaddy United Kingdom. (n. d.) Domain Names. Available online: https://www.godaddy.com/en-uk/domains [Accessed 14th May 2025]
