Teacher Profile: Sam San-Fillippo

About Sam San-Fillippo

Sam San Fillippo is a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and music producer from Seattle, WA with over 20 years of experience. Sam loves to utilize performance and technology in order to create new experiences and sounds both his solo work "samtherussian", as well as with his music collective "Tap Water Media".

Born in Vladivostok, Russia, Sam has been enamored by music since he was born. Sam's earliest memories include playing along to MTV Russia in the 1990s with pots and pans, washboards, and trying to play his uncle's garmoshka (accordian). Sam began playing drums in 5th grade, stand-up bass in orchestra in 6th grade, and studied drums/percussion under Larry Mahlis at the Seattle Drum School for over 5 years. Sam holds an Associates of Arts and Sciences in Digital Audio Engineering and Music Production from Shoreline Community College (2017), as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Music Technology, with a minor in Spanish Language from The Evergreen State College (2019).

Sam has experience playing in rock, folk, and jazz bands, orchestra, as well as technical experience with project management, foley, sound design, post production, etc. for movies, tv, radio, and video games. Sam is experienced in digital audio workstations such as FL Studio, Logic Pro, Garageband, Pro Tools, as well as a multitude of other music plugins and creative softwares used on both computers and iOS devices.

Sam's teaching philosophy is that "music is special because it allows us to learn through play". Sam believes that creativity, imagination and playfulness are paramount to learning any instrument. He believes that it is important to learn the rules of music in order to break them, but it is just as important to set your own path of discovery and see the world of music without traditional conventions to begin with. Sam believes that each experience with music is like a new word, and over time, this increased and expanded vocabulary, along with understanding of grammar and prose allows learners to forge their own way with music, while also building skills for communication in music and in life itself. Sam believes that we learn to speak without words, we are essentially building a pathway to speaking with one another in a new universal language of music.