Saul Goodman was Principal Timpanist of the New York Philharmonic for forty- six years beginning in 1926 at age nineteen. At that time, he was the youngest principal to be engaged by the orchestra. In that position, Goodman played a staggering 6,163 concerts, plus innumerable recording sessions, radio broadcasts, and TV performances. This service was performed under the world’s foremost conductors, including Toscanini (a decade), Stokowski, Mengelberg, Walter, Reiner, Furtwangler, Bernstein, etc.

As Head of the Percussion Department at the Juilliard School of Music, he devoted 41 years to teaching, started one of the early college/university level percussion ensembles, and produced some of today’s finest players. His Modern Method for Timpani has been printed in English, German, French, and Japanese. An avid inventor, he holds musical patents for a snare drum design and a chain-tuned timpani.