ORIGIN STORY: The story of Decibel Percussion is less about starting a drum company, and more about a small circle of friends who urged me to realize my dream. In 2012 Michael Culligan came to stay with me in NY for an audition he was taking and brought his vintage aluminum Barry Drum Co. piccolo snare drum along. Michael now plays percussion in the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, but we’ve been close friends since we were both students at Duquesne University. I’d never seen anything like his “audition drum” before and was amazed by the clarity of sound it produced when played softly. The Barry Company hasn’t existed for about 100 years and getting a hold of one of these drums in any kind of condition proved to be extremely difficult. I was hooked. I immediately set to reverse engineering the drum which began the long process of working with fabricators to create a modernized and improved version. While Michael’s drum sounded amazing, he’d had to rig up snare cables and a strainer resulting in it looking like a science experiment that might result in a tetanus shot if you turned off the snares too fast!

I was discussing starting a company based off of releasing this new snare drum with my buddy Alvin Schultz. He was in town for a chef convention and we spent a night hanging out and trying some of the best Japanese food and sake in NYC. He was coming off a huge year having just been on Season 2 of Master Chef so we had a lot to catch up on. We ended up in an underground Sake bar in the East Village. Having lived in NYC for years, I'd walked by the place many times before but had no idea the red "On Air" light outside led to a set of stairs and down into the first sake bar in New York City, Sake Bar Decibel. I was beyond excited to have quite literally stumbled into the name of my new company with Alvin: Decibel Percussion

The next step was the design of the logo, and I turned to my friend with graphic design skills, Yutaka Kogami, who along with Alvin, I've now known for 20 years. Yutaka has been present for some of the best moments of my life from playing music together in high school, to reaching the top of Mt. Fuji together and in 2019, flying all the way from Tokyo to be in New York for my wedding. Yutaka sent me the first drafts for the decibel logo in 2013 which was initially laser engraved on my brass snare drums and has now been turned into a badge, logos on our snares and heads and branded decibel clothing.

Decibel Percussion is owned and operated in New York's Hudson Valley by David Bergman.

David is a native of Portland, Oregon.  He received his Bachelor of Music degree in percussion performance from the University of North Texas, and his Master of Music Degree in percussion performance from Duquesne University. He was also a graduate student/teaching assistant at Cleveland State University. He joined the West Point Band at the United States Military Academy in 2008. He is Principal Percussion of the Concert Band, and plays drumset in the band’s chamber group, the Quintette 7.  David is also the drummer for the Broadway Training Center Pit Orchestra and frequently performs with regional chamber groups and orchestras.  

David has performed with the Oregon Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Albany Symphony, The Orchestra Now, West Virginia Symphony, Canton Symphony, New Haven Symphony, Youngstown Symphony, and the Glens Falls Symphony.  As a member of the West Point Band, he has collaborated with the Dallas Wind Symphony, the New Jersey Ballet, The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and the New York Philharmonic.  He has also been a staff accompanist for the Conservatory of Performing Arts Dance Department at Point Park University, and the Mary Miller Dance Company.  He was a snare drummer in the Blue Knights Drum and Bugle Corps under Ralph Hardimon as well as the famed University of North Texas ‘A-Line’ under Paul Rennick.  David has received numerous awards and scholarships including winner of the Pittsburgh Concert Society Chamber Music Competition. He can be heard on "In Thy Sweet Name",  an album of renaissance music recorded by Collective Brass in 2018, and “A Collective Brass Christmas” released in 2019.

Bergman has studied percussion under Ed Stephan, Christopher Deane, Paul Rennick, Andrew Reamer, Chris Allen, Tommy Igoe and Tom Freer.  He was a student at Music Academy of the West for two summers where he studied with Ted Atkatz and Mike Werner.

David is a Concert Artist/Endorser for: Coe Percussion, Vic Firth and Zildjian Cymbals.