About Yshai Afterman — Middle Eastern Percussion Teacher & Composer

A life shaped by rhythm

Yshai Afterman is a leading voice in the international percussion world. Mastering Middle Eastern hand drums, he has toured extensively and given masterclasses all over the world alongside countless concerts with some of the region's top artists.

A composer and singer-songwriter, Yshai released two albums — A Line From Here to Nowhere (2017) and Naomi (2019) — both acclaimed for their depth and originality. His percussion teacher is Zohar Fresco, under whom he studied between 2007 and 2009. He also studied advanced rhythmology under Mark Moshayev, drumset under Avi Diamond, and classical piano under the late Natalia Blumenfeld.

"Teaching has become another expression of my art. I treat it with the same commitment and wholeheartedness as I treat my music. The evolution of my students is important to me and I feel responsible for each one of them."

He studied dramatic arts at the Nissan Native Acting Studio in Tel Aviv (2005–2008) — training in physical and expressive performance that he credits with shaping how he communicates music, inhabits a room, and draws genuine expression from his students.

Yshai has been a student his entire adult life. For over twenty years, he has studied continuously alongside his teaching — currently piano, harmony, and jazz under Tomer Bar. This ongoing life as a student is something he considers inseparable from his teaching: he knows intimately what it means to sit on the other side, to struggle, to grow, to be genuinely changed by a teacher.

Teaching online since 2010, Yshai has built what students and educators consistently describe as the most methodical and complete teaching available for these instruments anywhere in the world. The group lesson methodology — developed over years of intensive composition and design — has no equivalent online. Students who arrive having studied elsewhere tend to discover this quickly: the depth, the system, the musical thinking behind it are unlike anything else in this field.

In brief

The work

More than a decade of online teaching, hundreds of students across four instruments, and a methodology built on the same rigour Yshai brings to his own practice.

Teaching online since

2010

Long before it became the norm — one of the most experienced online percussion educators working today.

Group lessons taught

1,700+

Every lesson documented, recorded, and made available to students across all four instrument groups.

Countries represented

40+

Students from Japan, Germany, the USA, Brazil, India, Taiwan, and beyond — a genuinely international community.

Hundreds of concerts

A working performer with a deep international stage career. The experience of live performance informs everything — the physicality, the musicianship, the presence a musician brings to a room.

Dramatic arts

Formally trained at the Nissan Native Acting Studio in Tel Aviv. The study of dramatic expression shapes how Yshai communicates, holds a room, and draws out musical expression from his students.

An eternal student

For twenty years, Yshai has studied without interruption — currently piano, harmony, and jazz under Tomer Bar. He knows intimately how it feels to be a student, and that empathy runs through everything he teaches.

Endorsements

Instrument partners

Yshai works closely with a carefully chosen group of independent instrument builders — master craftspeople whose work he uses personally and recommends to his students. These makers span the full range of instruments he teaches.

Choosing the right instrument matters enormously at every level of playing, and Yshai is happy to advise students on instrument selection as part of their studies.

Meinl Cymbals Cooperman Drums Zelazek Drums Requena Percussion Baraka Percussion Nakhle Percussion Doubleyou Drums