This article is based on an extended conversation with Dave Wish, founder of Music Will and inventor of the NUVO Zip-Kit. It draws on Dave’s reflections on music education, instrument access, and the long development journey that led to the Zip-Kit’s creation.
In music classrooms around the world, access to instruments is rarely equal. Guitars can be shared across a class, ukuleles are easy to store, and keyboards can be rotated between students. Drum kits, however, present a different challenge. They are large, loud, and difficult to integrate into group teaching, which often results in a single kit being used by one student at a time while jealous bystanders wait their turn.
This practical limitation has significant consequences. Drumming is one of the most immediate and engaging ways for young people to experience music. It connects rhythm, movement, listening and coordination in a way that feels natural, even to beginners. Yet it is also one of the hardest instruments to make accessible in a classroom environment.
The NUVO Zip-Kit was created in response to that problem. Its design is not the result of a single idea or moment of inspiration, but the outcome of decades of teaching, observing and questioning how music education works in practice. To understand the Zip-Kit, it is necessary to understand the educator behind it, and the philosophy that shaped his work in music education.
Purposeful educator, accidental inventor
“My goal has always been to make it possible for more people to make more music, for more meaning, for more of their lives.”
Dave Wish does not describe himself as a product designer. In fact, he admits that: “The fact that I’ve turned into an inventor is as much a surprise to me as it would be to anybody”. His career began in education, and it was there that the problems he would later try to solve first became clear.
As the founder of Music Will, one of the largest nonprofit music education organisations in the United States, Dave has spent more than two decades working directly with schools, teachers and students. The organisation now reaches almost two million young people each year, supporting teachers in bringing contemporary, participatory music-making into their classrooms.
Through that, Dave repeatedly encountered a disconnect between how students experienced music in their lives and how music was often presented in schools. Many learners engaged deeply with music outside the classroom through listening, copying, jamming and songwriting, yet struggled to connect with formal programmes that prioritised notation, theory and assessment before active music-making.
Dave’s own experience mirrored that divide. As a student, he dropped out of every school music programme he joined. Dyslexic and uncomfortable with notation, he found it difficult to engage with the structures he encountered. Outside school, however, music was central to his identity, learned informally with friends and shaped by the music he loved.
That contrast stayed with him. Later, while teaching English as a second language, he started a free guitar programme at his school. The response was immediate. Students who had never considered themselves musicians began writing songs, forming bands and practising outside lesson time. The programme grew quickly and eventually became Music Will, along with a set of ideas that would later influence the Zip-Kit.
Modern band and music as a second language
Two ideas have consistently shaped Dave Wish’s approach to music education: modern band and music as a second language.
Modern band, created and developed by Dave Wish, emerged as a response to a structural gap in school music education. While orchestras, choirs and bands remain valuable, they do not always reflect the musical lives of all students. Many young people connect most strongly with popular music, where guitar, bass, keyboards, drums, vocals and songwriting are central. Modern band provides a framework for teaching that music in a way that is collaborative, relevant and accessible.
Music as a second language builds on the same thinking. Dave compares music learning to language learning. We do not learn to speak by starting with grammar, we learn by listening, imitating, experimenting and communicating. Fluency develops through use, not perfection.
In music education, that sequence is often reversed. Students are asked to decode notation and master technique before they feel any sense of ownership or expression. For some learners, this works well. For many others, it creates a barrier to participation. Dave’s work has consistently focused on reversing that sequence, allowing students to experience success early and build confidence through making music together.
Necessity is the mother of invention
Dave Wish’s work as an educator has always been shaped by the same underlying question: what prevents people from making music, and how can those obstacles be removed? Through Music Will and approaches such as modern band and music as a second language, he handles gaps in engagement and participation that traditional models of music education often leave behind. These approaches are grounded in the idea that music learning is most effective when students can begin by playing, listening and collaborating, rather than waiting until they have mastered notation or technique.
Over time, this way of working revealed both its strengths and its limitations. Instruments that could be shared, rotated or played together fitted naturally into this model of learning, allowing lessons to remain active and inclusive. Drums, however, resisted that same flexibility. Despite their central role in contemporary music, drum kits remained difficult to integrate into classroom teaching without restricting access or disrupting the flow of learning.
It was this mismatch, rather than a desire to invent something new, that led Dave towards the Zip-Kit. The instrument emerged as a practical response to a problem that teaching alone could not solve. His educational philosophy depended on participation, repetition and shared experience, yet the physical realities of a traditional drum kit consistently placed limits on all three.
Seen in this light, the Zip-Kit is best understood not as a standalone invention, but as a continuation of the work Dave had already been doing in schools for years. It is an attempt to align the physical design of an instrument with the inclusive principles that underpin modern band and music as a second language, ensuring that drumming can take its place alongside other instruments in a more accessible and sustainable way.
A moment of inspiration and a YouTube video
“That was the moment I realised it doesn’t have to look like a drum. It just has to play like one.”
The immediate spark for the Zip-Kit came from an unexpectedly ordinary moment. Dave recalls watching a YouTube video in which a drummer demonstrated how to practise snare technique without a drum. Using a hardback book, a crumpled piece of paper and a few rubber bands, the player recreated the buzz and response of a snare drum with surprising accuracy.
The solution was simple, but it revealed something important. A snare drum can cost hundreds of pounds and requires dedicated space. This version cost almost nothing and could be used anywhere. More importantly, it demonstrated that feel and response could be engineered without relying on traditional materials or forms.
That moment reframed the problem entirely. The goal was no longer to miniaturise a drum kit or replace it with pads. It was to recreate the physical experience of drumming using a different set of assumptions, guided by how drumming actually feels rather than how a drum kit is supposed to look.
Prototypes, patience and problem-solving
What followed was a long period of experimentation. Dave began building and rebuilding prototypes in his basement, using whatever materials and mechanisms were available. Inspiration came from cajons, practice surfaces, household objects and improvised solutions that offered new ways of thinking about sound and response.
By his own estimate, Dave built well over a hundred prototypes, many of which went through multiple iterations before being set aside. Sound, ergonomics, layout and playability were tested repeatedly, often with musicians rather than engineers guiding the process.
Dave is quick to point out that he is not a drummer by trade, and that this shaped the way he worked. Rather than designing around tradition, he designed around experience, asking whether each change made drumming easier to access, easier to understand and more satisfying to play.
When musicians started paying attention
As the prototypes improved, the Zip-Kit began to attract the attention of professional musicians. Initially, this happened informally, with friends sitting down to play and staying longer than expected. Over time, well-known drummers and artists encountered the instrument and engaged with it seriously.
Stevie Wonder’s drummer was among the first to recognise its potential, responding to it not as a novelty but as a playable instrument. Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers later explored the Zip-Kit and Greg Bissonette, known for his work across rock, pop and jazz, approached the instrument with the curiosity of a working professional, testing its feel and responsiveness.
These moments mattered because they confirmed that the Zip-Kit was not simply a classroom compromise. It could support real musical expression.
Dave began taking it everywhere. It travelled to rehearsals, weekends away and informal sessions. On one occasion, he even played it on a paddleboard in the middle of a lake with friends, using it as part of a spontaneous trio performance. That moment captured something unexpected, yet essential about the instrument. If the Zip-Kit could be played there, it could be played almost anywhere.
NAMM and the NUVO partnership
“I took it as far as I could, and then Max and his team took it across the finish line.”
The turning point came at the NAMM Show, when Dave met Max Clissold of NUVO. Dave arrived with his most refined prototype, representing the limit of what he could achieve on his own. Max immediately recognised the potential, not only of the idea but of its educational purpose.
What followed was a collaborative development process that combined Dave’s educational insight with NUVO’s engineering expertise. Prototypes were refined, mechanisms rethought and materials tested, ensuring the Zip-Kit could be manufactured reliably at scale while preserving its original intent.
Dave later described this phase as watching his ideas evolve beyond his own capability, becoming something that could exist sustainably in classrooms and beyond.
Designed to fill real gaps in access
Every major design decision in the Zip-Kit reflects the same educational values that shaped Music Will and modern band. Its compact size addresses space and storage limitations. Controlled volume allows drumming to take place alongside other instruments. Adjustable sizing supports younger learners as well as older students. Flexible pedal positioning accommodates left-handed players without specialist setups. The responsive hi-hat preserves expressive control without the bulk of traditional hardware.
These features are not cosmetic. They are direct responses to barriers that limit participation in music education.
A drum kit shaped by educational values
The NUVO Zip-Kit did not emerge from a desire to disrupt the instrument market. It emerged from a long-standing educational mission to make music accessible to more people, in more places, for more of their lives.
For Dave Wish, the most meaningful outcome is not the product itself, but the moment it enables. When someone sits down, explores an unfamiliar instrument and realises they are making music. That moment runs through his work as an educator, through Music Will, and now through the Zip-Kit.
In that sense, the Zip-Kit is not simply a new drum kit. It is an educational philosophy made physical. A tool designed not just to be played, but to be shared.
