My wife has made a career out of music, both as a classical singer and as a voice teacher, and I am inevitably asked whenever someone meets me for the first time at one of her gigs if I possess any musical prowess. My answer is usually, “no, unless you count a few months of clarinet ownership in third grade.” But that’s no longer entirely true.
I now have 75 minutes of African drumming experience.
That doesn’t mean I’m booking a recording studio to produce my first CD just yet. I’m going to hold off at least a week and maybe another 90 minutes of practice time. But I can now say I have received some official musical training, thanks to Grace and Lindsey Schust, instructors of the Introductory African-style Drumming class at the Concord Community Music School. I dropped in on the Sept. 10 class, the first installment of the new fall session that meets weekly at 5:30 p.m.
The class has been run in spring and fall sessions previously, so many of the drummers were experienced. But there were at least a handful of other new faces, including another man, which is apparently a rare occurrence in this particular class. He and I were indeed the only two male participants in a group of about a dozen Tuesday night.
Despite the experience present in the room, Grace opened with the basics and fundamentals, which was critical to newbies like me whose only previous drumming adventures, spirited though they were, required only imaginary drumsticks and my steering wheel. She began the class by introducing the three major sounds you can make with a Djembe, the style of drum the class was using – the bass, slap and tone. Each requires hitting the drum in a slightly different place, with slightly different hand positioning, and all three were tied to advice that revealed opposible digits are not a prerequisite for success.
“Your thumbs don’t have any job except to stay out of the way,” in this style of drumming, Grace said.
Grace quickly described proper drum positioning – tipped slightly away from you, so the base isn’t entirely on the ground, before we began practicing how to create a bass sound, followed by the tone, and finally the slap. After that, we worked on a simple rhythm with four beats.
The final step was introducing the slap, before moving on to a slightly more intricate rhythm requiring a blend of all three sounds. Things got really interesting when the experienced drummers were encouraged to play the rhythm in double-time, creating a hypnotic blend of sound that was surprisingly tranquil. It also required those of us with little experience to focus even harder on the parts we were supposed to play.
Throughout the lesson, Grace and Lindsey stopped everyone periodically to offer pointers, including a particularly prescient one reminding everyone that little force is required when playing the drum correctly.
“You don’t ever have to get injured drumming; it’s voluntary,” Grace said.
Three things I learned quickly: when everyone in the room is making sound, nobody can hear the tiny mistakes you are most likely making; this style of drumming is enticing because it’s easy to pick up the basics, but obvious how much more you can learn with extended practice; and it’s remarkable how soothing the entire activity is. On the latter note in particular, the repetitive rhythmic sound and focus on the movements made it easy to slip into a state of relaxation.
There was more to the class than just technique, though; Grace and Lindsey spent a fair amount of time highlighting the cultural origins of drumming, and the particular drums we were using, as well as the meaning of particular pieces.
“Any kind of drumming can take you on a journey all over the world,” Grace said.
By the time the class was over, I was confident in my ability to make sounds instead of just noises, which is progress, I think. The class as a whole created quite a rhythm, good enough that Grace was pretty sure we were ready for our first official booked gig as a group.
“We could play someone’s wedding tonight if we had to, and if they all had a few drinks, they’d think we were straight out of Africa,” she said.
To learn more about the class, call 228-1196 or visit ccmusicschool.org.
