World Drumming Can Fit into Any School Music Program

With the acceptance and adoption of the National Core Music Standards in 2014, school music programs across the country began seeking ways to include music and instruments from a wider range of cultures in their programs. The standard orchestral and band brass, string and percussion instruments provide students the opportunity to learn about and perform instruments with primarily European roots.

The bulk of the music for those instruments, primarily in band instrumentation, gives students the chance to learn about American music. And you can find these instruments in every other country in the world now. But the musical culture of other countries outside of the United States and Europe is based on an astounding number of instruments most Americans have never even heard about, much less heard played. And one of the features in just about all of the instruments from those other countries is percussion – performing music by shaking, striking or otherwise manipulating an instrument with your hands, fingers or feet.

The National Core Music Standards have students learning about the music from different cultures starting in first grade and continuing through the Pre-K to 8th Grade Standards, and with each of the four standards applied to secondary education: Composition, Technology, Guitar and Ensemble.

To meet this requirement using string instruments, the other feature that is almost universally consistent from culture to culture, would require a significant investment in equipment and training, but would yield poor student outcomes. It simply takes too long for a student to become proficient on all the string instruments in the world to have them feel like they can make music representative of that culture. But everyone can be taught to hit a drum.

World Drumming, taught in most college music programs but less likely in elementary or secondary education, provides school music programs the avenue to meet the broader meaning of the Core Standards. While teachers will need to enhance their knowledge of the cultures they select to teach, they are already skilled in performing on these instruments and interpreting the music for each type and ensemble. And even basic patterns can be taught to young children, building a foundation of music reading to parallel their learning about the cultures and history that developed the instruments and music they are successfully performing. And for most students, their performance of an African piece with their 8th Grade General Music class may be the culmination of their music career. For others, playing in the group will spark their interest in performing with others and lead them to join the school band, orchestra, jazz ensemble or choir.

A search for World Drumming will call up many instruments with names that are hard to pronounce and matching price tags that are hard to budget for in most school music programs. And purchasing a full set for every student in a General Music classroom would be more than most budgets could bear in a single year. This factor alone has kept many programs from considering World Drumming as a full course or classroom offering and then struggle to meet the intent of the various standards in other ways. But the culture and music associated with each type of drum can be taught in other ways.

Having a real instrument, such as a Djembe, Doubecks or Darbukas, when teaching their related cultures, is worth the investment. The opportunity for the teacher to demonstrate the proper playing style, purpose and sound, as well as giving each student the opportunity to touch, feel, lift and play the real thing is immeasurable. This one instrument can be used by the teacher when leading class, can be shared with a different student each day (or as an incentive to work harder), and featured in any performance. But one can be enough.

With some creativity, some Google searches and a good local hardware store, a full set of World Drumming gear can be made from items available locally. Add a few inexpensive sticks, mallets and beaters from the high school program’s percussion junk drawer and you are in business to have 25 first-graders happily playing the music of Kenya. And with these home-made instruments, the additional lessons on cultural decoration can be added with the help of the school’s art teacher. The possibilities, now expanded by the need for this type of instruction during the pandemic, are endless.

World Drumming can fit into any school music program – large or small, rural or urban – providing students with both a view into other worlds, and a chance to see what they might be capable of themselves.