Babatunde Rhythms
The first thing we ever learned in drumming. Babatunde is a famous African drummer who is known for inventing his own rhythms. Inspired by him, we took his core 6 rhythms and created our own mixes and performed them in groups of 4-5 students.
Each group planned together in which order they would play each rhythm considering tempo and dynamics. We then ordered all the groups (my group being the 5th group) and had everyone play their mix one after the other. We completed the ensemble with everyone playing all the rhythms together as a class. I, of course, was in a group with my two best friends and two other girls who we were also friends with. It was scary performing in small groups because unlike playing with a class, any mistake was noticeable. Catching a mistake in a group of 30 students was much harder than catching a mistake in a group of 5 girls with a spotlight on them. But we pulled it off. I sat there laughing out of nerves at my drum as I played on the night of the concert. I was too scared to look into the audience.
Each group planned together in which order they would play each rhythm considering tempo and dynamics. We then ordered all the groups (my group being the 5th group) and had everyone play their mix one after the other. We completed the ensemble with everyone playing all the rhythms together as a class. I, of course, was in a group with my two best friends and two other girls who we were also friends with. It was scary performing in small groups because unlike playing with a class, any mistake was noticeable. Catching a mistake in a group of 30 students was much harder than catching a mistake in a group of 5 girls with a spotlight on them. But we pulled it off. I sat there laughing out of nerves at my drum as I played on the night of the concert. I was too scared to look into the audience.
Tequila
Or otherwise known as "Drumming" since the word tequila is "inappropriate" for a school atmosphere, but who's complaining? Tequila was the first song we learned of the second semester and it called for a different way of drumming than we had previously practiced. Unlike the African drums we had learned which required us to hit the drum with either our fingers (GO DO) or the palm of our hand (GUN), Latin percussion had Heel (The base of our palm), Toe (Slap with the entire hand at the center of the drum), Open (Slap with only the fingers at the edge of the drum) and Slap (A much more firm slap with the fingers also at the edge of the drum). These four methods could be combined in any way to produce different sounds. And on top of it all, instead of only one drum, Tequila required two.
The pattern went Heel Toe Slap Open Open Toe Open Open / Heel Toe Slap Toe Heel Toe Open Open. (The Italisized being on the second Drum)
This was a big step from our usual Gun GoDo's.
In the middle of January we had an exam in which we had to play the pattern by ourselves in front of either only Dr. Bartlett or in front of the entire class. In my first exam, I played for Dr. B, and I got so nervous that I completely forgot the second verse and failed. She made me play it again a week later in front of the class.
By the time the concert came I had played the pattern so many times that it was almost second nature. During the school presentation, my best friends and I sat in the front row, trying not to laugh as we played Tequila for the school.
The pattern went Heel Toe Slap Open Open Toe Open Open / Heel Toe Slap Toe Heel Toe Open Open. (The Italisized being on the second Drum)
This was a big step from our usual Gun GoDo's.
In the middle of January we had an exam in which we had to play the pattern by ourselves in front of either only Dr. Bartlett or in front of the entire class. In my first exam, I played for Dr. B, and I got so nervous that I completely forgot the second verse and failed. She made me play it again a week later in front of the class.
By the time the concert came I had played the pattern so many times that it was almost second nature. During the school presentation, my best friends and I sat in the front row, trying not to laugh as we played Tequila for the school.
Curse of Tortuga
Curse of Tortuga was our big finale. And also our hardest song to learn. Instead of sectioning off the class into 2 or three groups as was usual, everyone played their own instruments of their choosing. I chose percussion 3, which was a combination of different instruments. In this particular case, it was the tambourine and the gong. Playing the instruments wasn't a challenge. The difficult part was learning when to play. Being the only gong, it was painfully obvious when I played a little too early or a little too late. I had to learn to continuously count over and over again. The class spent almost 2 months learning and perfecting Tortuga. There was two other boys in my group also playing tambourines, however, neither of them spoke much English or understood how to read sheet music. They two of them would just watch me and play whenever I did. Jumping from playing with an ensemble to having to lead others in playing instruments was slightly intimidating, even if the only thing we were playing was just a tambourine. The days before the concert, I doubted we would be able to pull it together and feared the song would be a disaster. And I'm not going to lie, it wasn't as good as it could have been, but the final product wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Overall, I'm proud of this years World Drumming class.