Household Percussion and Freedom

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 08:06:24 PST

by Jonathan.

Hi,
I haven't check the site in a while. My family and I are in France for a sabbatical year. Our now almost 6 year old makes the world his drum. We try not to suppress this at all (made easier my not having any neighbors above or below our floors, as we do in NYC). Some weeks ago on the way to school (where unfortunately they do almost no musicking) he was telling me why he loves to drum - that it "creates freedom in the soul." From the mouth of a 5 year old! I recorded him on my cell phone and will post a transcription. Yesterday he thought our new pot would make a nice drum, and voila, it does! Here is a link to 3 short videos of him testing his "kit" and cooking in our kitchen. Enjoy!
http://gallery.me.com/jhshannon#100176
Best,
Jonathan

Teaching Drumming at the Village Freeschool

Mon, 05 Feb 2007 23:03:26 PST

by Carl.

I thought I'd take a moment to report to the BTG community about my experience teaching drumming last week.

With some trepidation, I was following up on a visit from my Dad (Charlie) to my daughters' school. My dad came in and taught some dumbek, salsa and samba parts to a few Village Freeschoolers and a teacher and a parent that were there. Being freeschool there was no coercion for kids (or grownups) to participate, so kids drifted in and out while a core of a few more interested kids stayed through the majority of the lesson. My daughter Angelika stayed the whole time.

The hour resulted in a couple OK grooves for a group of first timers. We got a slow samba and a slow salsa going with some success. So, for my stint I thought I'd come in and review what my dad taught them and see where it led us.

In the back of my mind though, an idea had formed over the week between the sessions. I was wondering if instead of coming in and “teaching”preordained rhythms to the kids maybe we'd be better off if I just sort of facilitated the kids own rhythmic explorations. I wasn't sure if this was my own lack of confidence in my hand drumming and rhythm teaching skills or based on the principles that I was learning about freeschooling. I could come in, I was thinking, with my doumbeks and a conga and a basket of shakers, bells and scrapers and just introduce them to the kids. If anyone asked I could show them the “proper way” to hold the instruments and how to hit them. I could draw the line if anyone was going to damage anything. If anyone asked me if I knew any rhythms, I'd be prepared to show them what little I knew.

Anyway, when it came time for the day of my “lesson” I chickened out. I went with the straight up “let's play some salsa”, “OK, now play this beat” approach. The “sage on the stage” instead of the “guide on the side”. Sure enough, slowly the kids peeled off from the group one by one. Eventually even the grownups that were there left the room too, until I found myself staring at my daughters. We'd gotten a few rhythms going and I'd managed to “teach” a few things to a few people, but ultimately I felt a bit defeated. I don't think I have the charisma and decades of experience doing this that my father brings that can keep people as focused for as long.

I decided to pack it in, but first I left the room to fix a computer in the library that was having some problems. About five minutes later my youngest daughter came rushing into the library, very excited. “They're drumming! They need you!” I thought to myself as I went back to the activity room “If they're finally drumming, maybe they don't really need me.” Sure enough when I got to the room a group of about ten kids of various ages were playing drums, banging on bells, blowing penny whistles and maybe even talking to each other. A couple “teachers” were there too. Everybody just kindof doing their own thing-together. It was very polyrhythmic, to say the least.

I thought about staying out of the room and just letting them play their “free school beat”, but I noticed something about what they were playing that drew me in. To my ear it sounded a bit like the Mbuti pygmies. There was the chaos, sure. One teacher refered to it as “cacophony”, but I was hearing several different beats going at the same time with a tripletty pulse anchoring the beat somewhere in the middle. I grabbed the free conga and played the steady alternation-of-hands, triplet 6/8 pattern that I've played so many times before - to reinforce what I was hearing. R-L-R-L-R-L-R-L-R-L-R-L. The groove petered out after a few more minutes and nothing really started up again after that. But it reinforced my idea about just letting the kids do their thing.

The Free School movement has this concept of “deschooling”. I'm sure I won't do it justice, but it's the idea that kids can get really messed up and shut-down from conventional schooling. That some [all?] kids might need some de-schooling before they can get down to the business of freeschooling, reschooling, unschooling, etc. Deschooling can consist of doing nothing, experimenting with all kinds of activities, playing games, reading off in a corner, etc., etc.

If my dad is right, that being rhythmic is being drummed out of our kids by our modern world and our modern school system. Maybe they need some de-rhythming before we can get down to the funky, groovy stuff. I'm thinking that the free school might be the ideal place for this particular experiment, since the kids and the grownups are open to the concept of curriculum-free “lessons” and noodling around. It might take more patience and time than I can give. It might take an awfully long time for the kids to experiment with all the sounds they can figure out on their own before they come to me for a samba part, but my hypothesis is that given enough freedom, it would happen eventually.

I'd love to hear what folks who visit this site think of this. Leave a comment on this thread or email me directly. (carl at snarlnet dot com)

Thanks,

Polka Happiness

Wed, 30 Aug 2006 05:20:23 PDT

by William.

The person who uploaded this described it as "villagers preforming the wonderful Norwegian polka during our Bygdedans."

Double Dutch

Tue, 29 Aug 2006 18:47:58 PDT

by William.

Double-dutch requires synch and cooperation. The turners have to be in synch or nothing happens; they can't be in synch if they don't cooperation. [Being "in-synch" is all but synonomous with "cooperation."] And the jumper has to be in synch with the turners. But, jumpers can compete against one another.

Watch her feet (if you can):

When I was a kid, boys didn't jump rope. That's changed:

Japanese double-dutch:

Listen to the music in the background.

Belly Dancing

Mon, 28 Aug 2006 09:23:41 PDT

by William.

You too can do this:

Open Discussion

Household Percussion and Freedom

Teaching Drumming at the Village Freeschool

Polka Happiness

Double Dutch

Belly Dancing