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Episode 6: How World Music Drumming Will Change Your Teaching
39 Plays2 months ago
Looking for a game-changer in your music classroom? In this episode of Play Now, Play for Life, host Aaron Hansen sits down with Patty Bourne, World Music Drumming Director, and Melissa Blum, World Music Drumming faculty member, to discuss how this powerful, hands-on approach builds musical skills, fosters community, and engages every student. Whether you’re new to drumming or looking to deepen your practice, you’ll discover why this curriculum is transforming music education.
World Music Drumming Website: https://www.worldmusicdrumming.com/
World Music Drumming Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/WorldMusicDrumming
World Music Drumming Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/59865315013/
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast and Guests
00:00:07
Speaker
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Play Now, Play for Life, a podcast for music educators. I'm your host, Aaron Hansen, former music teacher of 29 years and now a part of the West Music team.
00:00:20
Speaker
Every episode, we sit down and chat with experts in music education to learn about their tricks of the trade and other topics in music education. And today we're talking with Patti Bourne and Melissa Bloom,
00:00:35
Speaker
who are both experts with world of music drumming, and that will be our topic.
Musical Journeys of Patti and Melissa
00:00:40
Speaker
So welcome, Patty, and welcome, Melissa. So let's just dive right in. So first of all, can we talk a little bit, before world music drumming came into your lives, about your own musical journeys? We'd like to learn a little bit just about you you.
00:01:00
Speaker
what your musical journey was up to that point and that kind of thing. And then maybe also towards the end about your first interactions with world music drumming, just initial that kind of thing. So Patty, would you like to go first?
00:01:17
Speaker
I'd love to talk first. Thank you. ah So my early musical journey was pretty typical of oh of my generation. It was band choir orchestra for me. And that's, I saw myself and saw my future as being on a podium with a baton in hand and every single student being extraordinarily perfect in every way.
00:01:42
Speaker
um Went to a traditional four-year public like university, got the Bachelor of ah Music Education, started my teaching career,
00:01:56
Speaker
as an elementary music teacher, which was in it in and of itself a big surprise to me. um Ended up ah ah pursuing post-bachelor's degrees always with the idea of the classical, typical music education, the notation, the ability to ah perform at high levels, even with younger kids.
00:02:24
Speaker
And so um never on my horizon would I have ever seen myself where I am now. But it was a very traditional route. Well, i' i I'm work kindred spirits because I didn't see myself where I would be now.
00:02:40
Speaker
Sure. Either I was going to be a band director and I ended up a general music teacher. And I think so many people I'm hearing this doing these podcasts that they We all went into music, but we went different pathways along the way. And and you found where you wanted to be.
00:02:58
Speaker
That's right. That's right. When you didn't know initially, that's where I wanted to be. But
Melissa's Transition to World Music Drumming
00:03:03
Speaker
that's where it was. So that's that's a great answer. Well, what about you, Melissa? Melissa? So similar kinds of things. I started playing piano, taking piano lessons when I was five.
00:03:14
Speaker
And I would walk up the street with my sister to our piano teacher's home, take our piano lessons. And I played piano and and studied with this same teacher for probably three or four years and then moved to a new piano teacher. And within around the first or second lesson,
00:03:31
Speaker
she discovered a little secret that I had going, which was that when it was time to play a new piece, I would say to the teacher, can you play it for me so I know what it sounds like? And then I would learn the whole thing by ear without her having any idea that I'd really never learned to read music at all.
00:03:47
Speaker
So then I went through a period of time with this new teacher who decided she was going to make me learn to music read music and she was going to not let me hear things before I started to play them.
00:03:58
Speaker
And my sister would play for Elise and everyone would say, oh, my gosh, I remember when I first heard that. And she would give me something also by Beethoven, but it wouldn't be anything that anyone had ever heard of. And so then people would say like politely, oh, that sounds nice, Melissa, because I didn't get to play any of the things everyone knew because she didn't want me to have heard it anywhere else.
00:04:18
Speaker
So I got a little discouraged with piano. But along the way, I picked up viola. So that was really my true, true musical love was viola. And I ended up getting a degree in viola performance and then a K-12 music certificate, music teaching certificate.
00:04:34
Speaker
And I think like many of us, It was that you could teach anything in music K through 12, which, of course, is ridiculous. And ah hopefully very few people have to end up doing all of those different places. But I remember my music education professor saying, you know, if you start teaching somewhere in Waving Grass, Iowa, you may have to teach band and orchestra and choir and elementary music.
00:04:57
Speaker
So we we all got all of that extra stuff in there. So I started off my teaching career teaching orchestra. because I was a viola player, at the elementary and middle school levels, and then over time ah focused only on middle school orchestra. i had a great orchestra program, same idea, all about performance.
00:05:15
Speaker
ah And then after I had my second daughter, I took a leave of absence and I kind of stumbled into what became one of my major loves in music education, which was early childhood music and movement.
00:05:26
Speaker
And I started teaching early childhood music and movement at West Music. I did that for about five years. And in the meantime, Robin Walenta and Steve West would regularly pop into my classroom and say, don't you want to do more with West Music other than just teaching early childhood music and movement? And I would say, oh, no, this is great. I love doing this. My kids were little, et cetera.
00:05:47
Speaker
And when my younger daughter was in kindergarten, kind of all of a sudden for a variety of circumstances, I discovered I needed a full time job. And I walked into Robin's office and I said, you've been trying for a long time.
00:05:59
Speaker
Today is the day. And this answer moves right into the rest of this question because as I sat down with her, she said, i have a lot of things that I want you to do. i have so many ideas, but here's the first one. And she picked up the original edition of World Music Drumming.
00:06:17
Speaker
And she said, i don't have anyone on my staff who is an expert in this area. So I need that to be you. So I started reading that book and I started doing some ensemble things around the local area. And the following summer, this was in summer of 2004, I went to my first world music drumming workshop with Will Schmid and his teaching staff in Wisconsin.
00:06:41
Speaker
Wow, that's a good story. Patty, what was your what was your first experience with world music drumming? ah Boy, my first experience was being at a conference where Will Schmidt was telling us about this brand new curriculum.
00:06:58
Speaker
And as an elementary music teacher, I knew that um a lot of my, so i was i was restricting what my students could do because I was so hellbent on them being able to read music and being able to process and make music through notation that I felt like there's something missing in my instruction. And I'd done ORF workshops and Kodai and et cetera. And I went to that workshop that Will presented and i my jaw dropped.
00:07:33
Speaker
And I was just like, this is exactly, this is exactly what I was looking for. And so the following summer, which was 1999, I went to my first workshop in Wisconsin And we were at a church camp and I was with 86 people in my first level one class.
00:07:54
Speaker
And I just kept coming. um I knew that this was going to be ah pathway that my students would engage at and extraordinary levels ah in music making. And I just couldn't get enough of it.
00:08:12
Speaker
So it's been a it's it's been a wonderful wonderful time with this curriculum. I think it's kind of one of those things. I mean, whether it's world music drumming or, or levels or, um, Kodai levels, it's like, just get that first bite because once you get that first bite, you want more. You're, you're going as a teacher.
00:08:33
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. This is what I need. So I need more and keep going. Um, okay, Patty, can you, um, Can you share a little bit more? Well, I'd like two things. Actually, I'm going off script a little bit.
00:08:47
Speaker
Can you share a little bit more about the history of the World Music Drumming Program as it's developed, but then also go a little bit into the actual curriculum and the principles of the curriculum?
World Music Drumming Curriculum and Principles
00:09:01
Speaker
So that's kind of a big question. And Melissa might jump in too. but Okay, i'll I'll take the first half and then I might pass it off to my colleague for the second half.
00:09:13
Speaker
ah World music drumming came about as a result of Will Schmidt looking around and seeing that a majority of students, particularly at the middle school level, only had restricted options.
00:09:25
Speaker
ah If they were not interested and if they'd not already invested and committed to continuing music as as junior high students then, um they they quit and rarely came back in.
00:09:41
Speaker
and He also saw that ah the complexity of education was changing in the United States. People were beginning to embrace the idea of what was called multicultural music education.
00:09:56
Speaker
And we were suddenly being made aware ah at a at a rapid pace of music existing outside of the Western canon.
00:10:06
Speaker
And so ah during his doctoral studies, He worked with a Ghanaian master drummer and and and and caught the caught the bug and was ah immediately taken with the potential that this would have, particularly for students who had become disengaged with being music makers and being in a musical community after elementary And so with the assistance of his his mentor there in his doctoral program, plus the the arrival of Soa Mensah, a Ghanaian master drummer who who settled in Minnesota, and he began to play around with the idea of a curriculum that would parallel the theoretical principles of West African, Caribbean, and Latin drumming, which is
00:11:04
Speaker
based so much on the collaboration between players and the idea of the aural ah and and observation-based learning path.
00:11:16
Speaker
And so with the guidance of SOA and with ah tremendous support from folks like the Remo Corporation, and the fact that Will was a mover and shaker amongst the national music educators scene, ah he began to put together a a rough curriculum that was based on sequential lessons that culminated at the end with a a a unit-based ensemble.
00:11:47
Speaker
He contacted through connections with the national music education scene He contacted a um ah wide swath of people who were teaching general music or had access to middle school students who were interested in trying out this new curriculum, a pilot curriculum.
00:12:12
Speaker
And so in 1997, the pilot took place. All of the teachers who were part of this pilot were invited to ah provide feedback, to provide ideas, to provide things that their students really hooked into and things that were not as as successful.
00:12:33
Speaker
And Will went back to the drawing board and it it it the the curriculum was revised. Hal Leonard Publishing picked it up.
00:12:44
Speaker
They'd been They'd been active with Will through his guitar series for for years. And so they knew they had a winner in terms of an author. and And they went into production.
00:12:55
Speaker
And soon after the first summer of working with those pilot teachers and bringing together SOA, ah still the pilot teachers, the word got around.
00:13:08
Speaker
And it... From there went into summer after summer after summer of professional development, all the while Will keeping his ear to to what was happening, knowing that a an edit would eventually come of the book that would include feedback from massive amounts of teachers who who now included the elementary level and the high school level.
00:13:36
Speaker
So he began to realize that this curriculum was was not a restrictive one. It was an accessible one and had the potential to be adapted to very, very young children through senior citizens.
00:13:51
Speaker
And so it it is it is organic. When I talk to people about the curriculum and say, yes, The author's name is it was a a a white Lutheran classically trained musician, but every bit of this curriculum was written with the guiding eyes of culture bearers and with the eyes of instructors who could see its application and hold true to its objectives.
00:14:24
Speaker
The second part of your question was about the objectives and principles. um This is something that that when when you look at it on the website or when you read it inside the book, ah it what it equals, what it parallels is just being highly effective, having a a vibrant doing-based music curriculum where students are are not only reaping the benefits of of experiencing what it's like,
00:14:57
Speaker
to hear quality sounds enmeshed with each other, but also to understand that they can lean on each other, to understand that the community social aspect of music making is what keeps you in it.
00:15:12
Speaker
It's not an isolated event and the curriculum relies on that, that that it's not a solo act, that we're not in competition with each other.
00:15:25
Speaker
All along the way, You are students and teachers are are made aware of cultural um ah references, and it's it's part of the lessons to understand how does this relate to music making in West Africa or in the Caribbean or in Canada.
00:15:46
Speaker
Latin America. And so it isn't a a set of ensembles where, you know, the teacher puts up the notation and says, we're going to play this and here's this part and here's how you do it.
00:15:59
Speaker
That doesn't work. And that's not the curriculum that doesn't result in what the objectives are for for or this particular curriculum.
00:16:12
Speaker
Mainly it is so that students can reap the benefits of building community together, collaborating together, ah experiencing multiple musical factors.
00:16:26
Speaker
mean, you don't, you don't leave the essence of music content behind ah by any means. And ah so that they can become familiar and aware of ah music communities,
00:16:39
Speaker
cultural practices elsewhere and to to value those. Melissa, do you have anything to add on that? Well, obviously everything that Patty said, absolutely. i think one of the things I will say often about world music drumming is it's a perfect metaphor for community.
00:16:57
Speaker
Yes. It is all about how everyone has a part to play. Everyone has an interrelated part with everyone else.
00:17:07
Speaker
And, you know, i I shared, I was a viola player. I am a viola player. I love orchestra. I love sitting in an orchestra. ah But even when you're sitting in an orchestra, though you are part of a whole and you are communicating with with the conductor and everyone else, you still have this sort of barrier that happens because there's a music stand and because you have a part and you are really only...
00:17:29
Speaker
focused on your part as you listen around and and all those things. But when you sit in a drumming ensemble and there's no music stands and everyone requi is required to listen and watch everyone else in order to make that whole That metaphor for being part of the community is is almost an, it's just an intangible part of all of it.
00:17:57
Speaker
um The other part of this is that Will you know saw so many of these different parts of this kind of music that helped people be better people, be better team members, be better listeners, be better communicators.
00:18:11
Speaker
And so he included the original curriculum, 10 keywords ah in the updated curriculum, the 20th anniversary edition, I think it's 17, 17 or 18 keywords.
00:18:22
Speaker
And they are all things about why, why this kind of playing together makes us better musicians, better better community members, better people, better citizens.
00:18:36
Speaker
And it's things like respect, listen, teamwork, all the way into musical concepts such as compliment, balance, harmony, all of these different things that bring us together and help us understand through the keywords, through playing together,
00:18:55
Speaker
that we are part of a community and we rely on one another, we're responsible for one another, and we have to uphold what we're doing. It really is is so inclusive in all of those different ways.
Adaptability and Educational Levels
00:19:08
Speaker
And don't we need that in this day and age? I mean, all of those words are so relevant. And so, you know, as a general music teacher, the thing I found with world music drumming, having done level one, it filled this gap in my teaching because we all have tubano drums in our rooms.
00:19:27
Speaker
And I hear teachers say, I don't really know what to do with them. I don't know how to implement that in. And that world music drumming component And the other thing is with the age levels, Patty, you were saying this, you know, I was going to ask you this, but you kind of said it.
00:19:45
Speaker
This can be littles all the way up to high school students. And I know when I took Melissa's class, she showed things on using them with the with the little students. And I never thought...
00:19:58
Speaker
I thought, oh I wouldn't have ever done that. i would have never done that. And once she demonstrated, like, yeah, I can use these with my K-1 kits. We can start there and start building, i mean, in an easy way, but it's not just for those fifth and sixth grade students. They can use them all the way through. And that's what I loved about it was like, this goes all the way and I mean, like you said, Patty, all the way up to high school. I mean, you can do so much with this. It's it's so powerful.
00:20:30
Speaker
So, yeah, those are great answers from both of you. um Okay. Now, so how did you go from, i'm going, I'm flipping back and forth, but how did you go from being just a participant in your world music drumming experience to becoming now, because you're both teachers, right?
00:20:51
Speaker
in the world music drumming arena. So, Melissa, do you want to go first on this one? but Absolutely. So, you know, as I said, i I work full time for West Music and I had this amazing opportunity in that learning about world music drumming was part of my job.
00:21:08
Speaker
So I got to follow Will Schmidt around lots of times every summer, as opposed to just being able to go one time in the summer. I would go four and five and sometimes six different workshops in the summer.
00:21:19
Speaker
And so I really was following them all around. I was quite the groupie. And I would get to go to music education conferences where he was presenting. And so I got to know Will very, very well. um As with Patty, I mean, once you get the bug for wanting to play this kind of music, you want to play it and learn it and play it and learn it.
00:21:37
Speaker
And I would say. I ended up discovering I had two true passions in music education, early childhood music and movement, which is, you know, I i started that 25 years ago ah and then world music drumming.
00:21:51
Speaker
So in 2008, I had been following Will Schmidt around for for four or five years already. I'd spent a lot of time with him and we were at a workshop in Ohio.
00:22:02
Speaker
And we got out of the car, we were going somewhere and he said, and need to tell you something. I had a dream last night that I asked you to create a world music drumming program for pre-K through second grade.
00:22:17
Speaker
And then I woke up and thought, that's a great idea. So that's where my journey as a world music drumming faculty person began. That was on a Tuesday during a workshop.
00:22:28
Speaker
And by that Friday, when we were at the airport, I said, okay, well, I think I have a rough idea of what kind of a syllabus I might be able to do to teach teachers how to have world music drumming for pre-K through second grade.
00:22:40
Speaker
And I gave them sort of a rough idea of of what I thought I could do in a workshop. And certainly it has changed over time since then. But that basic idea, the tenants that I wanted to do,
00:22:51
Speaker
have remained. So my arena to teach in the World Music Drumming Workshops is called Drumming Up the Fun, and it is specifically about adapting world music drumming concepts, world music drumming ensembles, and the instruments and and playing techniques for pre-K through second grade.
00:23:11
Speaker
Isn't it funny what we do when we're, when we're asked to do something that we weren't planning on doing. it's right And it's taken over my whole life. Right. But we have these mentor people in our lives. Thank goodness for mentors that say, you know what, you should do this and write this up. And then I think, oh, I hadn't thought about that, but I guess maybe I could do that. And then here it goes. Patty, what's your, what, what are your comments?
00:23:37
Speaker
Yeah. ah Well, I was a groupie as well, but was restricted to just one one workshop a summer.
Patti's Leadership Journey in World Music Drumming
00:23:44
Speaker
um But I was consistently coming and enjoying repeating my level one experience and then taking level two and repeating my level two experience and and then doing a level three in New York.
00:23:58
Speaker
And it was 2008, believe. And Will and eight i believe and um will and i bonded over these Horatiously early morning walks.
00:24:13
Speaker
Both of us were early advisors and we liked to get out and walk. And so we we were out on one of our fast walks and he said, ah Patty, I'd like for you to think about joining us as a faculty member.
00:24:26
Speaker
And it was, i was, I was, uh, I was dumbstruck. It was just an amazing out of the blue request. And and I said, well, like I think I'd like that.
00:24:40
Speaker
And that's how it started. My first, my early experiences as a faculty member were were pretty rocky because it was, you know, it was, there were things that faculty members did that one would call winging it.
00:24:58
Speaker
ah at And as as World Music Drumming grew, Will knew that we needed a a pretty concrete plan. And so as the years progressed, um he plus the veteran faculty members put together an instructional guide that really helped me grow as ah as a faculty member. and And then in 2014,
00:25:27
Speaker
So I'd been a faculty member for about six years. But in 2014, I assumed that I was doing a few things that looked and sounded administrative.
00:25:40
Speaker
Maybe it's because I wrote a lot of emails to Will saying, what do you think about this? And how do you do this? And when it comes to this, how do you do this? That he and Anne, his wife and and and partner in crime, asked if I would take over as assistant or take on the role of assistant director.
00:26:01
Speaker
And he flew out to Washington to to ask in person. So that that too was extremely flattering. And I said yes to that.
00:26:14
Speaker
And then four years later, we're in a position where um the health of both Will and Ann were severely affected. compromised And that's when that's when we established a company to continue the World Music Drumming workshops after their passing.
00:26:33
Speaker
And that was in two thousand the summer of 2018. So would you say that initially he kind of handpicked the first batch of teachers and then it's just expanded from there?
Faculty Selection and Summer Workshops
00:26:47
Speaker
Without a doubt. Is that kind of correct? Oh, it was because the Will Schmidt Show. Yeah. He picked. he handpicked the faculty that, that he wanted and, uh, was, was our, was our leader without a doubt.
00:27:02
Speaker
Um, and the, it's, it's not an, we don't operate from an application base. We don't open an applicant pool and say, apply to be a faculty member for world music drumming. It's a, an incredibly tight group of co-collaborators and, and, uh,
00:27:23
Speaker
you know, when Melissa was talking about community, analogous for community, well, that's how the faculty is. We're ah we're a fairly tight community and um ah expanding the faculty comes as a result of Will's ah will's will's process, which is, ah let's let's see if you're really interested in this.
00:27:49
Speaker
Let's see if you If this is your thing, if we see you, if we hear you, if we notice your leadership, then um we're going to have eyes on you.
00:28:00
Speaker
How many do you have on faculty now? Yeah, we have 14 on faculty. okay That's amazing. That's great. Okay. Who are international and the rest are U.S. citizens all over, all over the United States.
00:28:19
Speaker
And how many, well, now i'm just jumping around. How many um courses are offered in a particular summer? So there there are several different different courses you can take as part of the World Music Drumming umbrella.
00:28:37
Speaker
There are the Core, Level 1. That's where everyone begins. Well, for the most part, level one, which is truly about learning and understanding that original world music drumming curriculum, the seven units of study.
00:28:52
Speaker
And then there's level two. Level two is a review of those core areas, especially some of the later ensembles that are a little more complex ah that we don't not necessarily have as much time to cover in level one.
00:29:04
Speaker
And at the same time, level two starts to introduce participants to more of the authentic West African and Caribbean styles of playing ensembles.
00:29:16
Speaker
um Really, really encourages those participants to maybe stretch their ears a little more, to get into a little more of their of their discomfort zone in order to learn more about becoming musicians.
00:29:28
Speaker
better players, um better understanding of the different different cultural areas within this playing genre. And then level three truly becomes, it's about your own growth in this path of Afro-Cuban hand drumming tradition.
00:29:44
Speaker
So if you discover you are someone who has decided going to take level three, I mean, as as one of our faculty members so always says, you're never going to plan to come to level three one time. Once you come to level three, you're coming back because you have realized that you want to keep learning more and more and more. And one of the things I think that is that a surprise to many teachers when they first come is It is maybe tip of the tip of an iceberg to even go to level three, that that the vast, huge amount of learning and knowledge and music that is there under the surface will only ever scratch that.
00:30:25
Speaker
even with years and years of attending. So there's so much more to learn. So that's those core level one, level two, level three. Then there are some auxiliary courses.
00:30:35
Speaker
The course I teach drumming up the fun is one of those. You do not need to have gone to the core to come drumming up the fun. And I'd say about half the people that I have in those classes Start with drumming up the fun, maybe based on the fact that they only teach in an early childhood setting or that's where they want to begin.
00:30:52
Speaker
And about half have taken level one, sometimes level two, sometimes level three. And then there's another one called Kids Choir and Drums, and that is taught by Lynn Brinkmeyer. And it is about combining world music drumming with ah with octavos and and other ah choir pieces for that upper elementary range.
00:31:11
Speaker
So those are all the different courses that are offered as well as Patty's going have to jump in on a title for me. Yeah, we've got to ah our are two international teachers are both South American and ah their specialty is Brazilian.
00:31:29
Speaker
music And so they teach a class called Festival Brazil, ah which is a um course that introduces the various mutual musical genre of South America, Brazil, um Peru, etc.
00:31:47
Speaker
And it does so through the lens of the approach that world music drumming does, which is the you know the community, the collaboration, the the relying on each other for ensemble experiences.
00:32:01
Speaker
So with all of those, level one is offered at every site. That's that's that that constant that's there. And then these other courses, some of them are offered at various different places. Level three is only offered in the Cedar Rapids location.
00:32:17
Speaker
This summer, Drumming Up the Fun will be at the Atlanta location. And Patty, remind me, there's 10, 12 sites this summer? 12 sites. 12 different sites.
00:32:27
Speaker
Worldmusicdrumming.com is your friend to find where you want to go, where your friends want to go, bring it make it a party and i see which classes are offered where and to know what to come to. Well, and just to clarify to people too, because this question always comes up with ORF courses and Kodai courses.
00:32:45
Speaker
You don't have to be a member of any kind of organization experience level. You can sign up for level one and take that anywhere and you're welcome.
00:32:57
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. the The prerequisite is that you want to come. That's awesome. That's awesome.
Resources and Online Community
00:33:04
Speaker
um Let's talk a little bit about some of the resource materials that World Music Drumming offers. I know you offer multiple things, whether they're printed materials or maybe online materials, downloads, all that kind of thing. does somebody want to talk a little bit about that? And I don't know who to throw this one to.
00:33:22
Speaker
You know, I'm going to pass it. Oh. yeah oh we're both passing it to each other. You know what? I will take it. I will start it and then Patty will jump in. How about that?
00:33:33
Speaker
and So ah the core curriculum, World Music Drumming, 20th Anniversary Edition, is a book. It is online resources. It is downloadable tracks. It is videos. It is all kinds of things. So by purchasing that printed piece,
00:33:51
Speaker
you get a unique download code that you can then go and get um worksheets that are extra reference materials. There are ah activities for kids to ah break apart into small groups and do a various kinds of assessment. There are rubrics for teachers to use there.
00:34:12
Speaker
All kinds of resources as well as amazing videos from a trip that Will Schmidt and his wife took to Ghana so that it helps kids understand what the culture is like when you see drumming happening in West Africa ah as as those were recorded.
00:34:28
Speaker
um there are There are so many different resources within that digital download that it's like you end up with a whole community there to help you even with with your book. And if you combine that resource with taking a workshop you will have more material than you can possibly explore over a several year period of time.
00:34:50
Speaker
Of course, because people loved the work that Will was doing, they asked for more and more and more. So there are ah supplemental resources as well. There is, we've fondly referred to them as the Red Book and the Green Book because the least creative part of world music drumming are the titles.
00:35:07
Speaker
So there is what's called world music drumming, more ensembles and songs, and new ensembles and songs. And then there is world music drumming, more new ensembles and songs. And then through that, there were some ah additional expansions. There is peanut butter jam. There's global grooves.
00:35:22
Speaker
ah There is... Beatbox, all of those are additional resources that are in that world music drumming umbrella, as well as many of the different faculty members have written materials that use those same concepts and bring in classroom classroom materials and all kinds of other areas in there. So those are those basic resources that are part of that.
00:35:43
Speaker
um And then, you know, there's a lot of community and learning that comes through being part of the world music drumming workshops, ah the website and social media areas that Patty oversees.
00:35:54
Speaker
Yeah, we, uh, through our website, we have a, uh, uh, we have a dropdown menu that is resources and, ah things like a video of how to tune the drums.
00:36:05
Speaker
Um, how to access grants, how to ah solicit professional development funds, ah how to speak to your content constituents about the value of this particular program, ah a list of play-along songs that that ah have have has been contributed and needs updating because we're always learning ah great new tunes out there for for folks to use the ensembles to play along with.
00:36:37
Speaker
And so ah that's all on the website. And then we maintain a public Facebook page as well as a group ah Facebook page.
00:36:49
Speaker
And many of our 6,000 plus members in the Facebook page, the the group site, it contribute ideas and videos and insights and ahas and questions. And it's ah it's a very vibrant community and way to way to stay connected, particularly between workshops and and getting ideas and such.
00:37:14
Speaker
Well, and I will say teaching ensembles to my kids, and I'm not i'm not big into pop music, but the the song lists that you provide on your website, you know, these go with ensemble one. They work well.
00:37:29
Speaker
These work well with ensemble two. I mean, once I've taught the ensembles and we've done what we were going to do with them, it was so fun to pull that music in. And they're like, oh my gosh, we can play this with this song, this is really cool, you know, and it just gives it another, another little vein that you can use to hook again. And they think it's great.
00:37:53
Speaker
I was at a, ah I was at a conference this past weekend and at a workshop that was not a world music drumming workshop, the people were including a particular song and someone who took Level one, a few years ago, saw me three rows back and wheeled around and said, you could use ensemble one with this.
00:38:17
Speaker
You sure could. Yeah, you do. Because then you start hearing songs, you know, whether you're driving, whatever, and thinking, ah wait a minute. I could, this could be ensemble one. I can hear it.
00:38:29
Speaker
I can hear it yeah Yeah, you do. Oh, that's great. um ah Well, so how do you think world music drumming works with other teaching methods like Orph and Kodai?
Compatibility with Other Methods
00:38:41
Speaker
Do you find that they interconnect or is world music drumming kind of its own thing?
00:38:48
Speaker
I'm just curious your opinions on that. I would say that they connect in all the ways positive. ah They're unique. in that Kodai and Dalcroze Orff emerge from traditions in Western-based um countries, and and world music drumming gave birth because Will Schmidt interacted with a Ghanaian master drummer and went, holy cow, this is a way for students to be able to continue to make music together. and
00:39:23
Speaker
And so... ah you know, the basis of, of Orff and Kadai is sound before cymbal without a doubt, one a little bit longer than others, but ah with, with world music drumming, it is, it it is sound.
00:39:41
Speaker
It is based on tone and time, but even more so the emphasis on teamwork is I think elevated above the other methodologies.
00:39:52
Speaker
And of course, you know, and there, there, every Every methodology, every approach has at its core students being able to realize their own musical growth and their own ah aspirations as music makers. And so world music drumming joins in that.
00:40:14
Speaker
Our pathway to doing that is ah is is a a bit more rooted in playing techniques that ah that because the parts fit together and are nurtured by each other, that that playing technique is is emphasized, not to sacrifice any part of the long-term pedagogical benefits, but to
00:40:47
Speaker
Whereas the ORF methodology will work with the ah the creative music making, the voice of the of the learner and Kodai, the emphasis on on the quality singing, etc.
00:41:03
Speaker
Our direction is, you know, a high tone needs to sound like a high tone and not because it we're were or we're perfectionist, but because that tone speaks, it has a purpose. it has a ah It communicates something in the culture that it's from.
00:41:26
Speaker
And so in that way, but we're unique. Now, do we have people who are describe themselves as an Orph person or a Kadai person or Dalcroze person or a named person?
00:41:43
Speaker
name it ah person, come to the workshops, they always go away saying, this is going to add, contribute to my personal growth as an educator.
00:41:58
Speaker
It's going to contribute to the pathways that my students use for music making I see its benefit. I know that it has tremendous effect in the classroom.
00:42:14
Speaker
And so we don't have people coming from those traditions and saying, nope, not for me. It's usually the opposite. We attract people.
00:42:25
Speaker
We attract people who are curious and who understand that there are other ways, other other mechanisms for getting kids making quality music together.
00:42:38
Speaker
And so um comparable comparable, yes. Unique, yes. I will also say that I think... So many people think when they're coming to World Music Drumming that it's going to be something completely different than other areas that they've already worked through. And I think in particular, those who have any of their ORF levels find it is highly complementary, that we are very process-based, that there's a lot of very similar teaching techniques, that the two those two areas can be...
00:43:11
Speaker
combined so beautifully and that you don't lose anything in either of them, if anything, you gain as you as you combine those. um Additionally, so often people who have a Kodai background realize that this is just another another way to have some tools in their toolbox to help students be competent makers of music. And And again, that they can use so many of the of the pedagogical areas that they've learned and interfuse what they've done with world music drumming. And again, doesn't take away anything they've done.
00:43:44
Speaker
um One of our faculty members, actually two of our faculty members, but in particular, Michael Checo, um you know, has a very, very very ah extensive Kodai background. And he has said, world music drumming made him such a better Kodai instructor.
00:43:58
Speaker
And being a Kodai instructor made him better at teaching world music drumming. So there are absolutely complementary aspects to all of these different pedagogical approaches. Well, I think everything everything you both said is very well said. And I would say so much of what world music drumming in my experience with level one, you're teaching the same concepts as in the other two approaches, you know, call and response, imitation, we're echoing process. We're it's all the same type of thing, just in a different format, if you want to say.
00:44:34
Speaker
um But yeah, it did for me, it was just another like pillar of my teaching, like, cool, this is another way I can do this. And so, yeah, really quickly, because you already talked about this a little bit before, but I don't know who wants to answer this, but could you just give a quick little um talk about the various cultures that you, that world music drumming works with just one
Cultural Influences and Impact
00:45:03
Speaker
more time. it doesn't have to be super long if you don't want to, but.
00:45:06
Speaker
Because we'll, initially came to this curriculum through West African, particularly Ghanaian drumming, that that ah particular approach is is used quite a bit.
00:45:22
Speaker
But also Caribbean, Cuban, Afro-Cuban, Latin, And the musical genre, the musical style, the groove is is heard throughout ah the ah the culminating ensembles in the seven units.
00:45:44
Speaker
But also our faculty who work with our level two and level three people, Josh Ryan and Elaminsa, their expertise is in those particular ah those particular areas, particularly ah the Ghanaian drumming of of not just SOA's culture group, the Akan of South Africa, but also into the eastern part of Ghana and the northern part of Ghana. He is ah an incredible educator and um a a tremendous culture bearer for not just is his corner of where he grew up, but for the entire
00:46:28
Speaker
ah region And then ah Josh Ryan is a ah ah United States educator, ah lives in Ohio, but has spent his professional life with deep dives into the ah Cuban make music making, particularly Afro-Cuban and Ghanaian traditions. And he he reminds us that we are visitors of this music. And even though he has extraordinary insight and skills, he is the one who says we are but but we are all humbled ah by these traditions and have much to learn by them.
00:47:13
Speaker
ah Our faculty who do the Brazilian ah music, the Festival Brazil, they are there' they're the real deal. And outside of the curriculum, outside of the core curriculum, they bring ah part of ah ah musical traditions that um ah ah truly complement what else has been accessible. So with with their addition, we can include the traditions of Brazilian South American music traditions.
00:47:49
Speaker
I think the other thing that is sometimes a surprise to people or if they may have heard smatterings of this, but not understood the connection is that outside of our Western art music that many of us studied as we were younger,
00:48:07
Speaker
All of what we kind of think of as uniquely American music, jazz, blues, rock and roll, even even going further before that, ragtime, all of those genres have at their core and as their impetus, West African music.
00:48:26
Speaker
Without West African music, we wouldn't have any of those genres that we consider this you know and uniquely American music. So understanding that, understanding the role of the African diaspora and where a lot of those different sounds began and then moved over to North America and started so many of those genres, that in and of itself is a really important history and music lesson that can benefit teachers to help their students understand that these kinds of sounds that they hear even today didn't start in a vacuum, that they all have as their root West African drumming ensemble music.
00:49:09
Speaker
Yeah, that was very well said because it's it is very true. um Well, let me ask you two this question because you're master
Encouragement for New Teachers
00:49:18
Speaker
teachers. What would you say to either new teachers or teachers that have never experienced world music drumming in any way, shape or form? What what would you say to them to encourage them to try it?
00:49:33
Speaker
Maybe come take a levels course or any kind of course. I would tell them that I do not know of a single experience that they could take in a week's time that will change more things about how they approach education how they teach their students, how they themselves experience being a music maker and a musician, than by coming to a World Music Drumming Workshop.
00:50:00
Speaker
They are truly life-changing. And I've had so many people say to me, the only regret they have is that they didn't come sooner. That, you know, people who who had the good fortune of discovering the workshops early in their teaching career say that it has shaped everything and every way that they approach what they do in their classrooms.
00:50:23
Speaker
They truly do change everything about how you experience music, education, your own self. And they remind us how important it is To be in a discomfort place, an uncomfortable place as a learner, and to move from that into a place of comfort, that's something that our students experience every single day, and it's easy for us to forget that.
00:50:50
Speaker
And the best way to be a better teacher is to start over as a learner in an area that you maybe knew nothing about and to discover what you can do When you open up your ears, when you take a leap of faith and when you try something that you haven't tried before.
00:51:07
Speaker
Well, and that's so important, Melissa. I'm so glad you said that because it is so easy for us as music teachers. Yeah, I've had my ORF levels. I'm just going to sit back in this comfort zone and yep, I can do this all day long. No problem.
00:51:21
Speaker
But am I growing? Am I growing and doing something new and different? And I know when I took my world music drumming level one, i wasn't uncomfortable, but it was still, i I learned so much in that week, even after teaching for 20 years.
00:51:38
Speaker
was like, okay, I have so many more things I can do with these drums that I wasn't even realizing. And it just added so much to my personal teaching that, yeah, I love what you said. Well, have to say, Will Schmid used to kind of tongue in cheek, kind of not, refer to most of us who took those workshops as paper-trained musicians, right? Hand me the piece of paper with the black dots on it and I can play.
00:52:02
Speaker
And to challenge yourself to not have that notation, to not have those different places and to show yourself, prove to yourself that you can learn in a different way, take in an information. And like I said, to really stretch your ears, learn different kinds of sounds.
00:52:19
Speaker
Those things are are magical in and how people experience the workshops. Ditto with everything Melissa said. so benefits to the teachers, but I'd like to go one step further and talk about benefiting their students.
00:52:34
Speaker
That ah ah particularly, particularly now,
00:52:41
Speaker
boy, do we need students to ah to lean on each other and to. experience ways to be together in a music classroom that ah it is supportive of each other, that relies on each other, that relies on the different sounds and the different ah components of of what a musical experience relies on.
00:53:06
Speaker
But more than that, the um ability for students to grow in their self-management skills, their self-regulation skills, their leadership skills, their ability to focus and to seek to replicate and imitate and then guide new experiences, that does not happen in a class that is one-sided where the teacher knows all.
00:53:35
Speaker
It only happens in classrooms where the teacher takes on the role of facilitator and sharer and model so that students then can aspire to to create and to participate and to be able to to bring about experiences that blow your mind as a teacher.
00:54:00
Speaker
You cannot believe what students have the capacity to do when the sheet isn't there telling them what to do. And so, um you know, absolutely, it's a game changer for the individual teacher.
00:54:17
Speaker
But the game changing comes when they apply it in the classroom, without a doubt. Okay, let me ask this final question.
Personal Impact Stories from Patti and Melissa
00:54:25
Speaker
This is a big one, but what is world music drumming meant to you as both a teacher and a musician and a person?
00:54:35
Speaker
i would say, i mean, so many parts of who I am. are there because of because of World Music Drumming. ah From a personal standpoint, and many people know this about me, so not a new not news to many people, but if you don't know me, I met my husband through World Music Drumming, so of course that's a huge part of that.
00:54:51
Speaker
ah My daughter started going to World Music Drumming workshops with me when she was nine years old ah because I needed to bring her along, and she started taking them then At nine years old, she took level one. She took it again when she was 10. By 11, she thought she could maybe take level two.
00:55:08
Speaker
By the time she was 14, she was taking level three. And she is now a high school choir director and infuses world music drumming with her high school performing students. And they do incredible things. She spent time in Ghana when she was in college. And she continues to teach using world music drumming concepts and to come to our workshops.
00:55:29
Speaker
So we truly are a world music drumming family through and through. She got married in November and and so Amenza came and participated in her ceremony and friends of ours from world music drumming ah accompanied singing from world music drumming as part of that ceremony. So truly from a personal standpoint, it's part of everything that I do.
00:55:50
Speaker
Professionally, Some of my greatest friends and contacts all around the country are people that I met through World Music Drumming. It really is a community. And once you're in, you found your people and and they they stay around and and find each other at various different places. And we talk about how we have been able to impact students. And then as a musician, it truly does. You know, I think most of us have become music teachers because music came naturally to us.
00:56:17
Speaker
And so, again, that experience of maybe trying something that isn't the way we usually learned or or is very different from how we might have been trained in our Western music ways. which of course isn't to say there's anything wrong with Western music ways.
00:56:31
Speaker
I will always be a viola player who loves to sit in an orchestra, but it's not the only way. And that's really what we're trying to say is that we don't want people to give up all the great things that they're already doing in their classroom, but this is something that you can add that will just add even more to it.
00:56:47
Speaker
And especially for students who may struggle with Some of those traditional performance areas, Will Schmid, all those years ago, discovered that kids who might otherwise fall through the cracks in our traditional music programs might become the school leaders in world music drumming. So it really does impact the way I interact with people, the way I i teach, the way I lead, and and what I love to do every summer still.
00:57:15
Speaker
Well, you know, back to your back to your personal part, the first part you shared, it becomes another family. It does. Absolutely. ah Because I know with my ORF friends, every year at the conference, we say the family reunion is coming up because we get to see everybody. And that's our time together. And it's so meaningful.
00:57:33
Speaker
But that's so, I love hearing about your daughter and and the wedding and all that, because that is very personal. And so it's very true. I mean, that's very close to your heart. We have so many retired teachers who still come back for workshops and they will say, I don't have any reason to come except to be here and make this music with each other.
00:57:53
Speaker
Yes. Yes, they do. They do. Patty, what do you think? Uh, well, I certainly don't have the personal ah connection that Melissa does, even though, uh, my kids did come and hear culminating events, uh, quite a few times as my husband would bring them to pick me up from a workshop.
00:58:12
Speaker
Uh, Professionally, it predetermined the kind of teacher that I would like to learn from and that I would like to become known for. um You know, when i when I hang up my hi name card on my um my office door at my school, I would like for students to be able to have described me as someone who paid attention to their learning, who had had the ability ah
00:58:43
Speaker
the the focus on their growth, their own personal investment in growing as people and as musicians. And i would like to have been viewed as someone who truly believed in the opportunity every participant and every learner has ah and and their own, their own,
00:59:07
Speaker
ah their own growth as a human being growing into an adult. And I'm not sure that I would have had that vision had I not taken to heart all that world music drumming has, has brought to me over the past 24 years.
00:59:27
Speaker
um I think I have enough of an ego that I would have stayed in the lane of, you know, I'm, I know all. I'm pretty much a big deal.
00:59:38
Speaker
I don't think I would have developed the humility and the honor that I have for the learning process and the participation of being together and making this happen together that I do now as a result of being a part of of World Music Drumming. So while I don't have the personal path pat that Melissa has, it has affected my personality as a teacher and I think changed the trajectory of my my legacy, if you will.
01:00:14
Speaker
Well, having taken courses with both of you, i can just say that you're both master teachers because I've had
Conclusion and Lightning Round
01:00:21
Speaker
experience. I took drumming up the fun with Melissa ah few years ago.
01:00:25
Speaker
and then Patty, I got to be with you a little bit this last summer. I'll probably take level one again this summer just because I didn't get to stay the whole week, but I'll plan to this year. But you are both wonderful teachers. Now,
01:00:40
Speaker
We always end the podcast with our lightning round of questions and nobody ever knows what I'm going to ask. So there are no wrong answers to any of these questions. They're just for fun.
01:00:53
Speaker
So just We're ready. We're ready, Erin. i I can't wait. I can't wait. Okay. Your first question. I don't care who answers first. What would be your favorite time signature to perform in?
01:01:06
Speaker
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. ding Okay, go. twelve eight Oh.
01:01:14
Speaker
Same. And you'll have to come to World Music Drumming to understand why. There's a reason for that. Oh, I love that you both had the same answer. Okay, there's something to that answer. There something Okay, good enough.
01:01:27
Speaker
All right, your next one. Either or. Beatles or Rolling Stones.
01:01:37
Speaker
Beatles. Beatles. Hands down. I mean, Paul McCartney over Mick Jagger. Are you kidding me?
01:01:48
Speaker
There's no comparison. No, not too hard like ah You're the same page. Well, I'll see what you say on this one. ah Which one would.
01:02:00
Speaker
Well, let me ask it this way. Which one would you like to hear performed more often? The gong? Or the Gonkoque? Gonkoque.
01:02:11
Speaker
Gonkoque. Patty, you say Gonkoque. How about this one? Rainstick or recorder?
01:02:24
Speaker
boy This is a hard one. I'm going to go with rainstick because I would love to see all of the different creative ways someone could play rainstick. ah Boy, if you say rain stick played by a fourth grader or recorder played by a fourth grader, it'd be hands down rain stick.
01:02:40
Speaker
If you said rain stick played by anyone and a recorder played by a master Baroque player. and Well, that's a very good point.
01:02:52
Speaker
That's a very valid point. Okay, now this one's a little more personal. So you each have to answer separately. A favorite musical memory. yeah It anything.
01:03:06
Speaker
I would say one of my favorite musical memories is the first time that I ever a got to spend some extra time with Will Schmid. And ah we it was at a workshop.
01:03:19
Speaker
And we went to one of our faculty members' homes for dinner. And at that time, I was not part of the faculty. I was i was working for West Music, and I was following Will around. And we went to to the home of Hong Lee, who is one of our amazing World Museum of the Faculty members.
01:03:36
Speaker
And she cooked this incredible meal for us. And so we sat there, and and I said, Will, you have lived such an amazing life. Who are some of the most amazing musicians that you ever got to spend time with?
01:03:50
Speaker
And Will had this great deep voice. And he said, well, I was so fortunate in that I got to know so many different people. But I'd have to say the nights when the phone would ring and I'd pick it up and it was Pete Seeger and he'd say, I'll be over in 20 minutes.
01:04:04
Speaker
I knew it was going to be a great night. So I'd have to say that's one of my strongest, strongest, maybe not ah performing a musical thing, but understanding what the world of music can mean for so many of us.
01:04:18
Speaker
That is a great memory. OK, Patty, what do you have? I can't top that. yeah There are so many, so many wonderful ah group memories, but I'm going to keep on the Will Schmidt track.
01:04:33
Speaker
ah We were teaching in Portland. And we went to a ah to a pizza joint and ah somebody picked the ah ah lime and the coconut as the ah playing on the karaoke or playing on the on the jukebox.
01:04:50
Speaker
And when Will Schmidt, after three bears, stood up and said, Now, let me get this straight. You put the lime in the coconut, you all the entire restaurant, whether they knew him or not, was absolutely taken. And just that when when when Melissa was talking about Will's deep voice and that description, the man knew how to live, enjoy.
01:05:17
Speaker
And and it was on All the time. He just loved, loved life and loved seeing people live to their fullest. And so that memory just shot into my brain.
01:05:32
Speaker
Let me get this straight. You put the lime in the coconut. yeah Well, you two ladies are amazing. So I want to thank Melissa and Patty for joining us and thank everyone for listening because this has been the Play Now Play for Life podcast with Aaron.
01:05:51
Speaker
And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing and leaving a rating and review. And you can find that at westmusic.com slash play now, play for life. And one more time, ladies, where do we find you online?
01:06:07
Speaker
Worldmusicdrumming.com, westmusic.com. And then you have a Facebook page. We do. ah World Music Drumming. Perfect.
01:06:19
Speaker
And we are also on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and X. And you can find those links in the description. Play Now, Play for Life is a podcast by West Music.