Percussion Workshop

Today in school we got the whole day off for a percussion workshop lead by David from Jabba Jabba Jembe. When the bell rang we headed down to the library to start the session. Firstly we had to go out to his van and carry in a drum for each of us. 

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To begin with we started with some simple techniques and we learned how to hit the drum properly. so we each had to hit the drum once and we continued in a chain and each time we started the chain we added another hit until we reached four. Next we done the same but with a mini drum roll.

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When we came back after break we started again but this time we learned different rhythms and we stringed them together to make a song. I had two drums, such as the bigger two above, and controlled the bass line and I had a drum stick in each hand to hit the drum with. Then other people on different drums playing different beats and they all melded together to form a song. Ms.L recorded it so I'll put the video up later. We took a little break from playing the drums to watch part of a documentary Bob Geldof made about life in Africa, it shows the unique economic system they have and how certain laws prevent it from progressing.

After lunch he showed us this video about rhythm, its put together brilliantly and well worth the watch. Then he showed us another video which showed us how to create different rhythms and we created another song. After all this it was time to pack up, we put the drums back in their bags and into the truck and fixed up the library. It was a brilliant and very enjoyable experience.