I want to incorporate more drumming with my 3-5th grade students to give them more diverse experiences in music. I want them to experience ensemble playing, improvisation, movement and creating their own music while incorporating the music of other cultures. Drumming also help students communicate better with each other by learning how to listen to each other. Students learn to respect each other’s musical and personal space. They learn how to lead and how to follow and they understand the value of cooperative teamwork. They improvise, create and move with music. They also learn how to listen actively and critically to music from around the world. Drumming is more diverse because the music represents the diaspora of people and cultures from West Africa and the Caribbean. It also enhances their music experience if we are using the tubanos, which are modeled after the traditional drums of these cultures, to play the music.
With the addition of a few of my own personal drums, we have a good start on a classroom set of drums.
Most of them are similar in size and tonality. Traditional drumming ensembles have drums of varying sizes and tonalities and actually create melodic lines within the drumming patterns. In order for the students to be able to hear those melodic lines, we need to have more variety in sizes and tonality in our classroom set.
More than half of students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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