More Spring drumming!

As you might know, I've been working to help get a drumming group off the ground here. It is slowly coming along and I've had to do nearly all the start-up work myself. I've got a bunch of kids that love to drum, which is a great thing. Haven't been able to really attract the older secondary school kids or adults. It's a shame, because there are several adults who know how to play the hand drums, but don't seem to want to participate.

Our little group now has 3 djembe drums, a dun-dun, and a few other small instruments--like an old car part as a steel wheel. I hope to experiment and figure out how to make bamboo flutes and xylophones. The idea from those came after seeing some in town, but failing to garner the support to teach the kids how it was made. I'm also hoping to figure out how to transform used cans--mostly vegetable & V8--into single note steel pan drums. So far I'm 0 for 4, I keep breaking them. >.<

We've been able to get the instructional support from a person by the name of Selly from the village of Rose Hall. He is an amazing person and drummer. He lives and breathes community support and activity. The only drawback remains his free time schedule--as he is always busy. We've been practicing late on Saturdays, set for 7pm but often starting later, as that is when he can come. However, the community center where we practice is starting to have other meetings there (often ones I need to attend) and the carrying-sound of the drums are often deafening for those meetings. So we need to find a new night...

Selly and I planned a moonlight drum event that kicked off well this past Saturday night. Of course both he and the moon arrived late, but it went over very well with the community. He was supposed to have his Rose Hall Drummers start at 8pm, but they didn't arrive until 9pm. ECHO, the name of the Spring Group, entertained a few people from 730 till 9 and then after while Selly made other preparations. His group drummed for awhile, perhaps 1030 or so. He was also supposed to bring some dancers to teach Spring people how to do the Quadrille dance--but they were unable to come. That didn't stop him from putting on a little dance show for everyone on his own. ^_^ I also had prepared a long piece of bamboo that Selly affixed with 12 colored ribbons. We closed up the event by trying to teach Spring people how to braid the maypole--a big cultural thing here (probably from the British-origin heritage I think). There were many laughs all around. The whole purpose of the event was to promote the drum and dance activities in Spring Village and hopefully bring out a few older youth/adults. Having the younger kids is fine, but I need to older ones to help teach how to run a community group and do the in-house stuff like set up a CBO bank account. I have to thank the SVG Youth Affairs Department for funding the event--they provided the funds to pay for the Rose Hall Drummers transportation and snacks.

Here are many pic from the event--some are fuzzy as I've been letting a kid (Mixalot) try his hand with my camera, but he hasn't really learned about focus or flash yet. Some of the pics are from Friday night in our little meeting room/workshop and the others are from the Saturday night drum event. All pics can be found on my Facebook album












Below are a few videos of us having fun doing some drumming on our 'off-night'.
You'll probably want to make sure the Heather Small-Proud song is not playing at the bottom of the page.




Stay happy and well
ciao tutti
~your local wannabe jedi
~Shawn