THE DJEMBE BRINGS PEOPLE TOGETHER
Rhythm Culture students get crowd dancing at Ocean Street World Festival
Playing music – any kind of music, is one of the most beneficial things you can do for yourself. Not only is music a science and mathematical, it is a foreign language. From the flute to the banjo, playing an instrument means we keep history alive and they don’t get more ancient than the humble and powerful djembe drum.
Its ability to bring communities together and act as a tool of communication has been well recorded. Every rhythm we play has a special story attached and we see how infectious those stories are when we play together at class or perform in a public setting. During the past Easter long weekend, we had the opportunity to drum at the Ocean Street World Festival and how great was it to see the crowd gather to watch, listen and dance to the music! Check out our photo gallery.
You can’t ask for a better testament to students’ commitment when we put what we’ve learnt into practice and sound as great as we did. It might take months of commitment at class to learn the notes, beats, rhythms and break them into counts, fractions and ghost notes but once you do, it’s so worthwhile. Everyone was smiling from ear to ear afterwards!
It’s one thing mastering rhythms but have you noticed how your focus and co-ordination has improved? It’s also a decent physical workout: your arms, shoulders and core strength benefit greatly from balancing and beating the drum. Turning your attention inwards, have you realized how important breathing is during drumming? The powerful djembe works us inside-out!
OUT OF INTEREST …
- A musician’s brain has a 15% larger corpus callosums – the fibres that connect the left and right hemispheres.
- It has an auditory cortex with 130% more gray matter – where cell bodies, dendrites and axioms exist
- They have larger cerebellums – responsible for motor skills
Source: Head Squeeze
