Part of the Utah Core Curriculum for 9th grade World Geography is for students to evaluate and experience how culture influences the way people live in places and regions. One of the units that Mrs. Gardner and Miss Reese teach to help meet this standard is on World Music, and one of the lessons during this unit is for the students to have the opportunity to learn how to play the African drums.
Jeff Ballard, a teacher at Rees Elementary, spent two days at Diamond Fork teaching Mrs. Gardner’s and Miss Reese’s students how to play the African drums. Mr. Ballard has been playing the African drums for 17 years and has accumulated many drums. He brought a drum for each of the students to use as he taught them the different rhythms and techniques of African drumming.
Kaylee Oyler, a 9th grade student at Diamond Fork was asked what she thought of the experience.
“It was fun to hear everyone playing together in rhythm—how the drums sounded all together. Mr. Ballard was easy to understand and everyone learned something new.”
Even Kaylee! As some of you know, Kaylee plays the drums in her all-female band “Fragile Daydream”. Kaylee said that it was, fun for her to learn how to play one drum with her hands and not with sticks. “I was happy to learn the proper technique to hand drumming”, Kaylee said, “and how you can make different sounds the way you hit the drum, and what part of the drum you hit.”
Miss Reese even put Kaylee on the spot and had Kaylee play one rhythm she had just learned all by herself, while Mr. Ballard and Mr. Ballard’s daughter played completely different rhythms. Kaylee did awesome! She didn’t miss a beat!