On Tuesday, just after our return to school after the Christmas holidays, two classes from P7 went to Derryvolgie Assembly Hall for an interactive drum lesson with a company named, ‘The Gathering Drum"
We got into a circle and our drum teacher, Joe, gave us a brief history of the Tambo poles which we were holding. We were all given either a red, blue or yellow one. We also got a stick to hit it with. We were shown how to do a simple drum pattern. We then played a game where some people had a drum bag put over their head so they couldn’t see and they had to figure out who the mysterious leader was. The leader was able to stop the pattern at any time.
After that, we put the benches in a pentagonal shape so we could all sit down and play the drums. To warm up, we performed a technique called ‘The rainstorm’. We used various parts of our hand against the drum to create very realistic sounds. We played a few more patterns before we performed a traditional North African drum rhythm. The final activity was a ‘Drum Off’. Everyone was very good so there was no definite winner. We both liked this very much and hope that all year groups will be able to experience this great session in the future .
We would like to thank Joe from The Gathering Drum company for giving us such a terrific lesson and wish him a very Happy New Year.
By Conor and Luke Y7 Mc Givern.
