WPSIS/HMS Rhythm: Drums & Curriculum — $2860

Curricular Area: Arts
Grant Focus: Band Instruments
Schools: Wallace & Priscilla Stevenson Intermediate School; Henkle Middle School
Items Purchased: Equipment to build 11 small drum sets: Tubano drums, kick pedals, HiHat stands and cymbals, Drum lifts, Rhythm Lid snare clipss, Drum mute sets

This grant provides funds to purchase equipment to build 11 small drum sets for use in the WPSIS and HMS music and band classes. The drum kits will be used together with existing drum kits and the free Band Lab app to support a new rhythm and drumming curriculum designed by the instructor.

From the applicant:

By learning to play popular music, and giving kids hands-on experience with real drum sets, I aim to inspire a life-long love of music. Second, I aim to improve the rhythm sightreading skills of our current and future band students. Learning to look at standard music notation and perform correct rhythms consistently and independently is very difficult. Many students struggle with this skill-set, and rely on copying other students due to their low ability with rhythmic sightreading skills. I want to help kids build a solid and dependable foundation with musical rhythms. I aim to do this by engaging kids through a variety of learning strategies and team-based activities, inspiring them through hands-on drum set playing, and encouraging them to experience rhythms with their bodies, as well as with their ears and minds. This project also aims at empowering students to create original music. They will first learn to play drumming patterns commonly found in a variety of musical styles. They will then take those fundamental skills and use them to create their own drumming patterns and musical compositions.

To reach these goals, I have designed a new rhythm and drumming curriculum for 4th and 5th grade general music classes, all 5th-8th grade bands, and 2 new HMS Digital Music Production classes. Students will learn to play drum sets in a variety of musical styles (jazz, rock, country, reggaeton, and hip hop), while simultaneously learning to program digital drum machines, building skills in rhythm sightreading and notating/transcribing, and in the case of Band students, applying these new skills to their work in their wind ensembles. Students will work in small teams using Cooperative Learning strategies, growing their capacity for creative problem-solving, empathy, communication, and listening skills - all essential 21st Century life and work skills.