An off the spur …”must try new things” moment, sent me in the direction of African Drumming…and a beginners class run by Steve Rivers of Unbeatable Energy
The class runs in an upstairs room of an old building owned by the Sheffield Transport Club. Several djembe drums are cased and ready for those without their own to grab and uncase.
We start with a warm up session involving rubbing hands over the drum skin to warm hands and drum. Then several stretches for the hands and arms.
Then we begin. First a quick instruction on how to hit/tap the drum using the flat hand for centre boom, and more of the finger tips for the edge sounds. Then we begin a basic rhythm with Steve overlaying a more detailed pattern. It’s an easy pattern to pick up and soon we’re moving into more advanced sequences…and the more experienced students take on different patterns. So a full sound begins to emerge and I, on my first ever session, am fully engrossed in a series of beats. Great fun. We learned how to do loud clapping and then applied this pattern to drumming. The session was soon over and I came away exhilarated, and with slightly sore hands.
I’m looking forward to my next session.
