On the first floor of the Mahurin Honors College, you can feel the energy in the air as you hear the faint beat coming from Bucket Drumming class. Walking into the multipurpose room, you see students sitting comfortably in chairs, each with a tall bucket out front and holding a set of drumsticks. On the big pull-dowon screens are giant notes that follow along to the song “Africa” by Toto. Students read and play along, drawing on previous lessons from instructor Stephanie Berec. She introduced the students to quarter notes, eighth notes, quarter rests, and the note with the “x” which meant to click the drumsticks together. Students were already working together with the appropriate beats, rests, and clicks.
“My goal is to provide a space where each student experiences the spark of joy that comes with learning and making music with friends,” Berec said.
The next song the campers worked on was “We Don’t Talk about Bruno” from the Disney movie Encanto. Before using the drums with sticks, they read the notes on the screen aloud together. “Shh, click, tee tee, click” then “tee tee, tee tee, tah tah.” After repeating the words to get the needed rhythms in their minds, the campers began to play the drums with the music. It was quite the scene to watch 15 students drum in perfect unison.
Camper Thea S. is no stranger to music. She takes music at her school, so the notes and some of the exercises in class were familiar. When asked about the drumming class, she said, “It’s fun! My favorite song we’ve played so far is ‘All Star’ from the movie ‘Shrek.’ ”
