Skip to main content
Login
Phoenix School
MENU
News Item

Ray Stevenson --- Indigenous Drummer

January 16, 2019

The Indigenous Drummer, Ray Stevenson, worked with all of our classes for two sessions each in December.  The children were introduced to Indigenous drumming and singing. Here is what two grade 5 students wrote about this experience.

 

Hi, my name is Landon and I am going to talk about the Drummer that came to my school.  He taught me and my class lots of stuff!  He taught us some songs like 'Coco's Colas'.  He made that song because his nick-name is Coco!  He also taught us a song called 'Santa is Coming to Town!' He is so fun to be with and he taught us to drum different beats and songs!     He recorded us to see how we sounded.  That's all I have to say.  I hope you enjoyed the article.

Landon F.

 

The Indigenous Drummer came to Phoenix School three times and taught our class 4 songs including a Christmas song.  During the visits we only used drums and our voices.  Sometimes the drummer played alone and sometimes all of us    played along.  My favourite was when we got to play along.

 

The drummer told us about the different beats and how to listen to the ends of the song and how the structure of the song went.  We played a game where we would learn to stop drumming and try to end at the same time.  This was a fun game. We learned the singing lyrics by copying him after each line.  He also told us about song beats that are played differently for people who have died.   He told us why the drum is a circle --- and that it represent the circle of life.

 

He told us several stories that went along with the songs and about playing the songs. He played some pre-recorded songs that had him drumming and singing; and whether he wrote those songs.  All of the stories, songs and drumming were  amazing!

Sophie D. drummer 2.jpg