Hey is that a drum set?

Hey, is that a drum set?

My principal is showing me around, I’m walking the building for the first time. I’ve just been hired to teach middle school and I’m seeing a crowded storage space . There, in the back of the closet stacked up, is an old, but good condition, green Yamaha stage custom drum set.

“Yeah, I think the last teacher kept it in here because the kids wouldn’t stop messing with it”

The next day, I bought an area rug at Walmart set up the drum set.

Hey is that a drum set?

A student is poking her head into my room for the first time. Its at the open house. I’m behind the kit playing some basic beats. Trying to teach myself something before the school year starts, but also trying to make myself audible to new students.

“Yeah, its a drum set? Are you a drummer?”

“ No, but can I try it?”

“Yeah of course, sit here, hold the sticks like this….”

I teach her a 1/4 note rock, grab a bass and we’re jamming. Other students and parents stop in and bop along a little. I introduce myself to the community with the drum set and my new drummer friend for about an hour.

Hey, is that a drum set?

My new drummer friend is about to go off to high school, they’ve been coming after school to learn. They’ve become part of the band. They’re spending a lot of time in the music room and working hard to get better. Now we’re a real band playing a rock song at the concert. They don’t come from a family that could afford to get them a kit. We talked to their mom and then The school staff came together and came up with a few hundred bucks. The drum shop cut me a really great deal on a used Yamaha stage custom. The same kind kit they’re playing at school. This one is red. It’s set up on the stage at the end of year concert with their name on it. They play it with the rock band, bring the house down. They get to take it home.

Hey is that a drum set?

Yeah, I heard you might be interested in a donation of a drum set? We’re moving and I thought the kids might be able to use it?

“Absolutely”

We unload the old pearl kit from her SUV. Later I go to Walmart and buy an area rug. The next day there are 2 drum sets in the music room. One is the “new” beat up old pearl student kit I’d taken out of an SUV the day before.

Suddenly we can have more than one spot for a drummer. There can be one to one lessons. Our General music classes can start to play guitars, bass, drums. We can be a real band. We can write songs that sound like songs

. A student tries the drum set for the first time. She’s always been quiet and reserved. She gets behind the drum set and just comes alive. Suddenly she’s engaged and talking to me. Turns out she’s hilariously sarcastic and incredibly motivated. She moves from general music into the concert band. Teaches herself to read music and becomes a leader in the section. Later that same school year someone would donate another drum set. Now there are enough for there to be a community.

Our student from before is joined by 3 or 4 other students who love playing the drums

Students ask me if I will stay after with them and teach them some drum beats. The drum club is born.

The next year the drum club students band together to get better and share the joyful noise together.

Hey, Is that a drum set?

We’re packing up at the end of class and A 6th grader who struggles a lot, doesn’t talk much, is sitting behind a drum kit in the back of my class and keeping great time. This student has barely spoken to me, or his peers. His whole identity at school has shifted a lot this year, there is a lot of focus on his struggles ( I’ll find out later that this year the student was diagnosed with a learning disability related to reading. They’d been struggling a long time and no one knew because they were passively avoidant and then the pandemic pushed him out of reach.)

“Hey! {Redacted} is that you playing that beat?”

“ Yea.”

“ Why aren’t you coming to drum club? "

"I didn't know I could come"

What? Of course you can come. You should! You sound great! We meet on Wednesday. That’s today. I hope you'll be there.”

At the end of the day, there are the regular customers and then last through the door is {redacted}.

My percussion leader is there. She takes {redacted} under her wing and makes space for him. She teaches him how to do some things. She says things like “it might seem hard the first time you try but you’ll get it” and “ counting it will make it easier all you have to do is ….” She teaches him to play “come together”

The same way she blossomed behind the kit, {redacted} blooms. Now he has a community. He has a place and something he’s good at. Somewhere at school that he’s a leader.

The drum club will later play “Sunshine of your Love” at the end of year concert. Both these students will take solo fills and will get standing ovations from 200 people. Their support of each other and efforts making differences in each others lives in ways bigger than music. They’re connecting to their community entertaining people. Being stars.

We’re leaving the concert now after an amazing performance and I hear someones little brother or sister passing me on the way out the door talking excitedly. “That was awesome! I’m doing that next year! “

“Yeah me too!

Did you see those drum sets?”