Music Is Not for Insects

Have you ever had students say to you, “I don’t need math, I’m going to be a musician!” Why not introduce them to world-renowned drummer Ndugu Chancler, who explains why math is essential to music?

This is the synopsis of a great six minute video featuring professional drummer Ndugu Chancler over at The Futures Channel. This video is for kids of all ages narrated by a world class drummer who not only makes some connections to math and music, but gives you some resources for introducing basic rhythmic values to your students.
I showed this video to my piano lab students last week and I was able to teach a mini-lesson on rhythm. I simply notated the examples Ndugu showed on the video using drum set notation similar to the examples below (these were taken from Bill Powelson’s School of Drums website):

Then we played the rhythms on our imaginary drum set using our right foot for the quarter note, right hand for snare drum, left hand for the cymbal and engaged the students in creating rhythms that were fun. We became drummers dude! Much more exciting than rhythm cards to be sure.

In addition to showing the various rhythmic units as they relate to various styles (rock, reggae, samba, etc.), Ndugu shows how he uses a drum machine and computer to create tracks. It’s a great intro into multi-track recording and ends with this insightful quote-

Technology by itself is not creative. Technology gets creative based on the creativity of the musician behind the technology.

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