Bengal Beat concludes year with final concert

For some Central Middle School students finding a musical instrument to play isn't as hard as it sounds. Using empty water jugs, plastic buckets and whatever they found in their classroom, students in the Bengal Beat and Pit Crew learned how to pound out a beat.

After a month of practice, they turned the simple nursery rhyme "Jack Be Nimble" into a song reminiscent of the musical group Stomp. The Bengal Beat drum corps and Pit Crew performed the number at their final concert Thursday. Almost all the students are finishing the sixth grade but a few members were fifth-graders.

The Bengal Beat is the name of a 16-member drum corps. The Pit Crew is a group of xylophone players that usually accompanied the vocal choir but teamed up with classmates for a percussion concert.

Pushing brooms across the gymnasium floor, scraping washboards and thumping water bottles, the students tapped their hands and counted out measures.

The instruments aren't typical of an orchestra, but it reinforces what Dumey teaches in her classroom: any child can become a musician, almost instantly.

Using the Orff-Schulwerk teaching method, she teaches her music students how to play songs by learning a beat. They practice the tunes on recorders, maracas, bongos and xylophones in the classroom. Once they learn the patterns by clapping or drumming, they can advance to musical notes and songs.

At home, they use tabletops, televisions, and anything stationary to practice their drum beats. Robert Penny, a member of the Bengal Beat, admits he's used tabletops and counters practicing the songs at home. "Yeah, it's been driving my parents crazy," he said.

Linda Pittman hasn't been terribly bothered by the drumming her son, Bart, did. But later this summer, when he gets drumsticks in preparation for playing the snare drums next school year, that might change, she said.

And some of the songs were wildly popular with the students: The Middle Eastern Piece ranked among the top favorites. Only seven songs were played during the 40-minute concert.

In the concert program, Dumey wrote that the Middle Eastern song has "been drummed on desktops, books, tables or any reasonably flat surface available for the last several weeks."

But few of the students would have been playing on the drums without a donation from Debra Mitchell-Braxton. Dumey had applied for a grant to purchase the extra drums needed for the group but didn't receive the award.

After hearing the group perform and realizing that there were only half as many drums as students, Mitchell-Braxton made a donation to the school.

"I want every child to succeed," she said. She was most impressed with the students' exposure to different cultures through the music and drum corps, she said.

The students played songs of African style but next year's group will likely learn more West African music after Dumey attends a workshop this summer at the University of St. Thomas.

ljohnston@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 126