Drumming Workshops

Perfect for your company's annual conference where time is of the essence. Drumming sessions can cater for groups of all ages, all sizes and all abilities.

We bring facilitators and drums and percussion to any venue in the UK or Europe and provide your company or organisation with an event that will have them talking for years! Whether you are running a team-building event, company conference, seminar or for any other event where more than two people gather, let us add the Energy and Spirit of the Drum!

Warm Up - To break the ice and make participants comfortable and confident of their ability to take part, (as there are likely to be some who are apprehensive about the idea of drumming or making music), with a variety of humorous and simple activities including air-drumming, drumming on hands of colleagues, a Mexican Wave, clapping and stamping rhythms, finger clicking, and repeating fun 'drum language' words and phrases.

Part 1 - Drums

After the warm up all the delegates are given a hand drum or sound shape drum (flat drum struck with a beater), and start with a simple uplifting rhythm with everyone playing in unison, accompanied by the drum leader and assistants. Everyone has natural rhythm and is able to participate in the session – much of the initial success comes from the fact that within a minute of commencing delegates are an integral part of a group creating a wonderful tribal drum beat. This makes for a powerful and inspiring start to the session, with a lot of humour as well.

After this the delegates are taught a Japanese Kodo style rhythm called Heartbeat, which is a very energetic and humorous part of the session, and always ends in a huge cheer with everyone uplifted.

Part 2 - Percussion

The delegates are divided into 4 groups and each assigned to a group of musical instruments that have been distributed around the perimeter of the room – fruit shakers/tambourines/cowbells, sound shapes, drums, and some unusual fun instruments such as didgeridoos, wobble boards, washboard, kazoos, harmonicas, sound effects etc... The idea of using different types of instrument is to make the session more varied and also to use different muscles and parts of the body – hands and arms can get tired if you’re not used to drumming…

After a brief instruction on how to play the instruments, the participants play a piece accompanied by the drum leader on drum kit, who provides a strong rhythm to latch on to. During the course of the session the delegates move around the instruments so that everyone has a turn on all the different types of percussion. Using a variety of techniques, including call and response, changes in dynamic and tempo, and generalised world music rhythms, participants create an energising and impressive sound in harmony.

Part 3 - Boomwhackers

The delegates will return to their seats and join in a boomwhacker orchestra. Boomwhackers are coloured plastic tubes that are struck on the hand (or any other part of the body!) and play musical notes. When each colour is given a different rhythm to play a tuneful boomwhacker orchestra is created. They will then use the boomwhackers to create the Close Encounters Of The Third Kind theme tune which slowly gets quicker and quicker and is great fun!