At Lewiston Middle School each seventh grade team is given a musical elective that they could attend during their study hall period. Team 73 is the chorus team,and team 72 is the band team. What is team 71? Drums. Hand drums to be more specific.

If I was on team 71, I would have thought that these instruments would be impossible to play, but you don’t need any musical training before attending this. You could attend to this without even knowing that the instrument was called a drum. Hopefully you do, but you don’t need to.

Students don’t learn by traditional music note reading. The students participating learn by watching and listening, known as the aural tradition. The students play drums that are based on African style drums and other instruments. The names of the drums used are, tubanos, djembes, and conga drums. They also use African bells called gankoguis, cow bells, and an instrument called Shakere. These students meet two times a week in the six day cycle for one quarter.

There is no official concert, but last year some students who wanted to, performed at the Lewiston Middle School Pride Assembly. We hope to see some students perform this year. I know that I am excited to see them play the drums and I know lots of other students are too!