The beating heart of most of the music most people listen to most of the time is rhythm and groove. In the genres and styles that surround us and absorb us in movies, podcasts, TV shows, sports events, on the radio, in malls and grocery stores, in restaurants, bars, and streamed on the phones of children we teach, that rhythm is played on drums. Specifically, it is played on a drum kit or programmed electronically to sound like a one. The elitist (and largely drum-less) Western Art Music (WAM) tradition propped up by schools and colleges accounted for 1% of the music consumed globally in 2020 and has long been a societal anomaly in the U.S. Some believe classical music is better than other music, as though there were a competition. But all music is made in, for, and by people in specific cultural contexts. It is, therefore, an error to view Western Art Music as ahistorical artistic factotum.
The concert music of eighteenth century Western European bourgeoisie resonates about as much among today’s culturally pluralistic American public school population as any other social norms from that bygone era, like corsets, sleeve ruffles, and dysentery. It is clear, though, that at least 99% of everyone agrees that a compelling, toe-tapping, butt-twerking groove is essential to music they like. Critical theorists might ask whether we genuinely love this music or if we are merely familiar with it. However, historians, ethnomusicologists, and sociomusicologists have pointed for years to the ubiquity of drumming and rhythm in music making practices worldwide. Sure, Haydn wrote some chipper tunes, and Bach’s stunning productivity and consistency of style and output as a jobbing organist are commendable. But apart from, say, an especially vigorous Minuet and Trio, you can’t even dance to most classical music! Rubato is all well and good, but it’s doesn’t help anyone work out harder, wash the dishes with a spring in their step, or lip-sync to Cardi B, Ne-Yo, or Billie Eilish.
The notion that WAM is innately superior to any other music is as untenable as claims that, say, your favorite café serves the best cup of coffee, or that America is the greatest country on earth. My British compatriots like dry, witty humo(u)r and socialized healthcare, while Americans go more for strip malls and low gas prices. Once more, for the people in the back: it’s not a contest. We all like and value different things. Different strokes for different folks, folks.
The persistent primacy of WAM in repertoire and curricula in school is called Eurocentrism. This term seems strangely out of place in a country so patriotic as the United States, whose proud exceptionalism often seems aimed at distinguishing it from old-world ideals. Nonetheless, this centering of a narrow set of marginal musical practices has had the effect, in turn, of marginalizing majority musical styles like hip hop, R’n’B, country, heavy metal, pop, and rock. All these are fundamentally reliant on groove and rhythm, and they have deep roots in North America. It is possible, if a little simplistic, to trace contemporary popular styles back to jazz, which some have identified as the true national music of the United States. Jazz music, and the complex polyrhythms on which it is based, stem in large part from African musical styles that merged with immigrant styles in new world communities among the free and enslaved. Rhythm-based music is America’s music, birthed from Black musical practices and expression. As author, professor, and musician Ed Sarath had noted: Black Music Matters, and it could matter a lot more in schools.
As well as being rooted in rhythm, popular and jazz music are often deeply improvisational, especially for drummers, whose contributions are frequently not written down. Drummers get to create their own parts, usually in their heads. When drum kit charts in jazz and popular styles are written out in Western staff notation, they fail to capture the most essential elements of a rhythm – groove and improvisation – which are necessarily highly unique particular to individuals. Drummers are usually very well aware of their rhythmic heritage and forbears, since so much learning of drums happens aurally and autodidactically, alongside peer learning and mentoring that characterize drummers’ journeys. Professor of American Music, George E. Lewis, calls this consciously historic approach, steeped in tradition and cultural memory, “Afrological”, identifying it not as an ethnic label, but a mode of improvisation rooted in some African cultural practices. Drumming scholars have similarly noted how improvisation is a powerful way to connect present, past, groups, individuals, tradition and invention. Nonetheless, improvised drum music is rarely a feature of curricula or concerts in school music classes.
Here is a recent experience of mine:
In a faculty meeting, a senior colleague asserts with increasing vehemence that fluency in Western tonal harmony is a vital attribute for any ethnomusicologist. Despite the current highly visible, university-wide anti-racist initiative, the professor seems blissfully aloof from the notion that their own tradition, as one among many, might be relatively no more important than any other system of understanding organized sound. Other colleagues feverishly text-chat about how privileging this one system highlights the cultural dominance of a singular way of hearing music. I have never been good at speaking up in meetings. I need time to process how I feel and to decide how to respond to this; to what sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu, termed symbolic violence.
I book two hours in the glass-fronted street-level art gallery at Boston University’s College of Fine Arts. Two weeks later I drive to campus and set up my drums in the empty gallery. I improvise for 45 minutes, inspired by hip hop drummers Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson and Lenny “The Ox” Reece. I pay homage to Max Roach, who did more than any drummer to pioneer the drum kit as a solo instrument. I play covers of Roach’s famous solos, “The Drum Also Waltzes” and “Mop Mop” / “For Big Sid”. Roach was a Civil Rights activist who played drums with speeches by his contemporary, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King earned his doctorate from Boston University. It is my honor today, in a very small way, to pay tribute to the work of two towering figures in American music and culture. I am wearing a charcoal and white pinstripe suit with polished black shoes as an homage their sharp dress, with a Black Lives Matter t-shirt and mask to underline my reason for drumming.
The symbolic violence of Eurological Eurocentrism is exacted and experienced as real violence. As such it impacts our students. It tells them whose music, traditions, and selves are valued. Drumming today comprises a broad range of practices using acoustic and electronic drums, body percussion, smartphones, tablets, and more. I encourage music teachers to explore improvised drumming with your students. Improvising can be intimidating at first, but in a compassionate, safe space it can be freeing, build community, and bring joy. Collective improvising can lower music makers’ anxieties. They can play “drums” with sticks, hands, thighs, chairs, tabletops, floors, buckets, drums of all shapes and sizes, tablets, beatboxing, and all manner of other sound effects. Grooving together is exhilarating!
Teachers can also introduce students to drummers improvising on YouTube in a range of styles and have students discuss what they see and hear. Have them develop beats using preexisting loops or their own invented patterns in GarageBand, Soundtrap, Groove Pizza, and other apps. Find out who in your classes already plays drums, who make beats, and who beatboxes. Acknowledge the richness of students’ musicking and encourage them to improvise rhythmically together. They don’t even need to perform. Doing music, grooving together is the point. Relish and cherish the vital, physical, emotional, spiritual, ancient, contemporary, magical music of drumming.