Drumbeat-Heartbeat

There is tremendous scope for examining major aspects of development of percussion as a force in people’s lives.

Percussion provides opportunities for employment, training and teaching. How can the festival address these possibilities?

Instruments are also made to meet the needs of different users and performers. Is there any scope for making instruments in the UK on a regular basis? Are there skilled instrument makers who could be interested in setting up percussion units?

Research and development: Many percussionists are interested in critical debate and meeting other musicians to share theory and practice. We hope to make a start in this key area of enriching people’s knowledge and skills.

Links with Education: How can Drumbeat-Heartbeat work on formal educational projects, that is, schemes of work aimed at supporting teachers in delivering the National Curriculum? There is a great deal of work to be done. Drumbeat partners have to develop a comprehensive programme which will attract the interest of teachers.

Links with life-long learning: These are educational and skills development projects aimed at supporting informal learning of percussion providers as well as their clients, audiences and collaborators.

Percussion for special needs: Drumbeat aims to become fully accessible and to address the needs of all sections of the community. Many years ago, I had the unique experience of meeting women who were deaf, with varying degrees of impairment, but all of whom could ‘listen’ through their feet. They were excellent dancers as well. 

Percussion for people with disabilities: Drumbeat has to acquire the skills and expertise for working with people with disabilities. Collaborators need to be trained and assessed before they can offer workshops for clients.

Recording and marketing percussion productions: How can Drumbeat create competitive products for the consumer market? Many of the collaborators have produced their own work for the market. However, provided we can generate new work that leads the market on a collaborative basis, there is little scope for marketing CDs, videos, publications and teachers resource materials. Drumbeat-Heartbeat has to acquire the expertise and members have to be trained in these areas of production.

Percussion and intercative media, web-enabled access and downloads: This is a major opportunity for the growth of partners and for distributing work of a high quality for world-wide audiences. The keywords have to be quality and innovation. Drumbeat hopes to explore these areas.