Students D.R.U.M. to Their Own Beat

(Newburgh) - A group of students at the Newburgh Enlarged City School District’s Horizons-on-the Hudson Magnet School are banging on bongo drums three days a week as part of the school’s “Options Program,” a wide range of special activities that enable students to explore their gifts and talents outside the regular curriculum.

The 24-session D.R.U.M. option is directed by nationally-known percussionist Jeff Haynes of Komunyaka Music, Inc., who has toured and recorded extensively with Cassandra Wilson, the Pat Metheny Group, Al Jarreau, Boney James, Lizz Wright, Harry Belafonte, Dionne Farris, and Peabo Bryson.

“D.R.U.M. is more than just banging on drums,” said Haynes after one of his recent classes. “I call the program D.R.U.M. because for me the letters stand for ‘Discipline, Respect, Unity and Music.’ We have great minds and strong bodies. We listen to and learn from each other. From many hands we produce one rhythm. We can embrace the world through music.”

During D.R.U.M. sessions, students receive drum and percussion instruction along with instruction in team building and partnership. While learning rhythmic patterns, sounds and tones, they play the drums together, listen to each other, and support each other. As part of the workshop, students are also given an additional opportunity for self expression and personal voice by writing and reciting poems, which they perform to the drum beats of their classmates.

Although Horizons’ D.R.U.M students have already performed once for the students at the Washington Street Pre-K Center, what they’re working towards is a “culminating event,” a grand finale that will be presented as an assembly to other Horizons students and as an evening performance for parents, families and members of the community.

“When you wake up in the morning and start to move, to talk, to walk, to work, to play,” said Haynes, “all in rhythm. All you have to do is listen. That’s what I’m trying to get my students to do, to listen to the rhythms all around them.”

Pictured Above From Top: Percussionist Jeff Haynes (right) accompanies a student as he reads a poem to students in the D.R.U.M. option at Horizons-on-the-Hudson Magnet School.

Percussionist Jeff Haynes works with students at Horizons-on-the-Hudson Magnet School during the three-day-a-week, 24-session “option” program called D.R.U.M.