Author: Facundo Alvarez, Percussion teacher and Facilitator
Along that time I helped thousands of people, from different ages and musical brackground, to start their learning path in percussion.
My teaching mantra is “Percussion is for everybody and everybody can learn to play percussion”
In this blog I want to share with you some of the stuff I learned along that journey to help you start your own learning path in percussion.
So, if you´re looking for new challenges or ir you´re looking for an activity to unleash all your creativity and energy, stay tuned because next I´m going to tell you the 7 reason why learn to play percussion is going to help you achieve that and also will change and improve your life.
First I have to say that Percussion Instruments were the first musical instruments used for mankind to make music, so they’re the best way to connect with our musical abilities.
No matter your age or musical skills, anyone can play percussion instruments and make music with them.
When we grow up we disconnect with this intuitive way of learning and we start to use more rational ways to learn. Basically, what happens is that we stop playing and we start to learn with more formal and structured methods.
However, that natural bond with music doesn’t disappear. It is still almost asleep waiting for the chance to come alive again.
And, anybody can develop this ability. Anybody, so if you think you don’t have musical skills, or think that you don’t have a musical ear, forget about those beliefs and move forward with your desire of playing a percussion instrument and making music.
To sum up, percussions gives us a direct connection to our ability to play, to make music and what’s more important with our ability to have fun.
When we play percussion, we dive in a unique and complete musical experience. Body, Mind and Soul come together in a way that doesn’t happen with any other musical instrument, and that makes us vibrate in a unique and different way.
The key element of this experience is what I call The “Groove”, which is the exact moment in our playin in which Rhythm, Tempo and Energy align, and we connect strongly with the music that we´re playing and with all the other percussionists that are playing with us.
¡Yes!, When we arrive at that stage in our playing we are in control of the situation and that allows us to flow with our instrument and also let us focus on developing and releasing all the music that we have inside us.
My mantra as teacher and facilitator is that: Percussion for everybody and everybody can learn to play percussion.
And that is so because Percussion allows anybody who wants to learn and make music to achieve that goal, no matter your age, skills and musical background.
Rhythm and Percussion is part of our DNA, so any of us can perform simple actions such as play the pulse with a bass drum, play a shaker along a song or play a simple rhythm with a drum.
Percussion instruments activate our musical instincts, allowing us to connect naturally with the musical knowledge and facilitating our learning process in music.
That is why Percussion Instruments are ideal for beginning musical learning and practicing. No matter your age or musical background, all you need is to have the desire to learn.
So cheer up!
There is a huge diversity of percussion instruments that you can play, some of them are simple and others complicated. Some are small and some are really big. Some are hard to play, but others are really simple. This makes it easier for us to find the right instrument that suits our skills and needs to express our musical ideas.
Being, the percussion instruments, so many and diverse, the percussion ensemble is a space of diversity in which different instruments such as: Conga, Bongo, Djembe, Cajón, Bass Drum, Shakers, Cowbells, Claves, among others get together and shares a musical conversation in which each of them contribute with their own sound and identity.
The Percussion Ensemble allows everybody to join in and participate in a collective symphony.
So, we can draw two conclusion: first, everybody is welcome to percussion, It´s not just a place to enlightened people. And second, everybody can learn and play percussion.
So again, cheer up!
In the Online Percussion Classes, I offers individual and face to face classes for you to start learn to play percussion from scratch and learn to play and make music with the percussion instrument you like – Bongó, Cajón, Conga, Djembé or Timbal Brasilero.
In the Online Percussion Courses I offer you different options for you to start to play percussion from scratch, develope as percussionist and learn to play and make music with the percussion instrument that you like: Bongo, Cajón, Conga, Djembé or Timbal Brasilero
When we play percussion we simultaneously set different parts of our body in motion, such as hands, wrist, arms, shoulders, legs, among others.
All of them are coordinated so that we can play and make music with our instrument.
The repeated movements that we make to play a percussion instrument have a positive impact on our muscular and aerobic capacity.
In addition, by using different parts of the body in combination, playing percussion also improves our coordination and reflexes, and at the same time it improves our ability to respond to different stimuli such as: sounds, singings, voices, among others.
In a way, by playing percussion you would not only be learning music, but you would also be acquiring new skills that you could apply both to playing percussion and to other activities that require it like: acting, dancing, playing sports among others.
When we play a percussion instrument our brain is dealing with a lot of stimulation. It receives a lot of information that it has to process fast to help our body to respond musically with our hand and the instrument we´re playing.
All these intensive brain activities involved in playing a percussion instrument have a beneficial impact in our cognitive skills improving our memory, our listening skills and our ability to evaluate different situations and make decisions, among other abilities.
in the heart of percussion there is a need to get together, share and play along with other people. That’s why the percussion ensemble is so important, because it is in there where everything comes together and music happens.
And that’s a experience that only the percussion gives you, none other musical instrument gives that kind of experience.
As you can see, they´re a lot benefits that you can get from learning to play percussion.
So, if you are searching for an activity to develop your creativity and abilities, I think that percussion is the best option for you.
Don´t hesitate to try it, because you won´t regret it.
Thanks for reading the article.
See you soon!
For 20 years I´ve dedicated myself to develope educational and recreational materials and experiences, with the goal of facilitate access to percussion learning to people of all ages
In all the projects I work motivated by the premise that "Percussion is for everybody" and that "Everyone can learn to play percussion".
My main goal is to help, as many people as I can, to live the unique experience of making music with percussion instruments.