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The beat of peace: ‘Drums Not Guns’ aims to stamp out violence by getting kids to march to a different drum
By Danny Gallagher, McKinney Courier-Gazette
Drums have been utilized as a means of celebrating a sense of community since the dawn of civilization.
“Drums have been used for years as the rhythmic centric of culture to come together to celebrate any activity,” said Randy Harp, treasurer and instructor of Drums Not Guns. “If you go to Africa, you’ll see they use drumming to support farmers while they’re doing their harvest. They use it to support coming of age ceremonies and all sorts of activities.
Drums Not Guns, a drum class that is open to the public, aims to use its original purpose and sense of community to bring people together from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. every Saturday at the Old Settlers Recreation Center.
“DNG started as a means to promote drumming in the community in an effort to support the idea of non-violence,” he said, “drumming as means to bring the community together to reduce violence.”
DNG accomplishes this, Harp said, because the drum is a very human instrument that requires leadership and teamwork in order to achieve harmony.
“It’s an art form that really is something that’s accessible to nearly everybody,” Harp said. “If you’ve got a heartbeat or a walk, then you’ve got rhythm.”
The group uses djemebs and dunduns in their drum circles, two drums of West African origin.
“We work together on a few different rhythms each workshop,” Harp said. “There [are] some rhythms we’ve worked on in the past and some new ones we know very well and we teach these rhythms to the newcomers, so they will have an opportunity to play and an opportunity to learn too.”
Harp said he likes to use West African drums since they planted the deepest roots in most modern and cultural music.
“We are going to branch out and do more Cuban and Latin American rhythms,” Harp said. “We’ve been focusing on West African because a whole tradition of rhythm comes out of West African tradition. It’s actually extended from there…because they are really among the first rhythmic nations.”
The group also has several special performances and events across the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
“We’ve been really focused on working with the young guys and some have really started to put some rhythms together,” Harp said.
Eloy Gomez, 12 of McKinney said he has been going to the Saturday workshops for the past few months, and it’s become part of his weekend routine.
“It was fun when I first went there,” he said. “I got to know more people, and that’s what got me interested to go. It gets more challenging and everything. That’s what I like about it.”
Gomez said the challenge comes from working on songs with his fellow drummers.
“At first, you just go step by step and play the whole song,” he said. “Then we go faster and see how fast we can go and then we just get better and better.”
Harp said that feeling of accomplishment and working together that comes from drumming together builds strong relationships and a sense or purpose.
“Someone can feel a sense of accomplishment from the drums, from teamwork and skills from the process of listening to other drums and working to create rhythm that makes people dance,” Harp said. “So just from going through the process and working together, young people learn how to be something bigger than themselves.”
Contact Danny Gallagher at dgallagher@acnpapers.com. To post comments online, access this story at www.scntx.com.
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The kids in this class work hard on their drumming and they inspire me to work harder. I'm so glad to see a story about DNG and Randy's work. He deserves notice. It's a great class! "