Picking up the beat at Greenwood School

Kelcy Dolan
Posted 2/26/15

All the students at Greenwood Elementary were moving to the beat of Master Drum Teacher Bob Bloom Wednesday afternoon.

Bloom, who has been performing at elementary schools since 1997, came to …

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Picking up the beat at Greenwood School

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All the students at Greenwood Elementary were moving to the beat of Master Drum Teacher Bob Bloom Wednesday afternoon.

Bloom, who has been performing at elementary schools since 1997, came to Greenwood that morning and worked with the fifth and sixth grade classes on keeping to the beat and using the various drums he brought.

Just before the end of the day, the entire school filed into the auditorium to listen to the kids perform.

Bloom opened the assembly with a solo performance of “Funga Alafia,” a Nigerian children’s tune meaning Song of Greeting.

It’s a call and response song and Bloom quickly got students and teachers alike to echo his words.

Then the fifth-graders came up, playing their “secret instruments,” maracas and other shakers to make their way to the front.

Every student got a percussion instrument and, together, Bloom and the fifth-graders performed “Dancing in the Streets.”

When it was the sixth-graders’ turn, they performed the “Hand Jive” with Bloom.

Bloom also included the audience, telling them that “if they could say it, they could play it.”

He would have them say “Jack jumped over the candlestick,” and “John F. Kennedy” and put them to a beat. Then he would have them clap along to that same beat.

With only a morning to practice, the students did splendidly, keeping the beat and taking direction to go softer or louder, which Bloom called “double awesome.”

“I am not a ‘come watch me’ performer,” Bloom explained. “This show is all for them. If I can get them proud and confident in themselves, get them to work as a team to achieve their goals, then I know it was a good show.”

Music teacher Pamela Lawson met Bloom at a workshop for music teachers and asked him to come perform for the school.

The performance cost the school $1,500, but he did work with the students all morning, did the assembly and even a brief professional development bit with the teachers.

Lawson told the story of one fifth-grade student who had been nervous for the performance all week, saying she wouldn’t be able to do it.

“She came running up to me after the show so excited she had done it,” said Lawson. “A show like this really boosts their confidence personally, musically and socially. They have to work as a team.”

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