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NEWS
| DECEMBER 2, 2005
Back to a Native Beat
Percussion course has diverse
students excited about spring
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| The Shorthorn: Sara Bookout |
| Percussion adjunct professor
James Yakas, left, and music associate professor Michael
Varner will head an African Music and Brazilian
Samba class in spring 2006. The class will focus on native
groups, performing the music and learning to play the
instruments. |
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By Alyssa
Fry
The Shorthorn staff
A new music class will be offered in spring to allow all students,
not just music majors, the chance to play African and Brazilian
samba music.
The class is listed as a percussion ensemble course and will focus
on percussion instruments, but no previous music experience is required.
Percussion adjunct professor James Yakas said he is very excited
about teaching the class.
“We’re not going to hand you sheet music and say ‘Here,
play this,’ ” he said. “With percussion, it starts
with your heartbeat — as a baby — and that’s part
of everyone.”
Students taking the one-hour class will be presented with audio
and video recordings of native groups performing the music they
will be learning. They will be instructed on the basics of their
instruments and play in an informal setting.
“It’s really communal,” Yakas said. “You
really have to experience it to learn it.”
Yakas will teach the Brazilian samba part of the course, and music
associate professor Michael Varner will focus on the African music
part.
Also offered next spring will be Varner’s Musical Traditions
of the World course, which Varner compares to the African and Brazilian
samba class. The samba class is more hands-on, he said.
“A great part of my world music class is that next to you
would be a nursing major, then the person two chairs over is from
Nigeria,” he said. “You meet people from diverse cultures.
And the difference in this samba class is there is more performing
and playing together, it’s more of a physical activity.”
Varner said he doesn’t want non-music majors to be intimidated,
and that everyone who takes the course will learn something.
“No matter how [musically] talented or untalented, they can
walk away with a smile on their face,” he said.
The announcement was made Tuesday, and percussion performance sophomore
Shannon Jacobs has already registered for the class.
“The heart and soul of all music came from Africa,”
he said. “It’s basically all groove and there’s
a lot of movement to it.”
Jacobs said many percussion students are excited about the class,
and that as a performer, he was interested in the course.
“To learn from professor Yakas, a world-class instructor and
to have the chance to perform it and really have fun with it is
great,” he said.
Percussion performance junior Dustin Demarest said he has also registered
for the class and that being in a class with non-music majors will
help him with “the teaching side of things.”
“Even though I’m a percussion performance major, I’m
most likely going to end up teaching somewhere in my career,”
he said. “This will help us as educators.”
Demarest said he has always been interested in African music, which
is why he took Varner’s world music class. He also said he
likes the freedom that the musicians have.
“A lot of it is feeling; it’s not reading music,”
he said. “You’re feeling it and having fun.”
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