A Good Beat

Video Transcript
Note: All WP Saskatchewan video transcripts are edited for flow and readability.

(Joanne) “Well, when it comes right down to it, we all have a beating heart. And you’re not going to find a human in the world who doesn’t have a beating heart. Just heart beat, heart beat, heart beat, heart beat.”

(Narrator) All across the plains of Saskatchewan, one can hear the beat, a primal pulse of rhythm that tells a tale of the connection between all of us.. It’s the sound from within, says drummer, teacher, entrepreneur, and creative of Boomtown Drums, Joanne.

(Joanne) “I would say it’s a matter of exploring what attracts you. I was very attracted to rhythm always as a kid. I know I would annoy my mother dancing to rhythms on records while she had guests. “Okay, that’s enough now, dear.””

“Really it’s people just trying lots of things and finding what you like and what makes you happy. Well, you know, when you’re a teenager, it starts out with liking drummers, and then you get older and too mature for that, so you become a drummer.”

“Many rhythms and many cultures are based on that rhythm of the beating heart. It also goes to your breathing, the pulsing of your blood, the rhythm of walking, the rhythm of the earth, of the sun, the moon, the waves, the ocean. Everything is rhythmic. Even in the animal world, it’s filled with rhythm in what they do.”

“It started because I met an African drummer from West Africa, and he started teaching us drumming at the senior center at the university. As that relationship developed, I started selling drums to students, and it just kept evolving until it became a full time business.”

(Narrator) Yet using the word ‘business’ to describe the efforts of Joanne seems a little cold as it’s much more than dollars and cents. She has continually used her influence in the Saskatchewan drum circles to promote wellbeing, happiness, and health. All through the beat of the drum.

(Joanne) “There’s not much point in a person having a drum unless they have somewhere to play it. And not many people are sitting at home practicing on their drum by themselves. So one of the things I found the most challenging with Boomtown is providing those opportunities for people to have a community to drum with because that’s where the real satisfaction comes. When you go to the science of therapy, the highest rated therapy for anybody is creativity because we all have a desire to express ourselves.”

“The second highest rated one is community. To have a community of support because everybody needs friends and a bit of help. And when I say ‘therapies’, it’s effectiveness of the therapy for the person engaged in it.”

“So I’ve done work with people with schizophrenia, blindness, deafness, people from the Abilities Council who have a whole range of barriers to participating in a lot of activities. So for them, music is just a joy. And even people who are in motorized chairs who are quadriplegic take part. So there’s always a way to communicate through music.”

“And of course, drumming is an essential part of music because when have you ever gone to a dance where there was no beat to dance to?”

(Narrator) It’s that feeling when your toe starts tapping to the chorus all by itself, or you notice you’re somehow going just a little faster in your car after that dance song came on. A good beat definitely affects us all.

(Joanne) “My drum master from Ghana, Joseph Ashong, he says that when people come into the drumming, quite often they look tired, maybe a little bit sad, he said. And by the time they leave, they’re energized and happy and smiling. So that’s how you know, it’s working. People are smiling.”

“Everybody likes to get together and have reasons to get together. So we’ve done block parties, lots of festivals, community festivals like the Cathedral Arts Festival. We do a drum circle every year at the picnic where we take all the equipment and people join in.”

“Many years I worked with Ranch Ehrlo doing supported housing drumming with the residents there just as a positive activity, but to build communication, and teamwork between them too.”

(Narrator) Much like her desire to dance to the rhythm when she was a little girl, the roar of the crowd drew Joanne in. She’s performed all over Saskatchewan at all kinds of events.

(Joanne) “Well, I’ve been in several bands. The band we had with our master from Africa, Joseph, our band was called The Ghanadians because he was from Ghana. And of course you know where we’re from. The other band we were in was a Thursday night jam, we performed earliest and for the longest time called Skin and Bone, the skin of the drum and the bone of the flute.”

“It’s a lot of work performing at events. You know, you go there, you haul all your stuff, you go into many inaccessible places that nobody ever planned to bring a band into. Then, you wait till it’s your turn, and then you run out and make a bunch of noise, and then you put everything away again. It’s called road trip.”

(Narrator) Boomtown is niche spot in a niche province. But that’s okay with Joanne, because to her, it seems as if many Saskatchewan people just want to find a good beat.

(Joanne) “We’ve had groups here, for example, splurge groups – and they pick a different activity to do every time they get together. So quite often they’ll pick here to have a different experience and they have a whale of a time, lots of photo ops and all that stuff.”

“I would say the majority of my work goes with schools, schools and organizations, because when they’re striving to deliver music programs to the youth, hand drum and percussion and rhythm and movement programs are probably one of the most accessible music programs you can have. But this year’s been popular for wellness drumming, where you’re intentionally including health and healing into the program.”

“My most recent connection, without revealing too much, is a university wellness program in Saskatchewan, and so they bought enough drums to equip their wellness program. So I think they’re feeling a little well-er at the moment.”

(Narrator) She doesn’t just sell them, play them, teach others how to play them, and perform on them, Joanne also does drum repairs.

(Joanne) “They sound different depending on the craftsmanship, the content of the wood, the construction. It all makes a difference in the sound of a drum. So if I can restore a drum back to its intended life, give it birth again, so to speak. I had a fellow I just fixed a traditional wood drum for last week and he said, “It sounds better than it did when I bought it.” And it had a lot of construction flaws. But, you know, sometimes when people are making drums and they’re in a poverty situation or a low income situation, they can’t always buy the perfect materials or the perfect construction necessities. So sometimes the drum isn’t as good as it could be. People come in here and say their drum skin is broken so they’ve thrown their drum away. And I just go, “No!”, because they didn’t know you could fix them.”

“I get kind of a steady trickle of drum repairs and I really like doing it. Like I say, it’s a craft. It’s something you do with your hands. You feel good about it. You know what you’re doing, You know, it just feels good. I think I’m the only person in Regina right now. I’m it. You better hope I don’t die too soon.”

(Narrator) As one of the main suppliers and fixers of every kind of drum you can imagine in Saskatchewan, and as a frequent facilitator, Joanne has seen firsthand the interest in drumming in the province.

(Joanne) “The most of interest in drums here is in drums for schools which are quite often the tubolo or the nesting drums because they’re easy to store and you get three in a bag for three students instead of one student. The other are the djembes, the West African style drums, doumbek and those are Middle Eastern drums, and they’re shaped like a short metal goblet. The other thing is the frame drums that I have here, which are any drum built on a frame that’s got a skin stretched across the surface.”

“Frame drums exist in one form or another in every culture. And why? Because they’re easy to construct. You take your goat, you stretch it over the frame, and there you are. You’ve got a frame drum. A djembe is a much bigger construction challenge.”

“People who are a little further into the music want the complementary percussion that goes with that culture. The gankogui bell, claves, cowbells, so every culture has a range of things it uses.”

(Narrator) With a connected community, there is no shortage of players, but Joanne isn’t sure how much longer having a building for Boomtown makes sense.

(Joanne) “I’ve done a lot of workshops in churches and schools and other places around Saskatchewan, but after I go away, there’s no one for them to drum with. So I thought it would be nice to have an online connection with some of those folks.”

“And also a lot of people just want to be part of something. So that would enable people who are living a little more isolated in rural Saskatchewan. It would allow them to have a network of people that they know and connect with and can drop in and visit when they’re in their travels.”

(Narrator) So who should try drumming?

(Joanne) “I think everybody should give it a go. You know, a lot of people I will work with, they’ll come and they’ll say, “I don’t know anything about music. I can’t keep time. You know, I’m probably a terrible drummer.” And I said, well, if your heart is beating, you can probably drum. So I’ve had teachers come for teacher workshops here, and by the end of the workshop it’s like, “Wow, I can drum.””

“We were at Wascana Rehab one time. One day a lady came with her father who had dementia, and she handed him a little wrist bell shaker and sure as guns, he started playing. And she was so surprised, you know, she just didn’t expect that.”

“So people discovering their skills, you know, discovering what they can do. And I think people are generally too hard on themselves. They tend to devalue their abilities and whatnot. So the brave try new things and quite often find that it’s a very good experience.”

(Narrator) And if you listen on a quiet, still, Saskatchewan day you might just hear the beat.

Credits:

Boomtown Drums – Joanne Crofford

Filmed at Boomtown Drums and Such N Stuf in Regina, Saskatchewan.

Music by Skin and Bone – Bossa Nova, Grandmother/Grandfather Song, Kpanlogo, Calypso