Drumming Ensemble Resources
List of Resources Needed to Create New Classes Including Materials and Supplies
Beare, Patrick. “Q&A on creating and running a Steel Drum Band.” personal interview via email, 2026. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_IV8kBRMQPkvY1SG4LUP8ZKt0EFolaAG/view?usp=drive_link
Patrick Beare was the band director at Tony Hillerman Middle School in the Albuquerque Public School district, and creator of an after-school Steel Drum Band program 2016-2022. In this resource he shares his experience from creating this program and restrictions with PED class codes. He talks about brands of drums he liked, shipping considerations, instrumentation, curriculum, arrangements, and published repertoire. He also gives advice on how to start, motivation for why to include such a class in your program, and benefits to a different ensemble setting. He addresses challenges in vertical alignment and tuning problems. This is a helpful interview source to guide teachers interested in starting steel drum bands in secondary schools.
Fields, Lisa. “Build Teamwork with Drum Circles.” Yamaha Music (blog), 2018. https://hub.yamaha.com/music-educators/prof-dev/teaching-tips/teamwork-drum-circles/.
This guide lists reasons why drum circles are valuable, including that they help promote teamwork, sharpen listening skills, rhythmic accuracy, ensemble playing, relieve stress and are a means of celebration. This article gives guidance on how to incorporate drum circles into an existing music ensemble or class. It would be a useful resource for educators looking to incorporate drum circle benefits into an existing ensemble, or creating a new ensemble strictly for world drums. The article is easy to understand and breaks down successful drum circle practices for someone who has never experienced one previously.
Kalani. “Create Your Own Drumming Ensembles; Tips from a Pro.” YouTube, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyMLYSMnuag.
This resource is a 12-minute video by professional percussionist and world drumming educator and composer, Kalani. He shows how to create drumming and percussion parts for ensemble play, how to avoid common arranging mistakes, and create ensembles for music education, song accompaniment, dance, and world music. This video is applicable for music educators. He encourages use of original rhythms as well as culturally specific rhythms. He discusses instrument selection for ensembles including drums and handheld percussion instruments to fill the sonic spectrum from low to high. This resource is valuable as Kalani’s perspective on this topic has great depth.
Literature on this topic educators
(coming soon)
Curriculum, Method Books, and Lesson plans structured around national music standards
Coles, Nathan. “Integrating World Music into the Percussion Ensemble with Dr. Ryan C. Lewis.” Black Swamp Percussion, 2024. https://www.blackswamp.com/post/integrating-world-music-into-the-percussion-ensemble.
This resource teaches how to integrate world music into percussion ensembles and specifically addresses Japanese, Indonesian, Brazilian and Afro-Amero fusion styles of drumming. There is a multicultural drum circle lesson plan, examples of selected world music rhythms, and an extensive table of selected ensemble repertoire sorted by country/region, and lists composers and traditional numbers of players. At the end of this article, there is a great reference source list with credible resources for further research and study.
Music Will. “Drums.” Musicwill.org, 2026. https://jamzone.musicwill.org/instrument/drums/.
The Modern Band method, created by the organization Music Will, teaches students how to play rhythm on drum kits, including the bass, snare, and high hat cymbals. Their website offers a free PDF resource that teaches parts of a drum kit, how to hold drumsticks, read rhythms (both iconic and standard notation), and provides exercises to build rudiments, teach accents, and coordination. Many students can learn how to play the drum kit without a drum using a body percussion method that Music Will teaches. They also offer more than 17 video drum lessons, and more than 90 drum skill builder audio files (in slow, medium and fast tempos) where students can practice specific drum beats. Music Will’s method focuses on aural fluency and does it through modern pop songs in a very effective way. All the resources mentioned above are free. There is a printed book that goes along with the other modern band instrument books, which can be purchased at https://a.co/d/0iOtAfcX. The book advertises online access to PLAYBACK+ which provides interactive audio tracks and video demonstrations. Students can slow down tracks, loop sections, and adjust playback for personalized learning. This is a great resource for educators who want to teach modern band drum skills to students. Of interest--Music Will created a small, portable, soft drum kit called the Zip-Kit that packs into the bass drum and is light enough to wear as a backpack. Learn more at https://musicwill.org/zip-kit/.
Schmid, Will. “World Music Drumming Curriculum and Resources.” Music Workshops LLC/Hal Leonard Corporation, 2023. https://www.worldmusicdrumming.com/wmd-resources.
This resource is an excellent place for music educators to learn more about teaching West African, Caribbean, and Latin drumming and singing traditions. This source offers a complete curriculum that was created with the help of Ghanaian Master Drummer Sowah Mensah and field tested and revised over the past 30 years by elementary and middle school students and teachers. The curriculum is taught during summer workshops and has 7 units of study with 33 sequential lessons. This resource also has a list of valuable teaching resources, including a playalong recording list, a downloadable PDF document addressing drum purchasing issues, how to disinfect drums, tuning tubanos and bongos, and ideas for obtaining grants.
Werdon, Ryan. “World Music Drumming Starting Guide for Teachers.” Watertown Mayer Middle School, 2026. https://currikicdn.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/resourcedocs/56bab82555f52.pdf.
This starting guide for world drumming ensembles is a free 4-page PDF written by a middle school music teacher, Ryan Werdon. The guide contains a list of books, multimedia resources, and materials needed. He also outlines a sample curriculum to include movement and dance activities, culture and history topics, literacy activities, and daily exercises for class. Further, this resource covers activities for ensembles and small group work, and games. This is a great outline for starting a world drumming class for secondary music students.
Videos
Kalani. “World Drum Club.” YouTube, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoHRTcC-DTYaHdIbErwyDxQ.
World Drum Club is an excellent world drumming and percussion channel, with over 500 videos that include lessons, tutorials, reviews, documentaries, performances, interviews and more. This resource also presents instrument demonstrations, rhythms for drumming, musical examples, and features popular instruments, such as congas, bongos, djembe, dundun, darbuka (doumbek), and hand percussion (shakers, cowbell, agogo, claves, and more). World Drum Club helps music educators learn more of the music of the Caribbean, Brazil, West Africa, and beyond, offering useful information to bring more world drumming into the classroom. World Drum Club is for teachers, students, performers, individuals and groups. This channel is created by professional drummer Kalani and widely subscribed/viewed.
Kennedy Center Education Digital Learning. “Five(ish) Minute Drum Lesson by Farai: African Drumming Lesson 1, The Djembe.” YouTube, 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5U8md4rZS8.
African drummer Farai educates musicians about the djembe and talks about its historical importance to the Mali Empire. This is the first of a two-part series by the Kennedy Center Education Digital Learning organization. In the second video (found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuQFbD43P4k) Farai teaches the West African fanga rhythm and uses the bass, tone and slap from the first lesson. Farai is interesting, clear and informative. These are short but effective videos that enhance world drumming teaching and learning.
Manuel, Doug. “Do You Speak Djembe?” TEDxHollywoodTalks on YouTube, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uB9xzYL1DU.
Doug Manuel gave this 16-minute talk at a local TEDx event in 2016. Manuel has been building bridges between Africa and the Europe and America for more than 20 years. His latest project ‘Do You Speak Djembe?’ brings together a band of world-class African and international musicians in an innovative fusion of music and rhythm from different cultures. In this talk each audience member (lay public) performed with a Djembe drum. He gives instructions to the non-musicians in the audience, teaching them about bass tones and higher tones on the edge of the drum and leads them through a group drum circle. This is useful to see how one might teach a drum circle and these rhythms to a group of beginners and how it connects everyone in the group.
Assessments
Leonard, Hal. “World Drumming Self-Assessment Form.” Hal Leonard, 2015. https://s3.amazonaws.com/halleonard-closerlook/00141641/SelfAssessmentRubric.pdf.
This resource is a self-assessment form for World Music Drumming playing. The form uses a scale of 1-5 for students to evaluate the group and self-playing. The “score the group” section asks students to list and score the instruments used from 1-5 (low to high) and invites the student to write comments after each instrument. The “score your own playing” section uses a rating scale of 1 as “never”, 3 as “about half the time”, and 5 as “always”. This is a good resource for self-reflection and analysis of a group, as well as building assessment and self-awareness skills.
Whitman, Vincent. “Drumming Rubric.” Scribd, 2026. https://www.scribd.com/document/651183070/Drumming-Rubric.
The document provides a rubric for evaluating drumming performance across four levels. The rubric includes criteria for tempo, rhythm, notation, and composition. For each criterion, the rubric describes the expectations for a level 1, level 2, level 3, and level 4 performance. There are no points associated with this rubric but it could be customized easily. The entire document is viewable for free, but to download this document one must subscribe with a free trial to scribd.
Young at Heart Music. “World Drumming: Ensemble 1 Standards Based Rubric.” TPT, 2024. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/World-Drumming-Ensemble-1-Standards-Based-Rubric-1570593.
This resource is a set of 5 rubrics geared towards assessing a middle school drumming class and is intended to accompany Will Schmid’s World Drumming Curriculum, Ensemble 1. It outlines proficiencies in all the areas covered in Ensemble 1 including playing position and technique, performance of parts, echo patterns, call & response, rhythm complements, general classroom procedures, and writing assignments. It is an inexpensive resource and helpful so teachers don’t have to build a rubric from scratch.
Other useful resources
Planet Drum is a two-time Grammy award winning global percussion ensemble bringing together the world’s greatest rhythm masters into a one-of-a-kind supergroup. They are an inspiring resource to use in class. Led by former Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart, the group explores international rhythms in several videos. They have recorded three primary studio albums: Planet Drum (1991), Global Drum Project (2007), and In the Groove (2022).
3-minute introduction video https://youtu.be/_YXCLYVjDDk?si=7Rou7JEyNq4n50_mhttps://youtu.be/_YXCLYVjDDk?si=7Rou7JEyNq4n50_m
13-minute video of Planet Drum at the GeoSessions originally created at NatGeoMusic.net https://youtu.be/x-HbNHFrrMU?si=YZFgg1ER66MICddDhttps://youtu.be/x-HbNHFrrMU?si=YZFgg1ER66MICddD
2-minute video showing when Planet Drum reunited in 2022 to make their first music together in 15 years, featuring renowned global rhythm masters Mickey Hart (USA), Zakir Hussain (India), Giovanni Hidalgo (Puerto Rico) and Sikiru Adepoju (Nigeria) in the studio. https://youtu.be/jcT1yYqE9O8?si=cuNW_q6WJR_Hmai7https://youtu.be/jcT1yYqE9O8?si=cuNW_q6WJR_Hmai7
Gaskill, Patricia. 2025. “Bucket Drumming 101.” New Mexico Music Educators Association, 2025. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vR--oZhwLm6xc4YGgySB8TowsALdNndH2rQGpOFFgTyTxPZ6LDYb6VR9sIEWJJVPV6U_LvZhBRpy638/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000&slide=id.g340708c46a2_0_0.
This resource is a google slides presentation shared at the 2025 New Mexico Music Educators Association All-State Conference by seasoned educator Patricia Gaskill. Pat shares a wealth of knowledge about Bucket Drumming, with tips on how to start a group, teach basic percussion drumming patterns, rhythms, and inspire them with videos of accomplished bucket drummers. This is an inexpensive ensemble to start. The resource has YouTube videos embedded in the slides that educators could use in class, as well as curriculum ideas. There is also a list of favorite play along videos (geared more towards elementary classes) and a page of references for further education on this topic. The resource lists music standards that bucket drum ensembles meet (though they are the 1994 standards and would need to be updated to the 2014 standards in lesson plans for administrators). While this isn’t specifically for world drumming ensembles, this resource is useful in getting students to percussively experience rhythm in a different way.
Frame drums are used by many international cultures and are smaller to store, softer in volume, and often cost less than other world drums. They are also typically played with one hand, which may make this drum more accessible for students needing certain accomodations. Perhaps consider starting with frame drums and other handheld percussion instruments when building a program. These videos offer guidance on how to hold and play these drums.