Drumming and Dancing

As you drive up to the lush campus of Greenbrier Academy, you may have an opportunity to hear what could sound like thunder, but actually it is the power and spirit of all our girls drumming together. Each young woman will play daily, and will perform in various venues. She will build her own ashiko hand drum and learn to play centuries-old traditional rhythms (as well as create some of her own.) Greenbrier drummers will be taught by a professional and experienced drumming group facilitator. Becoming an impeccable drum group is a joyous, skillful, and healing experience.

“In an instant, music can uplift our soul. It awakens within us the spirit of prayer, compassion, and love. It clears our minds and has been known to make us smarter... It lets the child in us play, the monk in us pray, the cowgirl in us line-dance, the hero in us surmount all obstacles. It helps the stroke patient find language and expression.

Music is a holy place, a cathedral so majestic that we can sense the magnificence of the universe, and also a hovel so simple and private that none of us can plumb its deepest secrets…

Music can drum out evil spirits, sing the praises of the Virgin Mary, invoke the Buddha of Universal Salvation, enchant leaders and nations, captivate and soothe, resurrect and transform.

Yet it is more than all these things. It is the sounds of earth and sky, of tides and storms. It is the echo of a train in the distance, the pounding reverberations of a carpenter at work. From the first cry of life to the last sigh of death, from the beating of our hearts to the soaring of our imaginations, we are enveloped by sound and vibration and every moment of our lives. It is the primal breath of creation itself, the speech of angels, and atoms, the stuff of which life and dreams, souls and stars, are ultimately fashioned.”

From The Mozart Effect by Don Campbell                                     

Through the medium of music, the girls become more unified, are able to serve in the community, and better understand how they affect others. Playing music also has many benefits intellectually in utilizing both hemispheres of the brain—a wonderful tune-up for critical thinking. This experience will be life-changing for many, and memorable for all.