School’s steel band strikes chord with kids

If life gives you a steel trash barrel — make music. That’s just one of the lessons teacher Luke Abrahamson hopes to instill in 120 students who take part in Basha High School’s steel band — along with a love of music and an appreciation for Caribbean culture.

During colonial rule of Trinidad, the British banned the musical instruments of Trinidadians.

“The colonialists took away the music that they loved. So they used the pieces of metal scrap laying on the streets to make their music.... I think it’s a great lesson for the kids,” he said.

Basha is the only school in the Chandler Unified School District to offer a steel band elective. Throughout the Valley just a few other schools offer one, including Corona del Sol High School in Tempe.

When Basha’s steel band started a little over two years ago, it had just 10 students.

This year, 120 students are involved in six classes, and Abrahamson now devotes his entire job to the band.

Thursday morning, students came to class and started to rehearse for their spring concert. Two rows of girls and boys stood in front of chromeplated tenor pans, holding a stick in each hand, and beating out music, sometimes quickly crossing their arms back and forth to keep up with the beat. Behind them, several more students stood in front of larger drum sets. The instruments’ indentations were marked with tape to indicate the musical notes.

Wyatt Hajda, 16, stood in front of four large drums in a set that had 36 notes, next to a National Geographic poster of the West Indies. As he played, he intently read the music on a stand to his right.

“I took (the class) at first because I needed a fine arts credit,” he said.

Then he got hooked.

“I always go into my next class humming, and I think I annoy the people around me because I keep tapping my foot,” he said.

Abrahamson said his bands could be the future of music education.

“The great thing is it allows students to play in a musical ensemble with no prior musical experience,” he said. “It’s taking away the stigma that music is an ‘insider’s activity,’ or that it’s only for people who have been playing piano since age six.”

Sophomore Destiny Rizzo, 16, said she was worried about taking a music course, because her past experience was limited. But by the end of the first day of class, she was surprised at what she could do.

“We started playing a song on the first day,” she said.

And Tessa Van Beusekom, 17, a foreign exchange student from the Netherlands, didn’t even know what she was signing up for when she started the class last fall.

“I thought it would be normal drums. Then I saw all these and I thought, ‘What the heck is all this?’” she said. “Now, I’ve fallen in love with it.”

This summer, Abrahamson, who recently received a distinguished music educator award from Yale University, plans to sit down and write a formal curriculum for the class, which he plans to tie into state music standards.

Aside from the music, it will include lessons about Caribbean culture and history in the class, he said, so students “know this wasn’t invented so people could play it on cruise ships.”

He hopes to start an exchange program between Trinidad and Chandler schools in the next few years.

And next year, he is starting a steel drum building and tuning class so students can learn how to create their own drums — giving them a better understanding of the instruments, as well as saving the school money used to purchase the drums, which can cost more than $1000.

If You Go

What: Steel Band Program spring concert

When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday

Where: Basha High School auditorium, 5990 S. Val Vista, Chandler

Tickets: First come, first served basis for a donation

Learn to play

Luke Abrahamson will teach a steel drum program for adults this summer with classes on Tuesday and Thursday nights at Basha High School. Cost is $140. Information: e-mail abrahamson.luke@chandler. k12.az.us or call (480) 600-9152.