Your Building Blocks to Creating Drums Alive Choreographies and Routines

This is a supplementary chapter, designed to reinforce what you’ve learned in the Drums Alive^® Basic Instructor Training and help you practice and prepare to teach your Drums Alive classes. Download and print the Drums Alive Skills Illustrations PDF in the lesson below for easy access as you practice.

The skills described and demonstrated in this supplementary chapter are the foundational building blocks from which we at Drums Alive^® create our fun choreographies. Once you learn and master these skills, you too will be able to create your own rhythmical and movement choreographies and combinations. We encourage you to unleash your creative talents–it’s good for brain health!

The videos in the following lessons (Drums Alive Basic Drumming and Rhythmical Skills, Drums Alive Drumming with Locomotor Skills, and Drums Alive Drumming with Locomotor Skills with Music) provide a visual and auditory demonstration of these rhythmical and movement skills.

The Drums Alive! with Carrie Ekins DVD that you received as a part of your training materials demonstrates how you can create choreography using these basic drumming and drumming with locomotor skills.

We highly recommend you remember the names of the Drums Alive skills in the Drums Alive^® Basic Instructor Training and you learn to use the same terminology when teaching your students. This facilitates your and your students’ future learning of choreographies and routines that the Drums Alive team wants to share with you.

The Class Formations (ways to set up the “drum sets” in your classes) illustrate how you can easily add variety to your Drums Alive classes. We encourage you to experiment with the different class formations and set ups. Changing the class formation keeps your classes interesting and stimulates your students’s spacial awareness and that’s great for brain health!

Here’s a sample lesson plan (called “Double Circle”) choreography from the Drums Alive DRUMTASTIC Curriculum. It illustrates how you can use a different class formation (this lesson uses the “Dice” formation) to take the basic drumming and drumming with locomotor skills to a whole new level, promote socialization, and encourage teamwork! Of course, you can (and should) modify this choreography to meet the skill and fitness level of your students.

Have fun, be safe, and always remember to keep the playful heart of your inner child!