Alberta student drumline joins Saskatchewan Roughriders drummers for big league lesson
Drumlines might not be the most Canadian tradition.
Football games usually find fans freezing by the second quarter, but Mr. Swendsen’s middle school drumline is working to get people pumped about local football with a little help from the CFL.
Barrett Swendsen is the band teacher at Bishop Lloyd Middle School in Lloydminster, Alta. He heads a drumline of 22 children that performs at local football games.
He took them on a six-hour bus ride to Regina, Sask. on Oct. 21 to participate in a clinic with the Saskatchewan Roughriders drumline.
“Once they saw how perfectly in sync the Roughriders drumline was, it just blew them away,” he told Yahoo Canada News.
The clinic idea spawned last year when Swendsen and head of the Roughriders drumline, Tyler Taylor, connected over how the popularity of drumlines never crossed north of the border.
“It’s funny, it was never a popular activity in Saskatchewan,” Taylor told Global News. “It’s huge in the U.S., Calgary’s got a little bit going on there. I hope it continues to grow.”
At the clinic, the two groups exchanged warm-up techniques, talked stick twirling, and practiced their drum rolls, but most importantly, Swendsen said, the kids saw that the Roughriders drumline members all started from the same place.
“They grew up around here,” he said. “They were curious about music and just decided to go for it.”
The added benefit mostly unforeseen by the kids, Swendsen said, is that they finally saw how music brings people together.
“It’s a lesson that you can spread across anything in life.”
From his ultra-shy Grade 7 students to his more outgoing Grade 10s, drumlines attract kids who wouldn’t necessarily cross paths otherwise. Spanning the social barriers, he said, drumlines bring more than just the fans together.
“I love it because I see all my kids have fun with music,” Swendsen said. “That’s why I’m a music teacher.”
The Roughriders drumline consists of 26 drummers and was established in 2013, the same year the team brought home the Grey Cup. They now perform at every home game before the kickoff.
The kids from Lloydminster enjoyed free tickets and sideline passes to the Oct. 22 game against the Montreal Alouettes, but Lloydminster drumline member Mackenzie Taylor, 14, says there was much more to the trip.
“We got to talk to people that we wouldn’t normally talk to and now that we know each other, we’re able to be a better team,” she said.
Alexa Kaye, 12, agreed with her bandmate. “It’s fun getting to know all the people on the team,” Kaye said. “It makes us feel like we’re one big group, not just a bunch of kids.”
Though they just got back from Regina on Saturday night, the Lloydminster drumline has already been invited back to Taylor’s practices for next year.
“The kids got totally motivated to work really hard,” Swendsen said. “We do the same thing the Roughriders drumline does, but we needed to see the work it takes to get to that level.”
