Thursday, October 31, 2024
Just before he left for a European concert tour with the hip hop / funk / soul group Michael Franti and Spearhead, band member Manas Itene was in Milwaukee for three days. Not at any of the city’s music venues, but at Neeskara School — to teach MPS students and teachers about drumming.
Itene taught the basics of hand drumming along with several songs to each class in the K4-grade 5 school over the course of two days in mid-September. He also held a workshop for about 10 music teachers from around the district one evening, so they could incorporate drumming into their music lessons.
Itene’s visit culminated on the third day in a concert with Neeskara music teacher Meaghan Heinrich and about two dozen Neeskara students on stage in the auditorium, during an all-school assembly.
When Itene and the student performers started performing a song he’d taught the entire school the day before, children in the audience began singing along: “I don’t want to be nobody else—I just want to be myself.”
“You’re perfect just the way you are,” he had told students after they learned the song in class.
When Itene, a native of Nigeria, performed a song in his tribal language, a number of children in the audience kept the beat as they listened, just as they did in their drumming class.
How does the drummer for a world-renowned band find himself at Neeskara School for a three-day residency?
The answer lies with Heinrich, a full-time music teacher at Neeskara since 2022 and part of the exponential growth in music instruction in MPS in the past four years. “The music expansion added creative teachers like Ms. Heinrich to our MPS music family, and now Meaghan and her colleagues have connected their students at Neeskara to the global music scene. It's not every day that elementary school musicians perform with a master drummer, but it happens in MPS!” said Sharie Garcia, district music curriculum specialist.
Heinrich heard about Itene from Lisa Schnell, an early childhood instructor at Neeskara for deaf and hard-of-hearing students.
Schnell had taken drumming lessons from him and thought a residency by a drummer would dovetail especially well with Neeskara, where a portion of the student population is deaf or hard of hearing, Heinrich said. Percussive instruments such as drums are easier for deaf and hard-of-hearing students to learn to play because of the vibrations the instruments make. Students literally can feel the music.
Itene started to teach drumming early in the pandemic, when the main source of his livelihood — music venues — shut down to help prevent the spread of Covid-19. He began teaching drumming online, to adults and to children in virtual classrooms. Later, Itene was holding a drumming clinic on a cruise ship when he met a traveler who suggested he take his drumming lessons to schools.
At Neeskara, Heinrich ran with the idea from her colleague. The music teacher applied to the Summerfest Foundation Inc.’s Let the Music Play program, which awarded her a grant. It was the primary funding for bringing Itene to Neeskara for three days, but the school also held fundraisers such as a bake sale and sales of doughnuts and popcorn.
“I think our students were excited. I know the drummer himself told me how happy he was to be here,” Principal Erick L. Owens said, adding, “Any time you can bring smiles to students’ faces as well as staff and have them feel that they’re part of something special, that’s always a good thing.”
Owens said he considers music, art, and physical education vital and prioritizes that instruction at Neeskara. “It’s important for our students to have all the activities by specialties,” he said, adding that the broader staff at Neeskara agrees. Studies have shown that students who receive music, art, and physical education instruction do better academically in other areas, as well.
Itene fit in his three days at Neeskara after touring the United States with Michael Franti and Spearhead and shortly before he left the U.S. for concerts in Amsterdam, London, and Belgium with the band. Michael Franti and Spearhead now are in Australia for concerts through November.
“Manas was truly a rock star to my students,” Heinrich said. “We prepared for his residency by watching videos of his music, so the day they walked into our music classroom and saw him, they couldn't believe their eyes.”
In the music classroom, Itene showed the children how to drum with their hands and count the beat. Students took turns drumming on two big African drums; Heinrich handed out small drums and maracas so everyone could contribute and move to the music they were making.
“His style of making music is immediately accessible to all students, even those who struggle most in school. It was incredibly empowering to watch them feel special and successful,” Heinrich said.
Itene himself started drumming when he was 8 years old. Teaching drumming now to children resonates with him.
“To see the expression of these kids is just so much fun,” he said. Itene said he can see they feel free while they’re drumming, even as beginners. And, he said, “It’s not how good you are, it’s how you feel.”