Nine years ago today we broke the Guinness World Record for the Largest Samba Band at the Royal Albert Hall with 1,675 participants! It's a world record that we still hold, and the project marked the beginning of our ongoing relationship with the fabulous charity Street Child United. We have since facilitated drumming workshops with street-connected children for Street Child United's Street Child World Cups and Street Child Games in Rio de Janeiro, Moscow, Qatar and London! It is always so rewarding and humbling to know we are playing a small part in helping to improve the social and emotional skills of these children who have had terrible experiences living on the streets that no child should have to experience. We love seeing the excitement and joy on their faces when they drum with us in a workshop, and also see how enthusiastically they play the drums cheering on another team during the Street Child World Cup!
Our Largest Samba Band project in 2014 was the catalyst for us to look deeper into how we can use group-drumming experiences to help improve the mental health, self-esteem, manage emotions and improve creativity of our workshop participants. Shortly after this project, I trained as a Mental Health Youth First Aider to firstly understand how to spot the signs of mental health issues in youth and gain knowledge of how to respond appropriately. I also became an Associate of the Royal Society of Public Health, taking particular interest in their guidance and support on evaluating arts projects from a medical perspective. I travelled to USA to be trained as a Remo HealthRHYTHMS Facilitator and also trained as a Rhythm2Recovery Facilitator. Both these trainings gave me the skills, tools, rhythmic activities and, most importantly, the scientific evidence of how group-drumming workshops can improve the wellbeing of the participants.
I was particularly impressed by the neuroscience research that is behind the Remo HealthRHYTHMS protocol. It is so heartening to see Remo, the world's largest drum company, use some of it's profits to fund neuroscience studies into the effects of group-drumming on the brain. The evidence on how playing certain drums at a certain tempo for a certain duration to reduce stress and anxiety is particularly interesting. The neuroscience studies are continually growing and often use blood sample testing as concrete evidence of the positive emotional changes before and after the rhythmic activities and games in the protocol.
We began leading HealthRHYTHMS workshops with both children and adult groups, and were thrilled to be one of the founding members of the UK National Arts Wellbeing Collective which was spearheaded by the Royal Albert Hall. In the 2-years prior to the Covid pandemic, we facilitated monthly HealthRHYTHMS workshops with the Royal Albert Hall's staff on Friday lunchtimes. We had a core group of participants who enjoyed playing the drums as a form of stress and anxiety release. It was during these sessions that we became aware of the leveller that these HealthRHYTHMS workshops are as there would often be staff from different departments engaging, laughing and drumming together. I remember one particular occasion where one of the Hall's directors sat next to one of the part-time stewards. Although they had both probably worked at the hall for some time, this was the first time they had enjoyed a shared experience together and this opened up much conversation afterwards.
When the Covid pandemic closed school buildings in March 2020, we became aware of national conversations anticipating the harm the pandemic would potentially have to the social and emotional wellbeing of children, particularly upon their return to school. Professor Barry Carpenter CBE, OBE, PhD (the UK's only professor of mental health in education), together with his son Matthew Carpenter (who is Principal of Baxter College in Kidderminster), wrote a Think Piece titled "A Recovery Curriculum, loss and life for our children and schools post-pandemic". It focused on potential mental health areas of concern for children returning to school post-pandemic and recommendations for what teachers and school leaders could do to minimise disruption and aid the children back to a normal lifestyle at school. Using this as a starting point, along with the neuroscience knowledge we gained via HealthRHYTHMS, and taking into account the strict government guidance in 2020 on playing musical instruments in school post-pandemic, we used some funding from the Arts Council England Emergency Response Fund to create the #BodyPercussion #RecoveryCurriculum. We released the new online resource at the end of August 2020 and were amazed that in under a month our #BodyPercussion #RecoveryCurriculum was used by over 200,000 children in 27 different countries!
Although Covid restrictions in the UK are now long gone, we are still seeing the impact of the pandemic across all our work. Many of our facilitators have commented that the whole-class musical listening skills are generally not yet back to the pre-pandemic levels in our workshops, and many more children appear to be suffering from anxiety of working in larger groups or in louder environments.
So what are we doing to help? Alongside the buzz and excitement that we always aim to create in all our global arts workshops, this academic year we are delighted to be partnering with West London Zone to deliver the Beat the Odds programme in schools across West London which uses group drumming to improve the social and emotional skills of children who are struggling in school. It is always so gratifying to see children who come into the room shy, reserved and aloof, to change to be joyful and engaging with others whilst drumming in a small group by the end of each session.
By Mike Simpson, Co-Founder and Musical Director of Inspire-Works
In recognition of his work using drumming to aid mental health, Mike is endorsed by Remo as a Rhythm, Wellness & You Facilitator.