Unique beat
Fourth-, fifth- and sixthgraders in Lodi Unified School District got an education on music, history and life goals on Thursday at a special outreach concert hosted by the Lodi Community Concert Association.
Percussionist Paul McDermand filled the Charlene Powers Lange Theater with cheerful renditions of “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” “Billie Jean,” Pachelbel’s “Canon in D” and Disney tunes.
The outreach concert was part educational session, part preview for Thursday evening’s concert at Hutchins Street Square.
During a performance that had the students dancing in their seats and clapping — and sometimes singing — along with every song,
McDermand took a few breaks to offer advice and tell stories.
On the power of music
“If you leave here and you were just entertained, I don’t think I did my job well,” McDermand told the kids.
After all, TV and video games are entertaining, he said. Music should be more.
“Music is supposed to take you to a better place,” he said. “It’s supposed to make you better.”
McDermand told the students that he fell in love with music at the age of 7. His father was a writer, and one day, he heard the most magical, amazing music playing in his father’s office.
It was literally life-changing, and that love of music inspired him to become a musician.
He also shared a story about his mother, who developed Alzheimer’s disease. As the illness stole her memories, she was no longer able to recognize her husband or children, McDermand said.
But when he went to sit with her and play the piano, she remembered all of her favorite songs, word for word, he said.
“The music was still able to touch her, even though she couldn’t name one child of hers,” he said.
“If you leave here and you were just entertained, I don’t think I did my job well. Music is supposed to take you to a better place. It’s supposed to make you better.” On the history of the steel drum
“This was not always a musical instrument,” McDermand said, pointing to his two steel drums. He asked the students where they thought the drums had come from.
The students offered a few ideas — bowls and pans — until one struck on the right answer — a barrel.
The first steel drums were made from the bottoms of 55gallon oil drums, pounded into a shape that produced musical tones, McDermand explained.
The instruments were originally from Trinidad and Tabago, after African percussion music and instruments were banned in 1880 in the island nation. As replacement instruments were also banned, musicians began turning found objects like automobile brake hubs, gin bottles and oil drums into instruments.
They had to think outside the box to keep making music, even as racism and the first and second World Wars made life difficult, McDermand said.
“People are going to be heard,” he said.
The music produced by makeshift instruments like the steel drums is generally happy, even though the musicians who invented those instruments had difficult lives, he said.
“That says to me, if you wait long enough, bad things will get better,” McDermand said.
On finding a job you love
McDermand counts himself lucky. He’s been a professional musician since the age of 19, and has been able to make a living doing a job he loves for all that time.
But it wasn’t always what he wanted to do.
“You can’t be anything you want,” he told his audience.
He offered up his own life as an example. As a teenager, he loved basketball, and wanted nothing more in life than to be an NBA shooting guard. It was a dream that was out of his reach.
“I’m not that tall, I’m not that fast,” he said. “I just wasn’t good enough.”
He could play in high school and have fun with basketball as a hobby, but he had to face that he would never be able to play professionally.
The goal shouldn’t be just to try and do something you love, because sometimes you’re just not good at it, he said. Instead, students should try to find a job that they have a passion for and, just as important, that they’re good at.
“If you love it and you’re good at it, now you can be what you want to be,” he said.