About my Watson Fellowship

The central question of my project is “What do we teach when we teach drumming?” Essentially, when we teach any form of percussion, we are teaching much more than just how to hold a stick and hit something. Instead, we are teaching values that have origins in nationalism, unique cultural traditions, and distinct genres. For this reason, my Watson Year would take me to different countries in order to immerse myself in these drumming cultures and understand the values associated with each form of percussion. Specifically, I would be studying Taiko drumming in Japan, Cajon drumming in Peru, Ewe percussion practices in both Benin and Togo, and religious percussion in India.