Steel drums are a teaching tool at Clark Montessori.

        The sounds of calypso and reggae float through the halls, out the windows and even the back door.

        Step into Bruce Weil's music class and it sounds like an island party.

Steel drummer Virginia Grant, 15, practices her technique with a song called “Baja” at Clark Montessori. The band has recorded a fund-raising CD called Follow Your Hearts. (Gary Landers photo) | ZOOM |

        The students are hard at work, collaborating on song arrangements, showing each other where to hit the drum to get the right sound, and dancing.

        Mr. Weil tells them: “That has to be the liveliest part of the tune. Get some choreography happening there.”

        Taking “steel band” means surviving a rigorous essay and application process and performing 30 hours of community service.

        It's part Montessori method, part steel band tradition.

        The band can't succeed unless students help one another. The Montessori method, named for Italian doctor Maria Montessori, calls for children to learn by doing.

        When Mr. Weil starts a class he tells students, “It's up to you to learn these extra parts on your own time. We need to practice sets in here.”

        Students come in early, stay late, spend free periods and lunch breaks working their sticks around the different sections of the drum's pan, practicing different notes and rhythms.

        They add special touches — like Ryan Dale's idea to put chimes into the Star Spangled Banner.

        “Basically, we get graded to have fun,” said Melanie Sikic, a ninth grader from College Hill.

        There is a band for each grade, 7-10, and the 11th and 12th graders play together. The bands perform often for community groups and other schools during and outside school hours. Steel band members are also required to keep their grades up.

        Some students have so much fun with the music that they write their own. A.J. Tye, a junior from Mount Airy, composed a piece with a Latin tango feel that builds to a more traditional style.

        “I'm not sure why I enjoy it so much. I just like it. It's just the sound,” he said. “I have something to do now.”

        For A.J., steel band also means new friends and learning about other people's cultures.

        “I do plan on going to Trinidad one day to try to play with the people there so I can get a different perspective on that,” he said. "So I can get a hand on it and see how I do.”

        Markayla Jones, a ninth-grader from Madisonville, said learning a song's rhythm is the hardest part.

        “It all depends on how fast it is,” Markayla said.

        So she practices with her friends. Other students who have mastered the rhythm show her how it's done.

        What Julia Gardiner, a ninth grader from Hyde Park enjoys, is the chance to learn so many different parts to a song.

        “It's different from traditional band,” she said. “Here you get to learn everything.”

        Many steel band members said they were turned on to the group when they saw the band perform at their elementary schools.

        Those same performances are now what many band members look forward to.

        “When we go to schools with little kids they see how excited we are and we get out there and form conga lines and give them shakers,” said Megan Saile, a ninth-grader from North Avondale.

        Amos Brown, a ninth-grader from Bond Hill, said steel band "is like our trademark.”

        The band made a recording of the Star Spangled Banner (minus Ryan's chimes), that is now played before sporting events at other Cincinnati high schools.

        It recorded a CD, in collaboration with the Over-the-Rhine steel drum band and students from the College Conservatory of Music. Follow your Hearts is now on sale as a fund raiser.

        Interest in steel band is so high that Mr. Weil added extra ensembles. There is a band that works on classical pieces, including Vivaldi, to show that steel drums are not limited to island sounds.

        Another band is working on “Pan in A Minor”, a 10-page piece that is the longest students have attempted to play.
       Leo Sack, a 10th grader from Madisonville, gives a good description of what steel band is all about.

        “In steel band we stand, we help each other, we dance. We move between drums, we practice on our own,” Leo said. “Sometimes, it's complete chaos.”

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