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The Buddy Beat
The Buddy Beat is 10! Renfrewshire Mental Health Arts Festival
Friday 13th October 2017
As you will no doubt know, The Buddy Beat celebrated its 10th birthday on September
28th with a wonderful celebratory event at our church halls in Johnstone.
You may not realise that The Renfrewshire Mental Health Arts Festival (or RMHAF
for short) is one of our greatest partners. Buddy Beat has performed many times during
the festivals of years gone by. This year will, coincidentally, be our 10th year of
involvement.
And so, when Jeanette Allan, Buddy Beat co-founder and RMHAF’s driver,
announced that the festival would honour us with a special celebration event, we were
more than thrilled. Two parties in as many weeks!
This event was advertised in the festival brochure as “A unique drumming event to
celebrate the 10th birthday of The Buddy Beat, Paisley’s award-winning group who
drum for mental health & wellbeing. With specially invited guest drummers and a few
surprises. No drumming experience required- come along and find your groove!”
The venue was The Spiegeltent in County Square Paisley, just outside our train
station at Gilmour Street. This beautiful marquee belongs to The Spree, another of
Paisley’s annual arts festivals.
When the doors
opened an
enthusiastic crowd
greeted us and
everyone was
presented with a
special egg shaker.
Soon the
Spiegeltent was
filling up nicely.
We began with a performance of “Shiko”, a traditional welcoming rhythm from Nigeria
that we like to play
now and again. It
sounded great in the
tent, which is quite
beautiful inside and
out. This was greeted
with a great round of
applause and of
course that meant it
was time for the
audience to be
involved.
This was a treat to see, as “Shiko” involves a series of sweeping arm movements, and the
sixty-strong audience lapped it up big style!
Jane wanted to keep things going and swiftly had the
room shaking their eggs, bringing in the drums alongside.
The room was pulsating to the rhythm and Jane then
gave the eggies their solo spot, before bringing the
drums back in and ending with a mighty beat.
Next up we had Buddy Beat co-founder Jeanette Allan, who said a few words about
our early days and how we have flourished over the last 10 years from a small group to the
award winning, global one that we now are. If it wasn’t for the likes of Jeanette, we would
not have had a wonderful ten years of Buddy Beat.
Our key-note speaker was long term
Buddy Beat friend, Dr Trevor Lakey.
Dr Lakey is the Health Improvement &
Inequalities Manager, NHS GG &
C. Dr Lakey is a terrific djembe
player, and has not only drummed with
us in the past at The Big Drum in
Paisley Town Hall in 2012, he
arranged to film himself for our recent
celebratory film “The Buddy Beat:10”
Dr Lakey spoke about the scientific proof of the benefits that music brings and how Buddy Beat proves that.
Dr Lakey
speaking
to our
Jamie
Then Jane set about sharing around percussion instruments and the spare drums we had.
This caused a lot of merriment amongst the children in the audience. Once everyone was
suitably attired, we jumped back into the music with Dr Lakey taking his place in the drum
circle on his own djembe. Jane alternated between him, Buddy Beat, the percussionists
around the tent and of course, the happy egg shakers. Somehow, we didn’t blow the roof
off the Spiegeltent!
It was pass the mic time next, and Tom spoke of his journey over the last 9 ½ years,
turning from being very unwell to being a happy and buoyant person today. Tom also
spoke about the 12-week, 100-hour schedule that resulted in our film “The Buddy
Beat:10” which can now be viewed on Youtube and on our Facebook page
(Renfrewshire’s The Buddy Beat).
Others in the group spoke too. Anne, our longest serving group member talked about
how it has stopped her from being in the hospital wards, a comment which was received well
around the tent. Jamie told everyone how therapeutic the drumming is for him, Christine
spoke of the family feeling the group brings and Eileen said that it had changed her life.
Karen Auld, Occupational Therapist and Buddy Beat co-founder, also spoke about
those early days when she was unsure how it would work and how she has seen it grow into
the wonderful thing it is now. Reuben Millward from RAMH also spoke about us, saying
he had been involved with us for 5 years or more now, and that RAMH partners The
Buddy Beat in our monthly Open Night sessions at The Charleston Centre in Paisley,
now in its 8th year. This was echoed by Robert Murray, a great fan of The Buddy Beat
who has been attending our Open Night for all those 8 years. Below, Reuben and
Robert- two of our extended family.
Just two things to finish things off- firstly, it was time for our 2nd special guest, Paul Dear
who took to the middle of the circle. Paul Dear is a very well-known drummer in UK
drumming, and in 2016 baby-sat The Buddy Beat for 4 weeks while Jane was abroad.
That 1st session Paul had us eating out of his hands within five minutes. We all knew what
Paul can do- now it was the turn of the lucky audience. Paul began by teaching the room
the chant from “Kpanlogo” which is a
traditional rhythm from Ghana. Paul taught
this to Buddy Beat and it can be seen on
Youtube. It involves a series of chants,
some of which is an echo (Eway! Eway!)
but other parts are replies. This caused a
lot of merriment but we soon got there and
once mastered we dived into a great
groove.
A cow-bell was produced and we had to
mirror whatever Paul tapped out. It was
slow and simple to begin with and soon
the speed built up and the room was
bursting with sound. Lastly, Paul used his
hat- this was his visual clue to either
playing or stopping. It was a non-verbal
clue, and took us a minute or so to grasp,
but once we had it Paul’s hat was on and
off like a light switch. The was a very
funny way to end this music segment, and
the tent burst into spontaneous applause.
Lastly, our djembe shaped10th birthday cake was kindly arranged by
Jeanette Allan, and this was cut by Jeanette and Anne as the room sang
Happy Birthday. Was it tasty? Well, let’s just say there was hardly a
morsel leftover!
And that was it. An excellent 90 minutes of music and talking and we received such kind
words from people as they left. One lady went home and watched our “The Buddy
Beat:10” on Youtube and posted- “Went along to a session today at The Spiegeltent
in Paisley, not knowing what to expect. Myself and my daughter had great fun and the
drumming had us smiling from ear to ear. What a fabulous project, well done The Buddy
Beat. x”
And Buddy Beat enjoyed it too; Gemma said it was fab, Carolyn said “BOOM!
BOOM! What an afternoon!” and Kenny posted on Facebook:
“Today was probably the best public event I have ever experienced since I joined Buddy
Beat. It was the public Birthday event in the Spiegeltent celebrating 10 years of
drumming. So, Thank you, Jeanette, Thank you Jane, Thank you Tom, Thank you
Paul……But most of all thank you Buddy Beat. Happy 10th birthday……keep on
drumming!” And that is not all! Kenny then went onto post this on Facebook-
It was It was magical
It was powerful
It was family
It was togetherness Here we have Kenny with our Jane (October 5th)
It was fun
It was laughter
It was Beat
It was timing
It was being a part
It was inclusive
It was connectedness
It was friendship
It was vibrant
It was fervour
It was positive
It was uplifting
It was spiritual
It was soulful
It was participative
It was talkative
It was entertaining
It was delicious
It was rhythm
It was well-being
It was……
It was Buddy Beat at 10!
Thanks Kenny and that really sums it up perfectly. It has been an amazing 2 weeks of
celebration as we turned 10. Here’s to the next 10 years of The Buddy Beat!
“Hey guys, I think the rhythm is this way!
Compiled by Tom Chalmers
Thank you to Reuben Millward for his photos
A Buddy Beat Publication Oct 2017
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