By Paul Roberts
Special to The PREVIEW
Join musician and music therapist Paul Roberts for a free hand-drumming class at the Pagosa Lakes Clubhouse on Tuesday, April 17, at noon.
The class offers a welcoming environment that encourages fun, creativity, playfulness and connecting with others.
The Chinese guzheng, whose history dates back more than 2,500 years, is a recent addition to the drumming class. Measuring 64 inches long, the guzheng is played horizontally and tuned to a pentatonic scale. It has a powerful, harp-like sound that blends beautifully with hand drumming.
The guzheng is the ancestor to several Asian zithers, such as the Japanese koto, Korean gayageum, Mongolian yatga and Vietnamese dàn tranh.
In China, there has been a widespread belief that music possesses magical powers to regulate the harmony between heaven and earth, darkness and brightness, peace and unrest, and the happiness of the people.
Although we now have an enormous amount of research that has explored, measured, quantified and illuminated the benefits of music on cognitive, emotional, social and physical development, we don’t have empirical evidence that music’s capabilities extend to the expansive realms that people in ancient China believed. However, the sounds of the guzheng are certainly very pleasing.
The drumming class provides an innovative and easily accessible approach to the benefits of music.
For more information, email banjocrazy@centurytel.net or call 731-3117. The Pagosa Lakes Clubhouse is located at 230 Port Ave.
