Instructor Chip Hancock plays the cymbals in his classroom at the MACC. (contributed photo)Mountain Arts Community Center instructor Chip Hancock is gearing up for the final three weeks of his annual Summer Drummer Days series, held at the MACC in the School of Percussive Arts classroom.
Hancock, who played for the Chattanooga Symphony & Opera for 28 years and has been teaching percussion since he was 15, also offers private lessons at the MACC.
“They get to hit stuff and learn a lot about rhythm and about music,” Hancock said of camp participants. “Drums are probably the most user-friendly instrument there is.”
A beginning camp for elementary school-age percussion students will be held Monday-Friday, July 11-15, from 1-4 p.m. each day. Participants will work on the snare drums, learn to hold sticks and explore the instruments.
The classroom contains a smorgasbord of percussion instruments for kids to try: five drum sets, seven snare drums, four timpani, chimes, gongs, concert toms, marimba, vibraphone, xylophone, bells, concert bass drum, cymbals, congas and bongos. Campers can also experiment with auxiliary percussion – instruments commonly used for sound effects in cartoons and movies from the 1960s – such as nightingale and slide whistles, triangles, and ratchets (which you may have heard Hancock play during the local production of “The Nutcracker”).