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