Drum

Students crowd around music teacher Nellie Hill and hold out their hands, telling her that their fingers still are vibrating after spending 45 minutes pounding on drums. That's one of the sensations students experience as part of Lime Kiln Middle School's World Music Drumming group. "I feel more like I'm playing when I'm using my hands, not sticks," said eighth-grader Paul Del Riego, who is participating in the group for the first time. "I feel like I'm more in the music. The sound that it makes is just really cool."

Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. has fined a Baltimore concrete business $20,000 for illegally disposing of a 55-gallon drum of hazardous material while doing work for the city last year.Giovanni Lumaro, president of G. L. Concrete Construction Inc., pleaded guilty in Circuit Court last week to the dumping charges. Circuit Judge Roger W. Brown suspended $10,000 of the fine, placing the company on two years' probation. The remainder of the fine will be paid to a state hazardous substance control fund, Curran said.

NAZILI, Turkey -- Bells clang rhythmically, drawing closer as men with berets, stout guts and leathered skin lead their camels into the ring of combat. Zeybek music -- a squeaky, kazoolike sound made by a wooden flute accompanied by a drum -- carries on the wind.It's the music, they say, that makes the camels dance.Darkening clouds threaten rain. Yet thousands of villagers assemble in makeshift bleachers or lounge on truck beds surrounding the ring. They have come from throughout rural western Turkey to see this winter spectacle.

AMID the debate over society's response to the problem of homelessness, something has been lost. While we as individuals have been wrestling with the moral and practical dilemma of what to do when we come face to face with a homeless person, a.k.a. panhandler, a.k.a. beggar, something has been forgotten: human dignity. When a person is reduced to a state of such abject poverty that he or she must sleep in public or beg on the street, how can dignity be an issue? But a recent experience that I shared with my 12-year-old son brought the reality home to us very poignantly.

The beat goes on all day Saturday at St. John's United Methodist Church in Charles Village, where the Baltimore International Rhythm and Drumming Society (BIRDS) presents its fourth annual shindig.A parade - bring your own rattle or shaker and join in! - from the "beach" at Johns Hopkins leads off the festival. It's followed by performances on the outdoor stage by Aurora Dance Company; Anansegromma, with music and storytelling from Ghana; and Xaala Mainama, an African cultural arts ensemble.

Some people talk about drum 'n' bass as if its 170-beat-per-minute tempos were inhumanly fast. But that frenetic pace is nothing compared with the kind of schedule that U.K. DJ Groove-rider maintains.That's as it should be, though, because if it weren't for Groove-rider, it's doubtful that drum 'n' bass would be anywhere near as well-known as it is.After all, the whole drum 'n' bass explosion began when Groove-rider was resident DJ at the London club Rage.Some critics have even gone so far as to credit Groove-rider with inventing the whole hyperkinetic language of drum 'n' bass, in which break-beats (sampled snippets of drums or percussion)

For years, it was the subgenre that dare not speak its name.Once considered the cutting edge of modern jazz, fusion brought a new sense of commercial vitality to the music. As epitomized by such early '70s stalwarts as Miles Davis, Weather Report and Herbie Hancock's Headhunters, fusion's electric instrumentation and R&B-oriented rhythms attracted the sort of audiences normally found at rock concerts.For a moment, it looked as if the style might make jazz popular again. Then the backlash set in. Egged on by the screaming pyrotechnics of fleet-fingered virtuosi like guitarist John McLaughlin and synth wizard Jan Hammer, fusion became a wasteland of instrumental excess, beset with bands who saw it as an excuse to cram as many notes as possible into any given tune.

The thundering of African drums filled the cavernous auditorium at Brooklyn Park-Lindale Middle School yesterday as nine seventh-graders sat on stage pounding away: One, two, three, one, two, three."

Last weekend, my son was playing outdoors with other children. Suddenly, he came inside crying hard. He was holding one ear. He said that it hurt badly and that his voice sounded funny. He was hard to console for about 20 minutes, the the pain seemed to go away.What could have caused this? He had a cold, but he hadn't really been sick.It may take good detective skills to determine the cause of sudden severe ear pain in a healthy child.The fact that the pain disappeared as mysteriously as it arrived may be the most important clue in your son's case, but we'll get back to that.

A few dozen youngsters spent a recent rainy day listening to the exotic sounds of Australia, Africa and Asia -- all without leaving the confines of the Slayton House in west Columbia's Wilde Lake Village Center.Tim Gregory, a co-director of Nada Brahma Productions, said he believes music and dance are every human's birthright. He and Made Mantle Hood of Ellicott City and Don Lee of Baltimore demonstrated ethnic instruments for the children during a four-hour program Friday.The instruments were as simple as the Australian bull-roarer -- a small slab of wood on a long string that produces a pulsing roar when spun in the air -- and as elaborate as a 200-year-old Balinese children's gamelan ensemble, which consists of gongs and small xylophone-like instruments with bronze keys mounted on ornate gilded bases.

FRIDAY 'EURYDICE': Sarah Ruhl's play provides a new take on the Orpheus myth at Single Carrot Theatre, 120 W. North Ave. The show opens at 7:30 p.m. It runs Thursdays-Sundays through Oct. 18. Tickets are $10-$15. Go to singlecarrot.com. SPX-PLOSION PRE-PARTY: Atomic Books, 3620 Falls Road, kicks off Bethesda's Small Press Expo with its SPX-Plosion pre-party. Comics authors will be on hand to celebrate the release of their new books. Additionally, the 4th Annual Nerdlinger Comics Awards will be given out. The free event takes place from 7 p.m.-10 p.m. The Small Press Expo takes place Saturday and Sunday.

Christinia Armstrong, a music teacher and PTA president at Hammond Elementary School in Laurel, stood amid a cluster of African drums looking for the proper one to play for Howard County Superintendent Sydney L. Cousin and school board chairman Frank Aquino. She grabbed an hourglass-shaped drum, positioned it under her arm and rhythmically gave it a series of bops with her right hand. "Good morning," she said as she matched each syllable to each hand tap. "This is why they call it the African talking drum."

Firefighters raising money for muscular dystrophy Baltimore County firefighters and paramedics will kick off today the 12th annual "Fill the Boot" campaign to raise funds for the Muscular Dystrophy Association of Maryland. Motorists can expect to see fire personnel with their boots out asking for donations at many county intersections from Sept. 3 through Labor Day. The funds raised will help support local MDA services and research programs, including clinics at the Johns Hopkins University and Maryland General Hospital.

Danny O'Toole was a member of the Baltimore Colts' Marching Band for 37 years (1949-1985). He was 23 at the time of the Colts-Giants game. On Dec. 28, 1958, the Colt Band boarded a train with many fans to attend the Giants-Colts game in New York. It seemed like any other game. The band was in the far end zone and could hardly see some of the game. We played and performed the halftime show. ... Going into the final minutes of the fourth quarter, the score was 17-14 in favor of the Giants.

Microsoft Xbox 360, also for Sony PlayStation 3, PS2, Nintendo Wii. Rated Teen. Retail $59.99; other versions $49.99 to $59.99 (game only)**** Guitar Hero was left playing catch-up last year when Rock Band introduced drums and vocals into the music-game mix. Well, consider Guitar Hero caught up, and then some. The Tour package includes an updated guitar (larger and with a touch-sensitive secondary fret pad), its own drum set (with three drum pads, a bass drum pedal and two "cymbals") and a microphone.

Students crowd around music teacher Nellie Hill and hold out their hands, telling her that their fingers still are vibrating after spending 45 minutes pounding on drums. That's one of the sensations students experience as part of Lime Kiln Middle School's World Music Drumming group. "I feel more like I'm playing when I'm using my hands, not sticks," said eighth-grader Paul Del Riego, who is participating in the group for the first time. "I feel like I'm more in the music. The sound that it makes is just really cool."

Chemical Brothers -- We Are the Night (Astralwerks) Electronic big-beat dance-music geeks get old, too, so maybe that's what explains "The Salmon Dance," the novelty number on the Chemical Brothers' sixth album. It sounds like a demo for a drum-programmed children's record. But besides that foray into unabashed goofiness, the Bros are mostly up to their old excellent tricks of bass-drum-powered ravers such as "Saturate," and swooshy head trips such as "The Pills Won't Help You Now," a collaboration with Midlake.

Students from Dundalk Elementary School got a show and a drum lesson in one last week when Daveed Korup and his World Rhythm Percussion Circus performed for the students at Port Discovery. After the entertainment, the students were invited to try some of Korup's homemade drums. The instruments are made of vinyl from discarded outdoor advertising, old swimming pool filters and pipes.

Skatepark The lowdown -- Support a local cause and head to the Skatepark of Baltimore Benefit Show at the Sidebar Tavern on Saturday. The entertainment includes Evancipation from the Washington-based drum 'n' bass/electronica group Robot Death Squad, ODJ of Dirtbox Radio, local reggae and drum 'n' bass outfit Riddim Ryderz and Alpha DJ. If you go -- Doors open at 9 p.m. The venue is at 218 E. Lexington St. For more information, call 410-659-4130 or...

It's a few days after the Baltimore All-Stars Marching Unit bested a handful of local rivals at an annual battle-of-the-bands competition, and the zealous bunch is now having to face a champion's burden. Everybody, as the band's leaders are finding out, wants to be part of a winner. The group's weekly Tuesday practice at a recreation center on Greenmount Avenue in East Baltimore is overcrowded, filled wall-to-wall with faces who want in. Walik Hernandez, one of the band's 12 founders and a drum major, says the last performance, where the dancers dressed in black cat suits in keeping with a Halloween theme, was a production that sent the band's Q rating into the stratosphere.