Pat
Gesualdo remembers learning how to play the drums the hard way - harder than it
likely was for most other aspiring musicians.
His
music teachers "freaked out," when he would play drum rudiments, or right and
left hand patterns, backwards.
The
fact that he had dyslexia was unknown territory to them, he said.
"When I started playing, there wasn't too much known about learning disabilities,"
Gesualdo, a Morris County resident, said.
"And
it was through my dedication to wanting to play and play the right way, the repeated
exposure to patterns and rhythms, that I was able to overcome it."
That
meant playing 5 to 8 hours a day for years, he said.
But
after 28 years of drumming and some scientific research, Gesualdo contends that
those with similar disabilities now don't have to learn the hard way.
Gesualdo,
a studio drummer who boasts of working with various bands and music and movie
companies, will host a series of seminars on how drumming can be taught to children
with dyslexia and attention deficit disorder at local Guitar World stores starting
tonight.
Gesualdo
hopes the Drums Against Disabilities, or DAD, program becomes a national series
of clinics, lectures and seminars for parents, children and music teachers, teaching
them how to overcome learning disabilities through drumming.
"I can sit down with these kids and tell them I know what they've been through,"
Gesualdo said.
The
clinics are the result of a study Gesualdo performed on children with learning
disabilities who came to his studio, New Beat Drum Studio, which relocated to
Lincoln Park from Verona about three months ago.
The study indicates that drumming alleviates symptoms of learning disabilities,
according to Gesualdo.
The
key to the study was a method Gesualdo called specific isolated instruction.
The
method entailed isolating each part of the rhythm - hi-hat, or cymbals, bass and
snare drum - and having the student practice each one separately.
After
the student has mastered each part of the rhythm, they are combined, Gesualdo
said.
"Kids
with disabilities, especially dyslexia, they need to see the way things work in
order to comprehend them," Gesualdo said.
"They
need to see the physical how and why of the way things work because there are
gaps in the thought process."
Specific
isolated instruction fills those gaps, teaching the students how to take a rhythm
apart and put it back together, enabling them to repeat the rhythm.
Another
key to Gesualdo's study, surprisingly, was silence. Gesualdo found that practicing
with rubber drum pads, which give off a muted sound, allowed students to concentrate
on learning better than regular drums.
The
reason, Gesualdo's study concludes, is in the brain's cerebral cortex and primary
auditory cortex.
Gesualdo
said that in children with learning disabilities, the cerebral cortex, which Gesualdo
said combines sound and thought, was being distracted by the primary auditory
cortex, which absorbs and interprets conscious sound.
"Imagine you're getting sprayed with a hose," Gesualdo said. "Well that sound
(drumming on regular drums) was doing that to their brains."
It was a discovery Gesualdo made by accident. Gesualdo said that many of his young
students tend to have learning disabilities such as dyslexia.
"It's
interesting because a lot of those kids gravitate towards the arts and music,"
Gesualdo said.
One
day, while teaching, he had to ask one of his students to practice on a rubber
drum pad.
That
student, he said, learned faster than he had been learning on regular drums.
The
study was published in the December 2002 issue of Percussive Notes, the official
journal of the Percussive Arts Society.
Gesualdo
began drumming at age nine, and eventually began playing in local bands in his
home town of Avenel and also Woodbridge.
He
graduated from Middlesex Community College's music education program in 1986 and
moved to Boston, again playing in local bands.
After
moving back to New Jersey a few years later, he worked with various companies
such as Warner Brothers, Paramount Pictures and Columbia.
Josh
Kates, general manager of the Paramus Guitar Center on Route 4, the location of
Gesualdo's first clinic, said he has not yet seen the program, but said it was
a first for the store.
"We
welcome the chance to use Guitar Center as the home base so he's able to do what
he's trying to do," Kates said.
By
Rob Seman.
Nov
2003.
Original
story.
With
many thanks to the excellent Daily
Record.
