Felix Diaz believes in the power of sharing music, and the first people to share that gift with him were his parents. From the time he was 4 years old, he remembers music always floating through his home, the melodies and harmonies of his father’s upbringing in Spain and France, his mother’s native Mexico.
“My father, especially, loved music and had a great collection of records. Saturdays and Sundays were the days to actually sit down and listen to records. …This cultural heritage provided me with a lot of opportunities to listen to all kinds of music that is now considered world music,” he says. “I remember music making me feel happy, loved, and safe.”
In 2004, Diaz and his sons, Silvio and Abril, created Drummers Without Borders to introduce elementary school students to music after a local teacher at Freese Elementary School (Mary Pat Hutt) reached out to him about serving as a teaching artist in the school’s cultural arts magnet program. Their first project was instructing special education students in how to make music using drums and percussion instruments. Today, their vision includes teaching music to all ages and experience levels, and from 11 a.m. to noon on Friday, Drummers Without Borders will be at the City Heights/Weingart Library for an interactive performance.
Diaz, 62, is director of the organization and lives in Little Italy. He took some time to talk about the work he and his sons are doing in the community with music, their goal to secure a physical space and open a museum, and finding some of the best Italian food in San Diego.
Q: Tell us about Drummers Without Borders.
A: Silvio and Abril are my sons and we’ve been working together for 33 years. As musicians, we were always interested in world music, drums, and percussion instruments from all over the world. We decided to create a project that takes these two elements and uses them as tools to share these ideas in performing, and educational and community programs.
We want to develop all kinds of programs in diverse areas, without limits or restrictions. Artistically, we want to create without limits; musically, we don’t want to be attached to a specific tradition, style, form, or school; educationally, we want to find new forms of teaching basic concepts of music to everybody; and socially, we want to have the ability to collaborate with communities of all social and cultural backgrounds.
Drums are the only musical instruments common to all cultures in the world, from the Inuit people in the Arctic to the Tuareg nomads in the Sahara Desert, from the Bora tribes in the Amazon jungle to the Maasai people in East Africa. Every human group has been, over centuries, using drums and percussion instruments as the primary tools to complement the use of voice and hands as the basic media to create music. The richness and diversity of every region on the planet have been the main ingredients contributing to the number of drums created, and the constant and continuing evolution of all kinds of rhythms. At Drummers Without Borders, we use this unique characteristic of percussion instruments and drums as a medium to acquire and share knowledge related to all kinds of subjects: music, geography, history, science, technology, etc. Our performances and programs developed in the areas of education, community, health, environment, society, and music reflect this vision. As importantly, sharing music promotes tolerance, coexistence, respect, cooperation, and solidarity.
What I love about Little Italy…
Literally going downstairs to get a pizza and eat it at home. I can walk around the neighborhood and observe all kinds of visitors of the city who come here looking to have a taste of Italian food.
Q: How did the program initially work?
A: It started as a series of lessons developed for a special education class at Freese Elementary and we started with 12 students; now we work with entire schools. Every year, we visit a large number of elementary schools in different school districts in San Diego. We also do programs for the public library system, the parks and recreation department, the juvenile court system, museums, festivals, community cultural days, nonprofit organizations that work in music, arts, education, and social work on both sides of the border. We use all kinds of percussion instruments from all cultural traditions and styles, made for educational purposes and for our own professional use, too. Our primary resource is our own pockets, but we’re also supported through grants and some donations.
Q: What was the response to the program, early on? What kind of feedback did you receive about your program’s impact with the kids?
A: The response was very good and, through a period of trial and error, we found the key elements to refine the program and make it available for all levels. We received very positive feedback from teachers and parents, and comments about how the activity made their children feel, including self-confidence, motor skills and coordination, and visual and auditory concentration and response habits.
Q: Why did you want to expand your work to include all ages and the general public in being introduced to music?
A: Because making music at any age is a great benefit to our physical, mental and emotional wellness.
Q: Can you talk about why you focus on drums?
A: Drums and percussion instruments are a very simple, effective and simple tool to collectively participate in making music. Rhythm is just one basic element of music.
Q: What are some examples of the way that you fold in education on health or the environment, through music?
A: Drums exist in all cultural groups around the world and this allows us to elaborate on the different regions of the world, their geography, their environment, and their people. They are used in many different ways, including ceremonies, celebrations, mourning, healing, or as simple recreation.
Q: How has your relationship with music evolved over the years?
A: I learned, and liked to listen to, all kinds of music from different countries, languages, and styles. I first learned to play acoustic guitar and harmonica, and I like the acoustic guitar because it allows me to sing and it’s a very familiar instrument in Mexican, Spanish, and French music. My father used to play the harmonica very well, too. I really liked to learn, practice, and perform Latin American music because of its richness of colors and styles and diversity of instrumentation.
Q: What kind of music do you enjoy listening to and playing in your free time?
A: I listen to a lot of orchestral music, world music, jazz, and pop music from the ‘30s to the ‘80s. It’s too difficult to choose one favorite musician, but Mozart is one of them because his music is very light and brings joy to everybody.
Q: Where do you like to go to listen to live music locally?
A: I really like to go to the concerts organized by the La Jolla Music Society in the Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center. It’s a small, but intimate hall with a great design and they bring a variety of quality classical music, but also music from different cultural backgrounds.
Q: From your perspective, what have you experienced as a result of sharing music with others?
A: A lot of gratitude from the people just for the act of sharing.
Q: What’s been challenging about your work with Drummers Without Borders?
A: Not having our own space. It would be great to have a space to develop our project of creating a world drums and percussion museum to host our ever-growing collection of instruments from all over the world, and to be able to constantly program a realm of activities around music, available for everybody.
Q: What’s been rewarding about this work?
A: The smiles of the children and adults when they realize that they can make music, too. To have people on the street recognizing you and coming to you to tell you that they remember the drumming class as their favorite activity during their school time, many years ago.
Q: What has this work taught you about yourself?
A: To be patient, constant and to literally go with the different rhythms that life brings to you. Go with flow.
Q: What is the best advice you’ve ever received?
A: “One step at a time.”
Q: What is one thing people would be surprised to find out about you?
A: I’m a very sensitive person.
Q: Please describe your ideal San Diego weekend.
A: A very early walk by the sea, or through Balboa Park after the rain.