About the Artist

Hi Folks!

I thought that I might give you a little background about me! I am a retired elementary teacher, having taught in the same school for 30 years. Plus one year teaching music at a jr. high.

I have been involved with music since piano lessons when I was five years old...I hated them! Oh, not the piano, or playing music...just the lessons. I moved on in jr. high to the band, and began playing the saxophone. I continued through high school, and there learned how to play all of the woodwind instruments. I helped create a rock and roll cover band during my senior year called "Poltergeist" (which was before the movie.) I played keyboards. We didn't make much money...but it was really fun!

I started college at Brigham Young University...only not in music. I was a fine arts major studying commercial art. (Note: I had also been drawing since I was five, and took every art class that I could get!) I sort of wanted to become an art teacher like my mentor, Mr. Bird, from high school. But he dissuaded me, saying, "If you really want to teach art to willing and excited students...go elementary!"

I left BYU to serve a mission for the LDS church in El Salvador and Guatemala, where I found that I really loved teaching children. So, after two years, I changed my major and transferred to Utah State University where I graduated in Elementary Education. I began my teaching career at a small rural school in Spanish Fork, Utah. I taught Art, Reading, Math, Utah History, and science...but not much music. I didn't really know how, and there was no funding for elementary music programs in my district. I only remember teaching the students to sing some songs about Utah, and some during our yearly musical play. I taught for ten years with very little music...sad.

In the early nineties, the Rees School faculty made a drastic change. We decided to become an "Arts" centered school, challenging ourselves to teach at least one of the four art forms for forty minutes each day. We divided ourselves into groups of four teachers, one for Visual Arts, one for Dance, one for Drama, and one for Music, (I wanted the Visual Arts position, but there was no other musician in my group, so...Music.) and we rotated classes each day. I still felt that I was just stumbling through the instruction, with just a ratty old box of rhythm instruments (you know, sand blocks, jingle bells, finger cymbals, etc.) and a class set of recorders.

But, in 1996, we invited a professional African drummer, Fred Simpson, to fill a ten day Artist in Residency position at Rees. I was excited to learn from him and had even bought myself an African djembe drum at a neighborhood yard sale. I sat in on Fred's first lesson and was instantly hooked. The students were spellbound, they were responding to his lesson as I had never experienced teaching music myself. I attended as many of his lessons during the two weeks as I could. I attended practice sessions at Fred's Salt Lake City Studio, and with other drummers where ever I found them. I began amassing my own drums, and rhythm books, and CDs, and DVDs.

I have been teaching music based on World Drumming and Rhythm techniques since then. I have thirty or more African drums, and another thirty world instruments from Central and South America, Asia, Polynesia, Europe and Native America. I have built my own drum, and can repair any of the others that need fixing.

I currently play 36+ different instruments. I created an auditioned children's touring group called RAD (Rees African Drums!) which toured all over Utah until I retired in 2016. (I want to create another one in Cache Valley...soon!) I guest lecture at BYU Idaho, and do drum circle demonstrations wherever I am invited!

WARNING! I am addicted to drums, and wish to spread the disease!

--Jeff Ballard