How do I describe The Drum Cafe to my colleagues in a couple paragraphs?

Dynamic organizations across the San Francisco Bay area, California and around the world have been jumping on to a new trend of talent development, leadership, and team building for their people assets – music and rhythm are universal languages that become valuable tools to harmonize and lead groups of people. Music is a powerful metaphor for working and interacting interdependently, and making discernible music, as simple as it sounds, results in a unifying effect that leads, teaches, and bonds, transcending those traditional barriers that break cooperation among us as individuals - be they departmental, cultural, political, gender, age - anything! 

The Drum Cafe concept is a unique hands-on application of African drums and percussion that not only builds a team, but energizes, motivates and entertains them!  The Drum Cafe has its own team of drummers and facilitators that travel to each event with hundreds of drums in tow – one for Each audience participant - whether there are 10 or 1000+ participants! Through a carefully facilitated and scalable interactive program, success is built in a stepwise fashion until nearly any group is making music within 30 minutes despite their rhythmic sensibilities or, more importantly, their place on the org chart.

The Drum Café concept was developed 13 years ago in South Africa, where it is a tradition amongst the African culture for a group to come together to make music and build or celebrate community before any major decision or engagement. Making music as a group has always encouraged communities – be they civil, professional, or scholastic - to realize that they are all there for the same reason or to achieve the same goal.  With a history of over 5,000 events in 19 countries around the world, The Drum Café has the experience to deliver an unforgettable drumming event for any organization in any kind of venue anywhere in the world! Over the years, the Drum Café has performed for political luminaries such as Nelson Mandela, Prince Charles, President George Bush, Colin Powell, and Tony Blair, as well as Corporate giants like Microsoft, BMW, Motorola, IBM, McDonalds, Coca Cola, and Nike just to name a few.

This approach to teambuilding, learning, and motivation that, simply put, draws the parallels between what it takes to make music and how that relates to working together in an organization, community, village, or “tribe” to achieve a unified goal!  

Drum Cafe is a program that is experienced and felt.  A musical background is not required as the transformation that occurs between the music as being 'wrong' and the music as being 'right' is easily understood by everyone despite their musical sensibilities.  

Because music is a universal language, it is able  transcends those barriers, traditional or otherwise, that tend to come between us professionally as well as personally. 

Rhythm is within all of us as a basic universal language that everyone understands, allowing dialogue among us at the most basic creative level.  It is a natural aspect of the human experience.  It is our heartbeat, it’s in our walk, our eating and sleeping patterns; the inhale/exhale of our breathing, the changing of the seasons, as well as the day and the night. 

San Francisco and the Bay area !

The City and County of San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the fourteenth-most populous in the United States, with a 2005 population of 739,426. It is located on the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and is the focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area. San Francisco is the second most densely populated major city in the United States.

In 1776, the Spanish settled the tip of the San Francisco peninsula, establishing a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi. The California Gold Rush in 1848 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth. After being devastated by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt.

San Francisco is renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, an eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture, and its peninsular location surrounded on three sides by the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay. Famous hallmarks and landmarks include the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz Island, the cable cars, the Transamerica Pyramid, Coit Tower, and Chinatown.

 

San Francisco City Guide

There are myriad reasons why visitors from all echelons of society and all corners of the globe flock to San Francisco every year. Some follow its reputation (dating back to the Gold Rush) for fancy hotels, exquisite cuisine and haute couture; others seek the Bohemian counterculture that inspired social revolution in the 60s. With only seven square miles of real estate and 150 years of history, it’s hard to imagine how such a diverse population in-habits this tiny peninsula. Most visitors will only scratch the surface. But with any luck (and a decent City Guide!), you’ll start to appreciate the off-beat nature that makes San Francisco one of the world’s most seductive travel destinations.

Things to Do in San Francisco

The classic line-up of San Francisco tourist attractions includes breathtaking vistas, interesting architecture and copious amounts of the city’s quirky character. Many head down to Fisherman’s Wharf for a bowl of chowder or to watch barking seals before waiting in line for a tour of Alcatraz Island, the infamous federal prison. Nearby, the acclaimed theatrical world of Teatro Zinzanni is popular with locals and tourists.

 

Fans of traditional Victorian homes won’t want to miss the Painted Ladies at Alamo Square framed by the downtown skyline. Lookouts like Coit Tower and Twin Peaks encompass views of the entire Bay from the Marin headlands to the Berkeley Hills, and a drive out to Ocean or Baker beach will afford you a sweeping panorama of the vast Pacific.