Kids nervously tap drumsticks on the Seventh-day Adventist Church steps in St. Petersburg, Fla., rehearsing the beats in their heads. The cymbal players swivel and rotate their wrists with their imaginary instruments.
Inside the whitewashed church, is chaos.
Musicians scramble to get dressed for their big performance at the Bringe Music Center. The little drummers stuff their khaki shirts inside their black slacks, sometimes missing a corner. The older kids help the younger kids tie royal-blue scarves around their necks.
A Jamaican woman wears a sash with at least 50 badges for sewing, Bible reciting and nature walking.
Think Boy Scouts meet the military.
The All Nations Seventh-day Adventist Church drum corps is an outgrowth of its youth program, aimed at teaching young people discipline, respect and precision through drums and spirituality.
Watch a video and interviews with drum corps members.
Darrell Edwards does not possess a commanding presence, but he is the key to calming the chaos inside the church.
“Tuck in your shirt,” he points his finger, then barks, ”Don’t you guys know how to be on time?”
If the drum corps members are soldiers Edwards, 26, is the corporal, with a heart.
His experience and discipline are two skills that have served him well.
Edwards, was born into the church. At the age of 16, he joined the Conqueror’s Pathfinders drum corps and for 10 years he played on the team that could never quite win a championship.
Each year the team moved up in rank. In the fifth year he competed they came in third. The sixth year they came in second.
“Jesus was a conqueror,” Edwards says. “That’s where we get the name from.”
This is his first year as coach. Edwards puts in at least 40 hours a week as a Pathfinder leader and drum corps director. He works a full-time job at TradeWinds Island Grand Beach Resort and takes architecture classes on the side at St. Petersburg College.
He makes time for his true passion: youth and drums.
He gave up his spot on the team in 2006 to give younger kids a chance to drum and became director of the team.
“There were more kids who wanted to play than there were drums available,” says Edwards, who led the performers to victory earlier this year at the Florida Conference of Seventh-day Adventists in Orlando.
The annual conference features the best drill teams, a Bible Bowl quiz show and the highlight of the event: the drum line competition. When they won state, Edwards said the drummers were so excited they jumped in the air and dropped the Bible Bowl trophy.
It broke.
Last week Edwards played the bass drum with the team he led to the championship. A kid missed practice. They needed a replacement.
Edwards knows the routine by heart.
He stepped in, sandwiched between drummers ranging in age from 10 to 22 years old. Some grumbled about the heat, others put on their game faces.
It’s showtime.
Clickity, click, click.
The snare drums join the big bass drums.
Thump, thump, thump.
Then the ra tit tat tat of the snare, followed by the cymbals clashing.
“Mmmhmph,” they grunt. And then they start to feel the beat.
It could be a scene out of the movie “Drumline,” which depicts the tradition of drum corps as a fixture at historically black colleges. The drummers rock their hips and the cymbal players dip their shoulders low. The tricks include fancy footwork and spins, blindfolding the drummers, and older cymbal players hoisting their younger counterparts onto their shoulders.
The turnout at Bringe Music Center is slim, but parents cheer from the sidelines. Their younger brothers and sisters look on with awe. They ooh and ahh.
The sun is relentless, beating down on the drummers, and there is no shade. For 15 minutes they give it their all. Edwards wipes the beads trickling down his face, a continent of sweat on his back. After the performance, the troupe congregates in the shade of a tree, eating cookies and sipping generic cherry cola provided by the music center.
Seventh-day Adventists don’t drink caffeine, Edwards explains. But the kids are too thirsty to care. But the Bringe Music Center did something else right. In honor of the drum corps’ religious beliefs, the music center moved their Saturday music festival to Friday.
Not all the youth are involved in the church or follow Seventh-day Adventist beliefs.
Many of the participants are neighborhood kids who want to play the drums, with no ties to the church. Young people of any religious background, or none at all, are welcome and encouraged to join the organization. However, participants are expected to follow the rules:
Profanity is prohibited, personal hygiene is key and Saturdays are holy days reserved for rest.
Drummers also need to complete eight levels of coursework measuring their comprehension of the Bible, from reciting all the books from Genesis through Revelation to quoting Scripture. The youth can’t play drums until they do their homework.
The All Nations Adventist Church is a Christian denomination distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the "seventh day" of the week, as the Sabbath. From sundown on Friday to sunup on Saturday is a holy day of worship. This is the day God rested, says Michael Reid, who pastors the church.
There are two Seventh-day Adventist churches in St. Petersburg and 100 churches in Florida. Much of Reid’s congregation immigrated to America from Jamaica like him, a fact only evident in his slight Patois, or broken English accent. Many of the participants in the drum corps are second-generation Jamaicans who consider themselves American. At a recent fundraiser for the drum corps’ next competition, church members cooked and brought curried goat, jerk chicken and plantains.
In terms of the drum corps, Reid says participants learn discipline, coordination and precision. “The church teaches young people to be rounded individuals socially, mentally, spirituality and physically,” he says.
The church also emphasizes diet, health and oneness with nature. Most members lean towards vegetarianism. Edwards doesn’t have that much dedication. “I eat meat like chicken, fish without scales, but never pork,” Edwards says.
Edwards decided to give his life to Jesus Christ at 17 by being baptized. In the Seventh-day Adventist, young people are encouraged to find God on their own.
“I wanted to make sure I was ready to receive Christ,” Edwards says.
He tries to come off as tough and mean but the kids don’t take him seriously. They know he has a soft heart. “We have a MAJOR competition at Southern Union Camporee,” Edwards tells the team. “Who can tell me the dates?”
The quizzical looks say enough. “Ok, you, gimme 10,” Edwards says to a chatty kid. They burst into laughter.
If they thought the Orlando competition was tough, Camporee is the Super Bowl of drum corps. Seventh-day Adventists drum corps from seven Southern states will compete Sept. 26-30, near Gainesville.
Edwards demands his musicians’ attention, just as he craves their dedication. He has watched the drum corps draw kids off the streets, and come to Christ through the music. Joshua Roundtree is one of those teens who could have easily strayed. He credits Edwards for helping him find the drum corps.
The 18-year-old is reluctant to share his struggles because he refuses to dwell in the past.
“It’s a pride thing, I can’t give up too easily,” he says.
When Roundtree turned 17, he moved out of his mother’s house. Juggling a full course load at Lakewood High School, Roundtree played in the drum corps and worked part-time at a Publix grocery store. He barely covered his hotel rate at $250 a week.
His friend Jason, a section leader in the Seventh-day Adventist drum corps, convinced him to join. One year later, with talent and hard work, he became captain leader.
To calm his nerves, Roundtree practices day and night, at times drumming on his legs and books. “I play the drums so I can escape my problems,” he says.
Although Roundtree hasn’t been baptized, he has become more open to the religion. He was recently accepted to the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, where he plans to major in business, one day becoming an entrepreneur.
“This is why I teach them the drums,” Edwards says. “So their music can bring others to the church.”
