Michael Riendau

Artist Bio

Michael Riendeau grew up in Boston where he began playing drums at the age of eight. By the time he was 14, he was recording and performing professionally on the drum set. He studied at Lawrence University in Wisconsin, majoring in music and French. His studies took him to France where he studied at the Akanga Music School. He also sojourned in Dakar, Senagal, where he immersed himself in the music and culture of West Africa.

Artist Statement

March Tempo is a musical term that refers to 120 beats per minute. This comfortable pace of two beats per second is the speed that humans will tend to walk, hence the name March Tempo. Notice this tread of physical movement fits precisely into how we humans measure time - using seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, etc. 120 beats per minute is a perfect division our time, which based on our sun cycles (i.e. one year).

Is it coincidence that a comfortable human walking pace is an exact subdivision of the earth’s path around the sun?

Perhaps our biomechanics evolved to be in perfect rhythm with the cycles around us.  Just as our limbs are in perfect ratio with our bodies, our bodies are in perfect time with the larger cycles that we live within.

So when I sit down to a drum set and I start a marching movement at 2 beats per second between my bass drum with my right foot and my hi-hat with my left foot... “boom...chick...boom...chick...” I am telling a story as old as the day when we left the water and started walking on all fours.

Educational Philosophy

Riendeau believes that making music is a deeply enriching process. Students learn through a hands-on approach how drumming and rhythm have multiple global origins. We explore connections between West African drumming traditions, Afro-Cuban rhythms, Brazilian samba music, and contemporary American music. Helping students access these concepts through simple, fun, kinesthetic activities leads to a student centered environment where one embraces both the joys and challenges of drumming. This creative experience offers students innumerable possibilities of self-expression and allows them to be engrossed in the present moment, fully concentrated on a single engaging activity.
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