Those wish­ing to learn the art of tas­sa drum­ming but con­strained by cur­rent COVID-19 re­stric­tions which pre­vent in-per­son tute­lage, now have the op­tion of learn­ing the art­form on­line.

Ac­cord­ing to a news re­lease, the NGC Trinidad & To­ba­go Sweet Tas­sa Acad­e­my is now of­fer­ing in­struc­tion via its new web­site. On­line in­struc­tion be­came avail­able at the be­gin­ning of May 2020.

The full text of the re­lease is­sued by NGC, fol­lows…

TAS­SA GOES TECH:

AN­OTH­ER FIRST FOR NGC TRINIDAD AND TO­BA­GO SWEET TAS­SA ACAD­E­MY

In yet an­oth­er first, NGC Trinidad & To­ba­go Sweet Tas­sa Acad­e­my cre­at­ed the first Tas­sa Acad­e­my web­site of­fer­ing on­line class­es from May 1st, 2020.

The idea came about as a re­sult of COVID-19 re­stric­tions which forced the ces­sa­tion of in-per­son tas­sa class­es at the Acad­e­my’s com­pound.

The Acad­e­my’s main mis­sion is to tu­tor per­sons in­ter­est­ed in learn­ing tas­sa drum­ming, and is lo­cat­ed at Mt Stew­art Vil­lage, Princes Town. NGC has spon­sored this dy­nam­ic tas­sa group since 2014. The group launched the coun­try’s first Tas­sa Acad­e­my in 2017, and their all-fe­male band is al­so the first all-fe­male tas­sa group in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The NGC Trinidad & To­ba­go Sweet Tas­sa Acad­e­my web­site gives ac­cess to mem­bers who reg­is­ter on­line to one-on-one tas­sa class­es with Mr. Lenny Ku­mar, tas­sa drum­mer for 48 years and founder of Trinidad and To­ba­go Sweet Tas­sa. Ses­sions are con­duct­ed via ZOOM and pay­ment is al­so done on­line. Mr. Ku­mar al­so worked along­side Dig­i­tal Busi­ness Lim­it­ed to cre­ate the first tas­sa app, and is well known as the cre­ator of the renowned tas­sa hand “Chut­ney”, a style of tas­sa drum­ming.

NGC Trinidad & To­ba­go Sweet Tas­sa Acad­e­my sees these on­line ses­sions as in­te­gral to their mis­sion of en­sur­ing that tas­sa drum­ming con­tin­ues to grow and de­vel­op as an art­form in Trinidad de­spite the cur­rent COVID-19 con­di­tions.  The on­line ses­sions have been well re­ceived by stu­dents thus far, and will con­tin­ue to be rel­e­vant for tas­sa en­thu­si­asts who can­not at­tend class­es in per­son, and may pre­fer to learn the art of tas­sa drum­ming from the com­fort of their homes. 

The NGC Trinidad & To­ba­go Sweet Tas­sa Acad­e­my has been ad­ver­tis­ing via so­cial me­dia to pro­vide the op­por­tu­ni­ty to per­sons keen on learn­ing tas­sa drum­ming. The web­site al­so al­lows for in­ter­na­tion­al stu­dents to log on for class­es where they too can learn about tas­sa drum­ming and our cul­ture. The band will con­tin­ue week­ly up­dates on the web­site as they aim to pro­vide a seam­less ex­pe­ri­ence.

When re­fer­ring to his pas­sion, Mr. Lenny Ku­mar states: “I would like to pre­serve and pro­tect the roots and orig­i­nal style of the art form of Tas­sa Drum­ming, to pos­i­tive­ly pro­mote the cul­ture and to pro­duce an ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the cul­ture with­in and be­yond the shores of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Ac­cord­ing to Lisa Bur­kett, NGC’s Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Man­ag­er: “NGC Sweet Tas­sa Acad­e­my’s on­line ini­tia­tive demon­strates our con­tin­ued re­silience as a peo­ple. We all must make the req­ui­site changes as we ad­just to our new nor­mal. We urge the band to con­tin­ue gain­ing mo­men­tum, and pro­mot­ing our coun­try and our cul­ture, both lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.” 

Per­sons in­ter­est­ed in learn­ing more about the art of tas­sa drum­ming can vis­it the NGC Trinidad & To­ba­go Sweet Tas­sa Acad­e­my at https://www.sweet­tas­sae­du.com/.