Beach Boys Drummer Teaches Life Skills

Beach Boys drummer Eddie Tuduri shared his passion for music and learning in Memphis while he promoted The Rhythmic Arts Project. TRAP educates people with Intellectual and Developmental Differences using rhythm as a modality to teach basic life skills.

Tuduri lost his drumming skills 15 years ago when he was injured in a surfing accident. ” I was totally paralyzed from the neck down,” he said.

The accident left him wondering if he would ever be able to drum again, but then he had a thought. “I asked for some percussion items. Small things, because the first thing to come back was my hand,” he said. He started playing a beat on the side of his hospital bed, and then others in the room joined in with him. That moment in the hospital turned into The Rhythmic Arts Project.

“Most of us have not been close to folks with intellectual differences,” he said. “They want all the same things … They want to be included in all the same things that we do.”

Tuduri worked with people in Memphis with intellectual and developmental difference teaching them life skills. Through this curriculum students are learning to use four very important senses.

“So you’re feeling the lesson. You see it, you hit the drum, so you’re feeling it. You hit the drum, so it’s auditory and then you combine that with speech,” said Tuduri. “I thank god for my broken neck everyday cause I wouldn’t be doing this.”

TRAP is being used all over the world, but it is offered exclusively in the Mid-South at SRVS.