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Joshua S. Levin1
Musings On a Way of the Drum
I remember… Your hands are waving like strange butterflies, transparent and delicate as wings of sylvan paper. They are shadows of flesh and light in the orange flicker of the circle fire. I recall, with the quality of motion slowed to the rhythm of the crescent moon, the crack and the grumble, the watery undulation of the drum as it echoes against the dancing flames. From above, all is moving, a blur on the surface of eternity, but there is an awesome stillness below. Boundaries of mind and flesh have become porous and the sound of all being flows through you like a breeze between the ripe stalks of the harvest field. You are luminous and complete in the vast circle of the drum. You have cultivated its magic. You have unveiled its wings and disappeared between the spaces of image, word, and memory.
For those who have felt and responded to the call of the drum, the entire world pulses beneath our feet. Every day is filled with the rhythms of life and every encounter echoes the textures and relationships of song and dance. This fusion of living and playing not only makes sense to the rhythmatist, but actually becomes the content of sense itself. It begins to color our perceptions and shape our daily movements. A circle of players and dancers blends into a circle of friends and acquaintances. The shifting patterns of a drummer's tapestry reemerge in the winding rivers of everyday speech. The enthusiastic solo of an office co-worker recalls a moment of fireside ecstasy, while the troubled grind of a lover's quarrel contains the strange echo of rhythmic chaos at the circle.
We discover this elegant correspondence because drumming mirrors daily experience by creating similar but alternative kinds of relationship to self, others, and the environment. Instead of working with our emotions and energies, we play with them. Instead of negotiating the labyrinth of speech, we soar in each other's ocean of song. Instead of sitting separately, we move, breath, and dance together. Instead of remaining within the familiar environments of our everyday lives, we seek and create spaces of inspiration within circles of candlelight and beneath the incomparable starlit sky. As we learn from playing in this way, the mysteries of rhythm and the ways of the drum become embodied experiential metaphors that are good to think with. They point from the microcosmic experiences of the drum circle to the macrocosm of social life and personal history. Within the safe container of wordless music, drumming teaches lessons of connection and conflict, change and stability, mastery and practice, as well as judgement and unconditional positive regard.
More than a decade has passed since Mickey Hart and Jay Stevens began to put words to the mystery that so many were rediscovering. Today, this revolution of rhythm is passing into a new stage of growth. The drum's potential shines brilliantly in our hearts and we look about with both wonder and delight at the lives it has shaped and the moments it has framed. Contained within the great waves of this decade and longer groove, rhythms within rhythms join life to life, culture to culture, and part to whole, weaving out from the source to satori in a polyrhythmic mandala of affirmation, empowerment, and discovery.
There are, in this kaleidoscope of drums, as many bridges as there are rivers to cross, and each offers its own glimpse of the mystery that pervades the one. Yet, it is also this vital diversity that is, and will continue to emerge as the principle challenge to the unifying, transcendent, ideals of the drum circle. The Western circle is a product of a diffusion of knowledge and technologies from a wide range of cultures. The instruments, aesthetics, technical skills, and rhythmic fragments that find their way to the circle are far removed from their original social and temporal contexts. This fact has important consequences for circle participants. The contemporary Western circle lacks the shared social relationships and aesthetic expectations that make coherent production of traditional musical forms possible. With the exception of a core of devoted players, most people don't know each other's songs. By way of contrast, learning to drum in village Africa, Asia , or the Middle-East, is deeply connected, if not inseparable from family, religious, and age based relationships.
Some circles have responded to these challenges by looking to and emphasizing "traditional" cultural styles. This solution is encouraged through classes, workshops, and other kinds of formal instruction. Classes in African, Middle-Eastern, Balkan, Latin, Cuban, South Asian, and even Japanese styles of rhythm and percussion attempt to translate these socially embedded musical traditions to the diverse cultural contexts of Western students.
Except for rare instances of highly controlled and facilitated drum circles, this turn towards tradition breaks down when students from diverse backgrounds arrive at the circle with vastly disparate expectations concerning what and how to play with one another. In addition, the challenge of cultural diversity is exacerbated by wide disparities in the skill and experience of the participants. These facts help to explain much of the patterns and chaos that can be observed in the open circle. At the same time, the inclusiveness of drum circles is an essential part of their appeal. The circle calls out for all to join. All are welcome to transcend the boundary of the audience and to become a creative participant in the creation of life made visible through rhythm and dance.
It is, therefore, this inclusiveness, this quest for unity out of diversity that is the central challenge of the circle. And it must be so, for is it not the experience of isolation and difference that is the central challenge to unity in life itself? As this reality begins to come into focus within the kaleidoscope of the Western drum circle, the music is teaching us new ways to reach out to each other, to find common ground, to learn each other's languages, to listen… to listen… to listen… for the word, for the rhythm, for the smile, that joins me to you, and we to all. People are beginning to gather and teach not of "the way" of the drum, but of "a way" of drumming together across the great divide. One of the most brilliant springs of this emerging stream of rhythm can be found, over a period of five days in August, among the great redwood trees in the mountains of Santa Cruz , California . It is called "Firedance," and it is a place where all are welcome and all are one. It is a circle that invites diversity, and encourages each of us to enter the center of self and other. It is a safe space where we may share the music and dance of both our struggles and our triumphs, and where we may see our own light reflected in the light of one another. For when the fancy licks are burned away and there is nothing left to lose or prove, we shall all find that it is the community that we play, not the drum, and it is in this music of friends and family that the real magic begins.
May we meet around the fire.
Notes:
1Joshua S. Levin, Ph.D. was introduced to the drum and dance circle at fourteen. His explorations into the worlds of percussion have included study, teaching, recording, performance, ritual, and sacred circles, in regions as diverse as Honduras, Mongolia, Nepal, and the United States. With his partner, Deborah Nervig, Joshua practices the arts of rhythm, dance, and song as vehicles for building community and understanding and enhancing relationships. These musical investigations have also been an important component of his work as a cultural anthropologist. He is currently a faculty member in the department of human behavior at the Community College of Southern Nevada.
Copyright 2003. All Rights Reserved
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