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Principles & Practicalities of Drumming
Relax and breathe.
Take a moment before you begin drumming to stretch your arms up, then roll your shoulders back, flap your elbows and shake your wrists front to back. Then, as you take a deep breath, visualize a ball of light starting at your sacrum, rolling up your spine, your neck, over your head and as you breathe out, rolling down the front of your body. Send the ball of light to any area of your body that has pain or feels tense and imagine the light transforming and dissolving the tension.
Body Awareness.
Sit comfortably with your back supported, and spine straight, feet flat on the floor connecting you to Mother Earth. Keep your breathing deep and gentle. Relax your jaw and open your throat. Maintain awareness of your body, keeping your shoulders elbows and wrists relaxed. Take frequent rests and shake your wrists or change from finger playing to using a beater.
Move your body, dance your hands.
Allow your body to move gently with the rhythms you are playing; you might even tap your feet! Let your wrists, hands and fingers be loose and bounce off the drumskin. Imagine your fingers are dancing!
Listen.
Music is all about listening - to ourselves, to the muse, to our neighbors. Drumming is more about listening than talent. Listening helps us feel the pulse of the music in our bodies; the downbeat, the strongbeat. If we lose the beat, all we have to do is stop, listen, and feel it. Then we can start playing again.
Slowly and Gently.
Less is Best. Drumming is by nature, more about how it sounds and feels than about how complex we can play and how many rhythms we know. When learning a new rhythm, feel the pulse and start SLOWLY, and keep playing slowly until you feel very confident. Only then GRADUALLY increase the tempo. Play gently, with love. Touch and caress the drum, rather than hit and pound her. Bring precision and passion to your drumming. Play from your heart, clear distinct tones that land at the right moment.
"If You Can Sing It , You Can Play It".
It really helps when learning a new rhythm to say or sing the pattern out loud, and to clap it. This gets the rhythm in our bodies, so we can feel it, rather than getting stuck mentally analyzing it..
Playing in a Circle
One of the easiest and quickest ways to build community is to drum together. It gets people connected through vibration. Drumming in a circle puts everyone involved on an equal footing…every part is important to the whole. The challenge of the circle is to create unity within diversity. Listening is the key. Drumming together is like having a conversation…we listen to each other, or there is chaos. It's good to stop playing for a moment and really listen to what's going on around us, then we're more aware of what we are playing, and the pulse of the music.
Playing in a circle allows us to experience lessons in connection and conflict, change and stability, learning and mastery, judgement and unconditional positive regard. It also allows us to experience ourselves as an active part of the music - to experience music as a community activity rather than passively as an audience.
Clarity of Intent.
Sound is a powerful force with transformative capabilities. It has the ability to create and heal or to confuse and destroy. By adding intent to your drumming you increase the power of manifestation. Our intent is a thought coming from clarity aligned with inner peace, love and joy from our hearts, that is for the highest good. You can set an intent at the start of your drumming, e.g. world peace, love, co-operation, tolerance.
A Word of Caution
Be aware of two seemingly natural inclinations when drumming either alone or in a circle:
1. We often judge ourselves and others harshly when learning.
2. We often get faster and faster - a reflection of our culture.
Now that you're aware, you can avoid these tendencies.
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