One of my favorite methods for calling the spirits is music, especially drumming with my friends around a campfire.
I love that in more diverse groups, people will sing, many will dance, and that some will pick up an unused instrument and before the end of the song become a musical adept.
I myself have two djembes and love to play every instrument, if only hauling a piano into the woods was possible…
What percussional and music delights do others revel in?
I love to play drums, and have many surreal experiences while playing, especially for extended periods. Weird visions, and I have had many instances of telepathy, especially with the guy that taught me. THings like stopping on a dime together, while I am looking the opposite way or have my eyes closed , or changing rythyms without being prompted together.
I really really like to play the flute or the recorder. Especially if I have a little buzz going. All that extended blowing gives me a headrush and sends me into a very interesting state of mind. I haven’t left my body and become music yet, but I am hoping to get some salvia and give it a shot soon.
Interesting you should bring up this subject. Nick and his mom and I spent all day yesterday at a drum making workshop with this shaman type dude, so now we all have our own drums. They are pretty sweet. The guy was all mysterious and told us we were going to teach other people to make drums someday and that we should learn the songs. I bet he says that to everyone, but I wouldn’t mind teaching it. Are there any resources out there for learning to play native american drums? I don’t understand what the songs are.
Well drumming has be an pretty integral part of our gatherings in the past. in fact, after having been shut down at Seneca Rocks by a crotchety campground host, we backed off and could never get the energy back again after the first night, so now I make drumming a deal breaker for me and event I directly plan. I ahve no problem cross the thresholds of other, but for me drumming is an important part of my idea of ‘magic’.
I feel it opens each other up in ways that words just simply fail.
I know lots of songs that I can teach you, lots of beats, and I know of lots of people who know even more. So on the day we meet I hope we can teach each other some beats. learning time signatures and syncopations is a good start for creating your own beats.
If you really have that music bug, dont’ be afraid of being a wild woman and writting your own songs, I must say, I should take my own advice, or at least, learn some of the stuff I have written down…
Tony
Though I have limited experience in drum circles, I find drumming essential in my shamanic journey work. I also use a powerful rattle from the Amazon, and shamanic drumming and rattling tapes to help me shift.
Drums are powerful… I have heard that some shaman call them their horses, and ride them into the Spirit World. I have always like that description.
Have you guys done solo drumming to interact with the Spirit World or just group stuff? ??? 
Tonyz-
I love your dedication to the importance of drumming! I wish I had more drummers in my circle. Scout, for one, considers it too much of a ‘hippie’ thing. Feh!
I don’t know if I could have more fun than a circle of drummers and some animal dancers in the middle, practicing SHIFT.
Willem,
perhaps when I am visiting the area from June to Aug we can make that happen. I for one would really like to give it a shot.
Scout,
drums aren’t just for hippies. I play drums and guitar, mostly for my death metal and black metal band, and can still get down with the handdrums. It helped that while I was learning a bunch of hot cajun chicks danced around half-clothed. And provided free alcohol. but I can’t get down with the hippies. They can’t play fast enough, and play the same 2 beats over and over and over.
Little Spider,
I have never tried solo drumming to speak with the gods. I have done tons of group stuff though. I’ve been playing for some local belly dancers for about 4 years now. Maybe I’ll give it a shot after I build my sweatlodge.
R
yeah while it’s unfair to criticise hippies, they are bridges from one culture to another, the complaints that they like to play drums but don’t know how are valid.
They don’t know how because they are children of individualism, they go to a store, buy a drum, and play it at home. they take on no masters, and seek others and encourage others like them to get a drum, and then they proceed to play variations of the same 4/4 beat over and over again.
However, this is the path of the trance dancer. Playing over and over again the same beats gets challenging as you begin to lose yourself, and it conjures up a certain ‘range’ of spiritual possibilities.
Trance dancing, or repetitive anything, simply opens one self up to their own heart. You can hope this leads to other things…
I encourage people to practice varying their meter, learn how to play fast and tight, learn how to play slow and sensual. your heart is but one center, one rhythm, one possiblity for self-transformation…
Now, once one has become a student and is on their path to ‘master’(it’s a journey, remember, not a destination…), they learn new spiritual technologies in the form of different meters, and syncopation.
I was taught on the Western African school, I had a buddy ‘Enoch’ in Junior High whose dad made a living playing Djembes. I found out later on at Rainbow Gatherings that the djembe was a popular, to say the least, drum, but very few people knew the rhytyms. but, there’s a lot fo broken knowledge there for me, as I went out of the drumming thing and didni’t pick it back up for years after intitally learned…
It’s always a joy for me to play with the likes of Rory, with his middle eastern beats. It’s hard to hear the clear distinctions one school makes from song to song, beat to beat, but once you learn and meld the systems, you begin to hear things beyond the cyclicals…
I have two djembes, one tuned to ‘G’ and one tuned to an ‘E’. the three step dissonance creates for me ideal sets of overtones that tune my body into the spirtual world.
Overtones are the result of spinning, vibrating air running into each other and producing new sounds. This of course is a whole 'nother set of magic that is of drumming, but distinct from rhythm itself.
Just a few weeks ago at Rory’s, I saw everyone get better than they already were, for in the company of those who seek enlightenment ye shall find it… I saw a few people leap right over years of intial self-practice and already sound rythmic, and creative, in a weekend.
in every drum circle, there is a librarian, and this may change hands every song, every circle, or even many times (usually) during a song. the librarian is the metronome of sorts, the person who holds onto the beat no matter what so that those who experiment with solo know where to go, and what foundation they are playing across.
Cyclicals are a big one for me, too. I like to do , for example, three bars that repeat, and then a fourth bar that opens up and encourages the solo.
so say we find a compratable rhythm of:
BE ba … BE baba,
BE ba … BE baba,
BE ba … BE baba
ba ba ba ba …
then each person in the circle gets to fill in the last bar.
maybe I might go:
bi bi bi bi bi bi bi bi
to show others this is the time to solo and change up the rhythm…
to maybe
bi BE buh bi BE buh…
then maybe a good solo will become a secondary layer, and then even go back to the primary layer as someone solos the original bars (or something that reminds the group).
and soon, what you have on your hands is no longer simple a drum circle, but a percussion orchestra. it’s in this orchestra that our emotions begin to transmit, that new experiences of transcendence begin to emerge…
for me, the magic begins as people begin to solo and the original four bars evolves into something entirely different, that somehow, in the drm circle, we are able to transmit our creative energies without saying a word or skipping a beat.
Drumming for me is also the beginning of understanding non-verbal communcation…
This is great info that is mostly new to me. I know next to nothing about trance drumming for a group. I have, however, done shamanic drumming in a group of shamanic practioners in a workshop with Hank Wesselman.
The only drumming I have really done has been on a hand drum, and the rhythm is totally repeatative. You play in a certain range, with about 206 to 220 beats per minute. This serves to shift from the ordinary state of consciousness to shamanic state of consciousness. It is a frequency of the Theta range that you want to achieve in shamanic drumming.
I know that from my experience it is very difficult to continue drumming once you have reached the Theta range and often times I have a shamanic drumming or rattling tape on in the background or through headphones so I can drop my drum/rattle when I can no longer do it myself.
I have sometimes done this where I shake my rattle and my partner will use the drum. I notice that personally, the two together give a much more powerful result. But, each person has their own preferences…
I can see myself drumming and learning new ways to drum. I want to learn a musical instrument and play a song for you all. Oh, the clock just striked 11:41pm here. Another late nighter! I don’t care. I work in the morning…nothing to look forward to.
I’ve been drumming for about 21 years now. Got my first djembe when I was about 25 and have several now, along with a couple of ashikos. I have been to lots of drum circles, drum alone a great deal and have also been to countless rituals (pagan) where drums were used as a way to connect to Spirit and keep the connection going for hours at a time.
I’ve been lucky enough to have taken a handful of classes from Jim Donovan (Rusted Root’s drummer) and have learned a great deal from him. Most of the stuff he teaches comes directly from his teachers who have backgrounds in traditional African drumming. He also teaches alot about breathing, trancing and quieting our minds while we drum so we can just be the music and the circle instead of individuals while we drum together…is quite the experience.
I’ve found that some of the time I can reach a shift in my consciousness/awareness? when I’m drumming. It happens when I’m able to quiet my mind and just let the drum sing however it wants…I don’t try to control the rhythm and I forget who is around me, my ego starts to slip away and my sensitivity to Spirit becomes even stronger and I’m at Peace.
The drum circles and rituals I’ve been to are usually very high energy and some of the rituals last from sundown to sunup. I love to dance to the drums so it can sometimes be a struggle for me …which do I do…let my drum sing…or let my body? I love both…though I’d have to say if forced to choose I’d probably choose drumming
I have also used rattles, rocks, bones and anything else that makes just the right noise while chanting to bring about the sort of consciousness shift I’m going for. If I feel like I need something specific for this and don’t have it on hand…I’ve found if I wander into the woods and ask for it…I’ll find what I need.