Drumming And Listening With Your Heart
Many people at the drum circles have asked me, “What is the most important thing to listen to or be aware of when you are drumming in a group?”
I have come up with the following five ways to drum and listen with your heart:
Many people at the drum circles have asked me, “What is the most important thing to listen to or be aware of when you are drumming in a group?”
I have come up with the following five ways to drum and listen with your heart:
1. The first way to listen to your drumming is to physically feel what the drumming does to your body. Feel where the specific frequencies coming from the vibrating drum are resonating within your body. Lower drum resonances are going to be felt in the lower part of your abdomen while higher drum sounds will be felt in the chest and/or head. Being aware of how the drum is affecting your body through vibration increases the therapeutic healing effect of the drumming. Focusing on where the vibrations are occurring in your body as you drum increases your inner awareness of how you are affected by different frequencies and vibrations.
2. The second way to listen to your drumming is to hear with your own ears what your drumming sounds like. Are you playing a bass note or a higher open tone? What rhythm are you playing? How does it sound? Is it too loud or too soft? Is it slow or fast? What sounds are reaching your ear as a result of playing the drum? What is the tone like? Are you on, ahead, or behind the beat? Can you hear the difference when you play the centre or the edge of the drum? All of these questions help you tune into and listen to what it is that you are doing on your drum.
3. The third way to listen to your drumming is to hear how your drum beat complements or adds to the orchestral mix of the whole group. What does your part in the whole sound like? Are you playing with or against the group? Are you louder or quieter than the rest of the group? Are you playing with the same intensity as the rest of the group. If you stop playing how does affect the sound of the group? What does the whole sound like when you change your beat? All of these questions force you to focus on your part within and as it relates to the whole.
4. The fourth way to listen to your drumming is to hear the whole group drum song as one entity. Don’t listen to just yourself or how you are interacting with the group – but hear the whole song of the group without identifying your own individual part. You hear the whole sound of the group as if it was one sound. To do this you must play your part “on automatic” and not pay attention to your part but everyone’s parts as it makes the whole. This is how we mostly listen to recreational music – we listen to the whole effect and how it sounds overall – we are not picking out just the guitar or the keyboard parts, we are listening and enjoying the entire song as one sound coming to your ears.
5. The fifth way to listen to your drumming is to become the all seeing/hearing “Witness” who hears the whole group’s drum song as one entity. In this mode you are not aware of your individual part/playing or anyone individual’s playing in the group. You are only aware of the entire whole group sound as if you were hearing and seeing it from the sidelines watching and not taking part. I call this technique “Outside Looking In”. You are outside the whole event watching and listening to all the orchestration as one whole voice. Even though your drumming is a part of the whole you are not aware of your individual part or anyone’s individual part. You focus on hearing the sum total of all the parts without recognizing where those parts are coming from. In this mode you try not to think about anything while just listening to the beautiful creation of the whole that the group is playing. This and the previous mode are pre-cursors to arriving at that magical place where “entrainment” takes you away deep into the rhythm and stops your mind so that you “become” the rhythm and expression of your drumming group.
2. The second way to listen to your drumming is to hear with your own ears what your drumming sounds like. Are you playing a bass note or a higher open tone? What rhythm are you playing? How does it sound? Is it too loud or too soft? Is it slow or fast? What sounds are reaching your ear as a result of playing the drum? What is the tone like? Are you on, ahead, or behind the beat? Can you hear the difference when you play the centre or the edge of the drum? All of these questions help you tune into and listen to what it is that you are doing on your drum.
3. The third way to listen to your drumming is to hear how your drum beat complements or adds to the orchestral mix of the whole group. What does your part in the whole sound like? Are you playing with or against the group? Are you louder or quieter than the rest of the group? Are you playing with the same intensity as the rest of the group. If you stop playing how does affect the sound of the group? What does the whole sound like when you change your beat? All of these questions force you to focus on your part within and as it relates to the whole.
4. The fourth way to listen to your drumming is to hear the whole group drum song as one entity. Don’t listen to just yourself or how you are interacting with the group – but hear the whole song of the group without identifying your own individual part. You hear the whole sound of the group as if it was one sound. To do this you must play your part “on automatic” and not pay attention to your part but everyone’s parts as it makes the whole. This is how we mostly listen to recreational music – we listen to the whole effect and how it sounds overall – we are not picking out just the guitar or the keyboard parts, we are listening and enjoying the entire song as one sound coming to your ears.
5. The fifth way to listen to your drumming is to become the all seeing/hearing “Witness” who hears the whole group’s drum song as one entity. In this mode you are not aware of your individual part/playing or anyone individual’s playing in the group. You are only aware of the entire whole group sound as if you were hearing and seeing it from the sidelines watching and not taking part. I call this technique “Outside Looking In”. You are outside the whole event watching and listening to all the orchestration as one whole voice. Even though your drumming is a part of the whole you are not aware of your individual part or anyone’s individual part. You focus on hearing the sum total of all the parts without recognizing where those parts are coming from. In this mode you try not to think about anything while just listening to the beautiful creation of the whole that the group is playing. This and the previous mode are pre-cursors to arriving at that magical place where “entrainment” takes you away deep into the rhythm and stops your mind so that you “become” the rhythm and expression of your drumming group.
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