Sacred Beat: From the Heart of the Drum Circle

Introduction

Fear not, thou drummer of the night; we too will be there. And still he drummed on in the silence and the dark. This stray sound from a far-off sphere came to our ears from time to time, far, sweet, and significant, and we listened with such an unprejudiced sense as if for the first time we heard at all. No doubt he was an insignificant drummer enough, but his music afforded us a prime and leisure hour, and we felt that we were in season wholly. These simple sounds related us to the stars.

—Henry David Thoreau

A crackling fire burns through the night, reaching golden-red arms skyward to embrace the darkness. Around it, men and women move in circles, seeming unaware of anything but the fire, each other, and the sound that drives their dance—the sound of the drum. It rings out over the land with a message of unity, wholeness, hope, and the tribal soul from which we've come.

No, this isn't a scene from a movie or storybook. It's a reality that's playing itself out at spiritual gatherings known as drum circles, or fire circles, around the world nearly every day. Here the ancient drum has found a whole new voice and presence among seekers of many paths. Why? What is it about the drum that awakens magic and sparks the very soul of humankind? That question is at the heart of Sacred Beat.

At least part of the answer comes in knowing that drums have been used for thousands of years in religious and social settings. They have pounded out messages to neighboring tribes, signaled the start of important celebrations, reverberated with the joy of a birth, and pulsed a pathway for spirits to find their way home after death. So the drum has been traditionally intertwined with all the moments and memories that make us human.

Sacred Beat honors this legacy and seeks to help in the drum's reemergence and reawakening. How? First by sharing the global history and folklore surrounding this amazingly diverse musical instrument. For example, in Lapland and Siberia, shamans used drums as a divination device (a system modernly known as tympana), as did gypsies in Hungary, and the Celts in Europe. Centuries later on the other side of the ocean, people were interpreting the appearance of drums in dreams as an omen of war or another type of important announcement soon to follow. These two illustrations help us see that drums held import on many different societal levels all over the world.

Next, Sacred Beat shares sound ideas for finding a drum and other rhythmic tools that are wholly right for your vision, caring for that instrument, and learning to honor its spirit in your life. When you first fall in love with a drum you will find it becomes a very real relationship. An entertainer plays for what others can give (for ego). A spirit drummer first plays for her/himself (there's the real relationship), then for the elemental beings, and finally for other human beings. When all of these are satisfied, the gods will listen, and they will be able to be called through the playing.

In this sense, the drum is truly an altar. The altar is first given life by the relationship created when the drummer sees the drum as an animate object: what the drum is made of only amplifies the energies of powerful, transcendent thoughts about the magic that is created by playing it. You will hear passion in its beat, appreciate its beauty, and want to have it with you wherever you go. Nonetheless, there are some practical considerations that come into play in choosing a drum (or drum alternative) so that it not only sings the song of your soul but also suits your lifestyle.

Once someone begins drumming, they quickly find that the drum is an instrument that begs to be shared in a group setting. Spiritually speaking, this group is divided into four parts: the fire tenders, dancers, drummers, and the community as a whole, of which the characteristics, roles, and responsibilities of each will be discussed. To be an effective drummer, one must be sensitive to each of these four circles and how they create the Sacred Wheel from which music and magic are born.

Last but not least, Sacred Beat takes you on an adventure in spiritual rhythms combined with self-expression through meditation, ritual, and other metaphysical methods. Understanding drumming is like understanding your heart. If you listen very carefully, you will know its essence and hear the voice of the ancestors reaching out from the past. When you find and work with one drum regularly it becomes an extension of self that communicates your values, your joy in life, and your connection with Earth and the magical community. Even more important, it strengthens and expresses your connection with Spirit.

If you have ever listened to a drum and thought you caught words in that rhythm or felt your feet moving with a mind of their own, you have experienced the true spirit and power of the drum. Sacred Beat is a guide to making this experience something you create daily for yourself. In the pages of this book we'll explore using the drum as a community tool that draws people together in harmony. We'll also discuss drum etiquette, elements of a good drum circle, the importance of dance, and much, much more.

With this in mind, be still for one moment and listen. Stop rushing, take a deep breath, hold it—then just listen. Do you hear that beating? Do you hear the rhythm of life within? This is also a kind of drum that you have inside of you every moment of every day. If you can hear that life-beat and know it as your own, and honor it as it mingles with the rhythm of all people, nature, and the universe, you can also learn to drum.

Follow the beating. Follow it to renewal. Follow it homeward to your heart.

Voice of the Ancestors Reborn

Ifeel the celestial song as the planets dance, and I answer with a dance of my own. The Drum Spirit is a catalyst for my motion, which calls me with an ancient heartbeat–the heartbeat of the world.

—Raindance

The History, Myth, Religion, and Lore of the Drum

Only the drum is confident, it thinks the world has not changed.

—Robinson Jeffers

The Drum Spirit is alive, well, and thriving in our world. Time and transformation have not deterred it, nor has any amount of technological advance. To understand this amazing longevity, we must first turn back the pages of time and learn about the drum's history and its importance to humankind's tribe.

At least part of this importance is easily discerned by looking at the symbolic value of the drum around the world. Among Africans it represents magical power and the heart. In Buddhist tradition drums resonate with the voice of the law and with happy news. In China it bears the song of heaven, for the Hindus the drumbeat is the primordial sound of creation, in Japan it echoes as a token of prayer, and in India it is the drum of Shiva that magically beats out our universe's vital pulse.

Volumes could be written about any of these socio-philosophical views on drumming. It's undeniable that this instrument has reached deeply into the human soul and imbedded itself in our consciousness. Nonetheless, we have only this chapter in which to share snippets of the drum's past, so forgive our briefness. As you read, be asking yourself: How does all this tradition manifest in sacred drumming today, and how will we continue to honor this resounding legacy in the future?

TIME'S BEAT: A BRIEF HISTORY OF DRUMS

Before we launch a more detailed review, there is one myth about the drum that needs to be clarified. Many people think of the drum as a man's tool. However, the histories of the Egyptian, Semitic, Sumerian, and Wahinda people all tell us of women using these instruments. In Egypt, girls attended various gods by dancing with drums. In the Semitic tribes, women used drums somewhat exclusively for singing and dancing at moon rituals. Sumerian history gives us an account of a royal granddaughter drumming in the temple of the moon around 2280 B.C.E. Finally, among the Wahinda of East Africa, it's considered a death wish for a man to even look at a drum. They will only dare to carry it at night, and even better during the dark moon so it cannot be seen. Moreover, there are ancient statues of women holding what appears to be a cake, but is actually a drum (a cake held up like that would surely fall to the ground). With these examples in hand, we can see that women used drums just as men, and women are currently coming into the drum circle again as part of the renewal process.

With that myth out of the way, it is very safe to say that drums are the most widespread, sacred, and ritually significant of all musical instruments. They appeared all over the world as an integral part of religious ceremonies, combined with dancing, singing, marching, and other community work. Drums exorcised malevolent spirits, expelled evildoers, divined the future, signaled trouble, acted as a fertility charm, and became an earthly voice for the ancestors, spirits, and gods.

Why a drum of all things? Good question! There are several good theories to consider. First, and one of the most popular ideas to reemerge recently, is the theory of entrainment. Conceptualized by Christian Huygens in 1665, this theory basically states that two rhythms in close proximity to one another will slowly begin to mirror each other. They entrain. Rather than cycle apart from each other, which takes more energy, they move closer to oneness and eventually beat together. So by making and using drums, our ancestors were simply entraining to the beat of the universe itself, even as we are trying to do.

To understand entrainment better, consider that the drum very closely resembles the sound of our heartbeat, perhaps the most personal and intimate sound we know from before birth until death. Also consider the fact that our ancestors listened to the world around them, seeing the rhythms and patterns in everything. Crickets, the pitter-patter of rainfall, birds flying overhead, the sound of people harvesting, and all manner of other natural or social beats surrounding them daily. Each of these sounds comes together, entrains, in the drum.

A third viable possibility is that drums became popular because they could be made from just about anything. Beats could be tapped out on a hollow log, an upturned cup, a piece of bamboo, clamshells, and even a person's belly. Rhythm is an inescapable part of the human soul, and it was going to find expression somewhere! The drum represents a huge part of that expression.

With all this in mind, where exactly do we begin? Well, the drum's history is partially intertwined with the human love of music. Some creative soul way back in 15,000 B.C.E. carved a dancing shaman in a cave in what is now France. Historians tell us that the person portrayed wears skins and seems to be playing a concussion stick (a percussion instrument)! It's a reasonable assumption that even the earliest humans realized what an old African saying advises: a person or place without music is dead. Through music we express so much that cannot be expressed in words. Music, and specifically drumming, mirrors our dreams, our experiences, our cultural richness, and our very souls. It takes emotion and translates it into rhythm—into something someone else can hear and respond to no matter the language barriers.

To find early drums, we might begin in Moravia in central Europe. Here digs uncovered clay drums dating to about 6,000 B.C.E. Bulgarian artifacts imply that drums were used to honor a bird goddess around 4,500 B.C.E., and Mesopotamian sculptures illustrating a variety of drums date to 3,000 B.C.E. This is also true of the paintings depicting drums in Egypt, India, Assyria, Persia, and China. In each of these five settings, art testifies that drums served an important communal function too by pounding out work rhythms (such as for rowers in Egypt).

Another interesting archaeological dig in Russia indicates that these early people were using resonating chambers as community gathering spots where percussive instruments could echo loudly and more easily reach the heavens. Dated to the Paleolithic era, these caves included a well-fashioned mud hut filled with idiophones. These ancient depictions among so many diverse cultures make it impossible to determine a specific point of origin for drums. They just appear as if by magic.

The best estimate of when drums took on the configuration of a hollow vessel with an animal hide on top is around the eighth century B.C.E. We have Ethiopian cave paintings and carvings to thank for this information. Nonetheless, since these illustrations are pretty detailed (down to the twine wrappings) it's likely this design existed for quite a while prior to this date.

These early hide covers were rarely prepared properly for longevity. Other typical covers include fish, snake, and lizard skin. In times of war, drums made from the skins of rival humans were also quite common. While this might seem barbaric, to the tribal mind it was a very effective way to overcome your enemy through sympathetic magic (literally pounding the power out of them). In some settings, such as Peru, it also endowed the possessor with all of his or her enemies' attributes (like strength or cunning).

Speaking of covers, it's interesting to note that the nails that held drum hides in place also had significance. In both China and Aztec Mexico these bits of metal protected the drum's virtue. Similarly, the Araucanians added obsidian to the inside of their drums to boost its magical power. Corresponding techniques were being used in a variety of regions with the only difference being the augmentative medium, which ranged from shells to skulls and crystals.

Throughout these early years drums slowly moved more and more out of the temple and into daily life. One of the main places it appeared was on the battlefield. Here the amount of noise not only improved the troops' spirits, but intimidated the opponent. When one looks at the large drums in India, for example, there is no doubt they would sound LOUDLY! The mahabharata was a drum so powerful as to have gained the reputation of tearing the sky in two if played properly.

Around A.D. 1,000 something important took place that increased the variety of drums and their popularity. The Arabian and Turkish traders brought a completely different type of drum into Europe. Moors also contributed a style of their own. Over time and with increasing trade routes, these novelties probably influenced the tabor (a two-headed drum and snare with a skin head) and the nakers (two single-headed Turkish cavalry drums), both of which appeared in Europe in the thirteenth century. After a fashion, this would change the face of European music which was still struggling to include drums in musical catalogues as late as the 1500s!

Around the 1300s the first kettledrums appear in illustrations, ranging in size from between seventeen and twenty-eight inches wide. The screws on the kettledrum allowed the musician to subtly change its tone.

A DRUM TIMELINE

4000 B.C.E.-Southwestern Europe develops cylinder drums.

2500–Germany, Neolithic pottery drum uncovered.

2000–lraqian carving depicts a woman with a tambour (likely used in worship of a goddess).

1500–Egyptian paintings show frame drums and other instruments.

1100–Bronze drums appear in China.

l000–Mesopotamian carvings illustrate musicians with drums.

700–Babylonians discover drums.

500–In China during the time of Confucius, loud percussive noise like that produced by some drums represented an unruly government and was frowned upon.

400–Chinese statues portray people or storytellers with drums and dancing (some of these images are still being reproduced).

200–Mexican pottery depicts people sitting around a hearth fire with drums.

A.D. l00–Chinese rubbings show unique mechanical drums becoming part of transportation.

600–Chinese statues with drums buried with the dead to protect and serve the body.

Middle Ages-Sacred music was often limited to vocalizations due to the belief that drumming signaled Satan's influence and presence.

1300s–French illuminations show angels playing kettledrums and bells; side drum comes to Europe. Mongols similarly depicted using kettledrums to communicate with each other during battle (Persian paintings).

1400s–European military begins using drumming.

1500–Satan with a field drum depicted in Netherlands art, illustrating the notions of the Middle Ages were not completely past.

1689–The first recorded reporting of a poltergeist in England describes it as bearing a drum.

1700s–Coptic illuminators depicting drumming in heaven (specifically using kettle drums).

1725–Brass drums become popular in Europe.

1940–Drum huts still exist in Zaire and other parts of the world where ritual drums are