Last night Namaste and I attended the Magic Drums night at the Roadwater Village Hall. This event is part of a monthly season of happenings organised by our local pagan witch Carolynn Townshend. She has put on some marvellously imaginative evenings. Some we have attended included the Secret Language of Trees, Native American Wisdom and Inspirational Empowerment. Her events, called Natures Way, always begin with the lighting of a candle accompanied by a few minutes of silent prayer for anyone you know who needs healing.
Last night began in a wonderful way. The village hall had been laid out with several concentric circles of chairs and each one had an unusual drum or shaker or bells or clackers beside it. The drums ranged from Irish hand drums to various congas, bongos and turkish drums. People drifted in from about 7.30 and without any instruction took a chair and picked up their instrument. Namaste bought some drinks and then one person, probably me, couldnt resist the temptation and tentatively started a rhythm. One by one, others joined in as the hall began to fill up. Latecomers probably assumed the evening had already started and sought out a chair and began banging away. A groove developed. By this time there were about 50-80 people in the hall and all were intensely grooving and improvising on the throbbing beat. The people who attended were by and large ordinary Somerset village folk but they took to pounding out the exotic rhythms like ducks to water.
The music built to a fantastic crescendo, god knows what the neighbours must have thought, although they were probably part of the band!
The music then naturally died away after about half an hour and Carolynn's husband stood up to announce that the evening would start in five minutes! He then introduced the two members of Magic Drum, Ralph and Glyn, two cool dudes who then led us through various permutations of counting beats and bringing in sections of the orchestra at different times. Each of them would dance into the centre in turn, leaping and gesticulating wildly.
We drummed for about an hour, each person finding their own groove within the melodic rhythms, and then stopped for a much needed drinks interval. We swopped instruments and began again, this time concentrating on hand drumming with shakers, clackers and such-like and slowly re-introduced the big drums for a finale. The drumming is very good for the spirit. None of the people were musicians but we all conspired to make a joyful noise with Ralph or Glyn guiding us to stop and start or grow louder or softer. It gave a taste of what being in an orchestra would feel like. The drumming became so compulsive that during the interval several people could not resist starting their own rhythms again. At the end everyone sat back happy, red-faced and exhausted. Carolynn thanked the boys for a 'bloody good evening' and agreed, with the audiences urging, to book them again for next year.
We came out of the hall into the blackest of nights. Roadwater doesnt have streetlights, and we stumbled back to the car in pitch darkness. Truly it was an evening that will stay in our memories forever.
Magic Drum can be found at www.magicdrum.org.uk where there are photos and sound clips of them in action. Highly recommended!
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3 comments:
That sounds like a wonderful evening. Their web site is excellent too. Wouldn't mind booking them myself for something over here.....thanks for the experience, I felt like I was there reading your text.
Swanx
I would very much like to know and have explained to me, how beating drums can inhance anyone who potentially has a mixed up life and cannot find peace within. without these way out versions of well being. I am open minded and would welcome an explanation. if you have the time that is. many thanks.
Dear Anonymous,
Thank you for writing. Welcome to the Dao where we try to embrace everyone, however much they may feel mixed up and lacking peace. I can see you are open minded otherwise you would not have asked the question about the drumming.
Of course I do not know the true answer to anything but I can try and give you my best guess and it goes something like this.
Deep inside us is a calm nature that is at peace with the world and understands most things naturally. However, since our birth our minds have been filled up with incidents and accidents, with the opinions of others and with our own reactions to the world, our own defence mechanisms that get us through the day. All these thoughts and opinions are like clouds obscuring the bright moon. We can become taken over by own own egotistic thoughts, wanting this, not wanting that, until our moon is completely obscured and we forget that we are beautiful.
There are a number of techniques to try and bypass the restless ego-mind and connect with the purity within. One of these is meditation where we seek to calm the mind by concentrating on our breathing or on an image before us.
Drumming, in my view, has a similar effect. It is not the level of noise which is important, it is losing oneself in the rhythm to the point that one is experiencing life rather than thinking about it. Also group drumming had an extra effect for me in that one lost oneself in the experience along with a large crowd of other people all playing co-operatively rather than competing. I found it very rewarding and would like to experience it again.
I would be interested to know your thoughts on this dear Anonymous and would like to talk more with you. Do write back if you feel you would like to speak to people who also get mixed up from time time but feel there is a way out through letting go of what is making us feel mixed up.
Love and peace to your heart.
bruv
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