The Beat Generation

At the encouragement of a friend, my wife joined a drum circle. And at the encouragement of my wife, I eventually joined as well.

Under the guidance and unflagging encouragement of the circle's leader, we are beginning to think we actually can play some of the "standard" African rhythms that we practice endlessly, week to week.

This Sunday we participated in a community celebration of the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. Drumming was a part of the program. I banged on the balafone and shook a gourd and danced a bit and felt a little less incompetent as I got caught up in the rhythms and the vibrations of the group and the crowd.

The urge to bang on things is born in us, I think. Lots of us discovered the joy of banging on pots and pans with various kitchen implements until the grownups learned to lock the cupboards. And even after some of us were formally trained in music, the "jam" session afforded more general enjoyment than the recital.

When I was in public school, our best friends had a family orchestra. The father had made his own violin, which I remember as being an odd sort of white pine color. That's because he never got around to shellacking it. Maybe he didn't know that it was the secret formulas of the shellac that Stradivarius and Guarneri brewed up that largely accounted for the excellence of their instruments. At any rate, I played clarinet, my brother piano, my friend played clarinet as well, his sister violin, and their brother cello. There were no drums. Sometimes "harmony" was not a word that would precisely describe the renderings of Mozart and Schubert and Gilbert and Sullivan. But there was unmistakable energy.

Yehudi Menuhin said that the purpose and the effect of music is to harmonize our vibrations with those of the universe. Drumming, loud and obnoxious though it may seem to some in the confines of a coffeehouse, releases endorphins that move us into states of happiness and elation. What the drum circle affords us is the experience of communicating and creating pleasure, and the bigger the group, the greater that effect.

There are virtuosi amongst the world of percussion. The great Buddy Rich. Usted Allah Rakha (Ravi Shankar's tabla player). Animal (from the Muppet Show). But when you are out there banging your heart out on something that really sounds half decent and seeing your fellow players smiling as though the world was new, you begin to be a virtuoso in your own right. You make your vibrations and the universe welcomes them.