You know, I never talked about the Drum Circle at Harmony Hill Gardens on 8/13/11. We got started late--weather related issues, but we ended up outside around the bonfire. I won't go into everything that we did, but some really neat stuff happened. We did what was called a "soundscape" in musical jargon. I brought out my singing bowls, handed out all of my shakers, added in some non-traditional ways of using the drums, such as hitting the shells, using fingers, bending notes by pressing on the drum heads,... I taught a few people how to play the bowls, and they picked it up in a heart beat! I think I spent months trying to get some of them to ring, especially the large, hand-hammered one from Tibet that I hapened upon while in Portland, Oregon.
The soundscape is like an anything goes kind of thing. I asked people to imitate what they heard--the crickets, leaves rustling, crackling fire pops, sounds off in the distance, or to just play a little something that did not have a beat. It started softly...almost bashfully...and then, out came the "cricket" players, the "wind" players, the bowls and their different timbres,...sounded SO neat, ethereal, relaxing, meditative, contemplative... After some coaxing, the randomness of sound came together in a strange but cool way. The music became a bit bolder, and then one could hear this landscape of tonality that wrapped around the bonfire. In its randomness, it became cohesive. I have no other words to describe it except that it was beautiful, creative, intuitive and it all worked together to form this creation--a palatte of sounds that almost felt like I was in the middle of a new age album recording session. Wild.
And then, and I do not know where it originated, but a simple beat emerged, pulling everyone together into a jam, but a jam made up of drums, singing bowls, non-traditional drumming techniques, some random sounds here and there. It was like african drumming meets John Cage* meets yoga studio! After it was over, I was so pumped up, and addressed the group as such: Did you hear _____? Wasn't it cool when ______ happened? What about that space where we all took a breath together! The drums, the air, the earth, the fire, the people...we hit that euphoric state that I can only call magic. Magic occurs when you no longer feel like you are "drumming", yet you are. Magic occurs when that happens to everyone at the same time. Magic occurs when the we become one with the beat and then the beat takes us beyond... I don't know where "beyond" is, but it happened at this point in the drum circle...and it was pure MAGIC.
*Want to go for an interesting ride? Put "John Cage" into a search engine, and play some of his works...he calls them "compositions" but whatever... He is the master of random, of wacky, of wacked (lol), the non-traditional non-traditionalist. In other words, he is OUT there. I used to think he was on something--like LSD or shrooms. Who the hell thinks of shit like this? Obviously, he does not have what I would consider a "normal" mind, however, within this abnormality there is pure genius.................................I think............................
Ok, so I cannot resist throwing some links in here...buckle your seatbelt and hold the f*** on....this is some weird sh** folks, LOL! Enjoy. ?
http://youtu.be/hUJagb7hL0E
http://youtu.be/Pbgr74yNM7M
http://youtu.be/Ep5fNEeoh74
http://youtu.be/Mn16fh6c31s
http://youtu.be/SkHqAUugJKs
PS--each one is whackier than the one before it!!! (Sorry John Cage fans...I tried, I really tried in college to understand his genius, but most of it makes me feel like someone is scratching their nails on a chalkboard over and over again...)
Please write me some comments if you have any opinions about John Cage--would love to hear them!
