DJEMBE-L FAQ Compilation Topic On Drumming, Dance, and Locating Rhythms in the Body (Last revised 06/01/08)

On Drumming, Dance, and Locating Rhythms in the Body

Sun Nov 3 13:37:43 1996
From: Barbara Bird bbird@azstarnet.com
Subject: Re: Tradition and American continent

SULE GREGORY C. WILSON wrote:
One reason there's so much argument on rhythms, is that the song varies from
village to village. When I grew up in D.C. you could tell what part of town someone grew up in by watching how they did the D.C. Bop- by how they danced.

Thank you Sule!

I think American students of drumming often tend to look at the rhythms we are attempting to learn as though they are frozen in time and space, not realizing that drum music, much as other music, is not static, and does not stay the same, but flows and grows and changes as it moves from place to place and drummer to drummer. Oftentimes, (IMHO) the rhythms are more CONCEPTS than finite entities, and what really matters in the originating cultures is the dance, and that the drumming support the dance. Just my two cents,

B.Bird
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Mon Nov 4 18:56:58 1996
From: Nowick Gray nowick@awinc.com
Subject: Re: Tradition and American continent

A comment and a question:
It's been valuable to hear comments by people well-connected to traditional sources, on this topic. Underneath apparent disagreement I think we all share respect for tradition and accuracy; and since we're human and fallible and creative, we also have to recognize fluidity and change, as you [B.Bird] point out:

drum music, much as other music, is not static, and does not stay the same, but flows and grows and changes as it moves from place to place and drummer to drummer. Oftentimes, (IMHO) the rhythms are more CONCEPTS than finite entities, and what really matters in the originating cultures is the dance, and that the drumming support the dance.

In your understanding, is the dance more rigid and unchanging than the rhythm? If so, how is it maintained more purely? Are you suggesting that the drummers (in tradition) follow the dancers for tempo, for improvisational direction? Or maybe I haven't quite grasped what you're meaning by "support"...could you clarify?

Thanks,
Nowick Gray
nowick@awinc.com
Cougar WebWorks
http://www.he.net/~cougarww/
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Tue Nov 5 07:20:18 1996
From: Barbara Bird bbird@azstarnet.com 
Subject: Re: Tradition and American continent

Hi Nowick!
What I mean by supporting the dance, is that the drumming work with the movement of the dance. The drums must fit the movement. Too often, and I certainly own this one, we drum crazies are interested in the rhythms as extracted or separate from the dance. I'm sure we could get into a chicken vs. egg thing here. I am certainly not suggesting that the drums follow the dancers for tempo or improvisational direction. I am also not saying that the dance is more rigid. Certainly one thing that has influenced the dance is the artistic needs of the ballet.

Thanks, B.Bird
[See the archives of djembe-l for more on how the drum and dance are related in traditional settings, in performance, and in dance classes. MTF]

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Tue Nov 5 11:19:08 1996
From: drumpath@aztec.asu.edu  (SULE GREGORY C. WILSON)
Subject: Re: Tradition and American continent

...rhythms are more CONCEPTS than finite entities, and what really matters in the originating cultures is the dance..... B. Bird is the dance more rigid and unchanging than the rhythm? If so, how is it maintained more purely? Nowick Gray

Hi; I can't cite you chapter and verse, but movement styles are amazingly conservative. You have seen people who-frighteningly accurately--unconsciously gesture as a long-gone relative. This is deep language; what you pick up by watching stays. Members of my family have been doing genealogy; my aunt went back to Jerusalem, MD, and old locals commented that she stood/carried herself as a member of the Mahammitt family, most of whom she never met.

I'm working with a videographer @ ASU who is developing a database of gesture, mudra, including dance. This is deep stuff.

As to drums supporting dance: that is the way it goes. And that's how I teach. (I have a class "Dancing For Drummers" that teaches this) Make the drummers know, in their bodies, how the music is supposed to make you feel; which muscles, nerves, organs, systems and frequencies are to be stimulated by that given movement and its complementary rhythm.

To use me as example, again. When in HI at Arthur's Playshop, I ran through some rhythms from different cultures, partially to test the limits of the drum, partially 'cause I was working and studying and didn't have much chance to just let my energy loose. Anyway, afterwards, the folks standing around commented on how, as I switched from, say, samba to rumba, my persona changed to fit the music. Like watching an impressionist turn their back and go into character. IF IT'S NOT IN YOUR BODY, IT AIN'T IN YOUR HANDS. You can take it from head to ear, but it....don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that swing. As I said in my book, if you don't know where to move it, you won't know how to groove it. That is THE very basic. You cannot invoke if you cannot say. You cannot say--and mean it--if you do not feel it, feel it enough to create it from within, and not from memory.

Sule
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Tue Nov 5 13:25:53 1996
From: drum@aloha.net  (Michael Wall)
Subject: Re: Tradition and American continent

[SNIP/quote Sule/MTF]

I was there, saw it with my own eyes. Sule played about a minute of one rhythm, then switched to a different one from a different culture, then again and again. Probably went through 10 different rhythms without pausing. Each time his physiology changed, right down to very subtle differences in the ways he formed his hands and struck the drum. Each change called completely different types of slaps, tones, basses and ?? sounds from the SAME DRUM! In addition, he sang songs with many of the rhythms and the characteristics of his tonality, inflection and ?? seems to change in subtle, un-intentional ways. This was not a show, this was a man on the beach playing for fun in a spontaneous way with friends. Clearly he has assimilated the music's involved on levels I cannot even comprehend.

I have told a number of my friends about this experience, as I was totally floored by it. Sule is a man who has the dances deeply in his neuro-physiology (ask him for his "what you gotta have to play djembe" demonstration dance!) and it clearly affects his playing in remarkable ways.

Folks - this is a remarkable man. If you ever get a chance to meet, study or just play with him, RUN... do not walk to the opportunity!

michael
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Sat Nov 9 15:43:53 1996
From: Nowick Gray nowick@awinc.com 
Subject: dance and drum

Sule wrote:
IF IT'S NOT IN YOUR BODY, IT AIN'T IN YOUR HANDS. You can take it from head to ear, but it....don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that swing. As I said in my book, if you don't know where to move it, you won't know how to groove it. That is THE very basic. You cannot invoke if you cannot say. You cannot say--and mean it--if you do not feel it, feel it enough to create it from within, and not from memory.

Thanks for the deep stuff, Sule. I feel the rightness of what you say, and can learn from it. Your point seems to apply also to another of the threads we've been conversing about here, re. drum circles that don't work. I've seen a lot of folks playing drums but without eye contact, without their own BODY contact let alone the bodies of others. Being part of the *Dance* is being in body and spirit instead of heady ego and mathematics of notation--though they too can be tools.

-- Nowick Gray
nowick@awinc.com
Cougar WebWorks
http://www.he.net/~cougarww/ 

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Sat Nov 9 19:26:38 1996
From: drumpath@aztec.asu.edu  (SULE GREGORY C. WILSON)
Subject: Re: dance and drum

Sule wrote:
IF IT'S NOT IN YOUR BODY, IT AIN'T IN YOUR HANDS.
Nowick responds: I feel the rightness of what you say, and can learn from it. .....I've seen a lot of folks playing drums but without eye contact, without their own BODY contact let alone the bodies of others. Being part of the *Dance* is being in body and spirit instead of heady ego and mathematics of notation--though they too can be tools.

Thanks, Nowick. I was afraid I was shouting too harshly. But you've brought up something I was trying to figure out how to approach: the body. This is extreme, but..kinda works in principle: All you Drum Circle-ers are out to lunch. 'Cause it's all in your head. What do I mean? (another personal anecdote:)

In HI, we'd been drumming in the circle for hours. Many had left, tired and satiated. We were hanging on, 'round the fire: Boom-bidee-boom-bidee-boom. Then...out come dancers, ready to be fed by rhythm. They start getting fed, and the boom-bidee-boom-bidee becomes a rocket of selflessness and good times. My point: you've got a drum circle, and it sounds good, and you feel good, and your fellow circle-ers feel good.....The Next Step is: consciously helping someone else Feel GO(o)D. Does the music make 'em move? If there's a mover in the center or on the side, and the drummers are in focus on the mover, there is no way the circle will ever die. The music is before you in the dancer's body. That's why U.S. AfrAms still got soul. They took the drum, but not the rhythm in the body. All you have to do to get it back is play what you see....

"Oh Play what you see...
By the Fire's Golden light.
Oh so proudly we played,
to the dancer's teeth gleaming!
And their arms they did flail!
Kicked their legs in the air!
That was proof
That dark night
That the Rhythm was There.
Oh, Say does that Unending Rhythm yet Play, In the Circle of the Free
And the Hearts of the Brave?

(You can also replace "Rhythm" with "Spirit", in that fourth from last line...)
Nite-nite!
Sule

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Sat Nov 9 22:08:15 1996
From: HAPPY@drums.org
Subject: Re: dance and drum

Sule writes:
All you Drum Circle-ers are out to lunch. 'Cause it's all in your head. What do I mean? (another personal anecdote:) In HI, we'd been drumming in the circle for hours. Many had left, tired and satiated. We were hanging on, 'round the fire: Boom-bidee-boom-bidee-boom.>>

And, then, the rocket took off and we danced. And the fire inside me was hot. The rhythms they got me vibrating. I laid my drum down, and my feet took off. My body shimmied, round and round the fire we went. And the drums, they said: boom-bidee-boom-bidee-boom, and Sule said, "Dance Man" and the dancers said, "Uh, huh," and the drums said, "Gun, Gun."

Yeah! And we were nourished. Ah, those drums in Hawaii were excellent. The grooves were good, the rhythms incredible, under the night sky of a waxing moon - in Hawaii - in paradise - at Camp Mokuleia, at Arthur Hull's first Facilitator Playshop.

Yeah!
In Peace,
Happy Shel
The TexasDrums Community Home Page
http://www.drums.org
DRUM HOTLINE: 214-823-DRUM

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