I love the rhythm of the hand drum. The pounding of the drum reminds me of a heart beat and it soothes me. It tempers me. It calms me, causing me to slow down, to stop and listen and after a while, my heart beat steps in sync with the pounding of the drums.
When I travel, I often across a drumming circle. I will be in some third world country and stumble in to a remote village with no electricity, no television, and no radio. And after a day’s work and an evening meal, the villagers will have to entertain themselves. They wander to the village square with drums in hand and sit with their neighbors and drum and dance and drink and tell stories. I have been invited to join the circle but have always declined because I have no sense of rhythm. I can’t keep a consistent beat. So, after too many refusals with too many poor excuses, I decided to enroll in a course on hand drumming. I am going to learn to drum so that I, too, can join the drum circles.
I sign up for a course at the Main Line Night School in Ardmore, an area that is predominately white and Jewish, two groups of people who do not fit my stereotype of drumming circle participants. We meet at the local high school where others are taking French cooking, and photography and oil painting and Italian and Tai Chi.
Our instructor is Jonathon and I don’t find this out through his introduction because he never bothers to introduce himself. I have to go back to the course catalog to get any information on Jonathon. Not only is Jonathon not interested in sharing any information about him, he has no interest in us. He almost appears to be put out that he is here, almost embarrassed that this is now his most lucrative gig: teaching middle class white people how to drum. From his perspective we may have all looked the same. But we were very different.
There was the nervous woman who wanted to get it right, so she records every lesson so she could go home to practice. There was the 20 year old pot head who looked as if he toked up right before every class so he could get it just right. There was the man with the expensive suit and the expensive drum. There were the three high schools girls who moved in a pack and shared two drums. There was the grandmother with the Birkenstock sandals and handmade crew sock. There was the wall flower who snuck in each week and hid in the back of the room. There was the woman with the long white hair and long white body who looked as if she danced in her younger days. But that window was now closed on her. But she still wanted to be an artist.
And there was me. I came in each week just as class was about to start and most weeks, I dropped my drum once or twice along the way. But there was no real need to worry about my instrument. I bought my drum for $14.99 at TJ Maxx and if it broke, I would just buy another one.
So Jonathon would start class with the same line each week, “ok, let’s get started.” There was never a “hello” or “how you are” or “does anyone have any questions”. He didn’t even bother to take roll; he just got started.
“Ok, tonight we are going to learn the samba.”
He would demonstrate the rhythm and then we would practice. Then after a few minutes, he would raise his hand in utter digest and announce, “No, no, it’s all wrong. We’re not at a funeral here people. Liven it up. Feel it in your soul. This isn’t supposed to be sad. It’s supposed to be sexy.”
And the woman recording the lesson would write this comment down for future reference. And the rest of us would be a little offended because quite frankly, we were being as soulful and sexy as we got. Did he forget that we were white people?
So we would start over and he would play a different part and then one by one we abandoned our part and subconsciously began playing his part. And he would stop us again but only this time with heightened frustrations.
“Focus people. Focus. Don’t play my part, play your part.”
So we would try again. Only this time, he didn’t even bother to correct any of our mistakes. He saw us as a lost cause. He just let us play it through so he could move on.
“Now we are going to do a salsa”.
And he would demonstrate and then he would practice with us. And then we would try to drum on our own. We would start out strong but somehow, somewhere we wondered back to the samba and no one really noticed. But then Jonathon did and this was as unbelievable to him as speaking out loud and vulgarly in church is for theirs. To show his disappointment in us, he would turn the pages of his music with an exaggerated gesture. And he would shake his head in disgust.
He just couldn’t believe it. And he would stop us and reflect, pause for a second or two because he was speechless. Meanwhile we were clueless because we thought we sounded pretty good. We were gelling. We were jamming. No one had yet realized that we had started out playing the salsa and then somehow collectively moved back to a samba and didn’t even recognize it. I admit it was a little shameful when he finally brought it to our attention.
Sometimes he would tell us about the days when he toured with Flip Wilson or played with Chick Chorea. I don’t think he told us these stories with any interest in connecting with us. It seemed as if he told these stories because he was thinking to himself, “Can you believe I used to play with those people and now I am playing with these people.” And maybe some of these thoughts dropped out of his mouth accidently and he had to cover this up by telling us a story.
His stories were always short and one sided. He never asked us anything. He just gave us a few facts about his past and then we got back on track. And promptly at 900PM, the class ended. And just as he opened with a consistent statement, he closed with the same consistently.
“OK for tonight. Remember to practice. You will never be good if you don’t practice."
There was never a" goodbye" or "have a nice week" or" be safe getting home". We were just told that we had to practice to get better and not for our sake but for his.
And we would return each week to the same routine. And we followed Jonathan’s lead on interactions or lack thereof. We did not speak to each other. We all came in singularly and sat in our same chairs and never spoke to each other. It was as if we were all invisible to each other.
One week, I decided to talk to Pothead. He came in, disheveled, high and raring to go. I don’t know why I told him this because I didn’t mean it but I told him that he was the best in the class; he had the most soul. He ate up that compliment like these words were coming straight from Mickey Hart, percussion master of the world.
“Hey, thanks dude,” he said with a slur. And now he was pumped and aching to start pounding. He wanted to jam.
So when Jonathan started us on our first piece for the night, this kid played with his entire drug induced heart and soul. He banged with so much gusto I was afraid he was going to stick his thumb right through the top of his drum.
It was too, too much for Jonathan because he stopped all of us. “Whoa, whoa, people stop for a minute. let’s get something straight” he said in his monotone. And without pointing a finger at this guy, Jonathan starts telling a story about a guy he knows who thought he was good because he was high. And we shouldn’t confuse the two and then he looked right at the pothead. But the lecture was lost because pot head had his eyes closed, playing the air drum. Meanwhile, the mad recorder made notes on Jonathan’s comments. I could read them: drugs do not enhance talent.
I asked a question every week in spite of his indifference. I really asked more as a statement of defiance. His complete lack of interaction with us annoyed me. I hoped my question would spark some follow up comments from the others. But it didn’t. They just waited patiently in their folding chairs; hands gently resting on their drums, just waiting for instructions from Jonathan on when to start again. Jonathan would answer out of obligation and then he would redirect his attention to the distasteful task sitting in front of him.
At the end of our 9 class, Jonathan announced that next week would be our last week. So we have been asked to give a 15 minute concert in the lobby. There would be punch and cookies. And we would follow the violin students and the chorus would follow us.
So Jonathan was going to spend tonight reviewing three styles. We were only going to play these three styles and nothing else. We were told that we should just practice those three so as to not confuse ourselves. While he may have meant this as an insult, it helped us keep focused. And the mad recorder made note of this and when she finished, he continues, “And loosen up when we play. Look like we’re having fun.” He must have thought that by next week we could do both of these things: play and have fun. But right now, we could only do one or the other. We were not at the point where we could play without being extremely focused, without being methodical in our movements. We weren’t fluid yet. But he wanted us to relax and enjoy ourselves.
I arrived the next week and saw Jonathan which delighted me because I had a sneaking suspicion that he wouldn’t show up. I didn’t think he really wanted to be associated with us.
Once we had all gathered, we marched down to the lobby, had a few cookies and listened to the violinists. We were generous in our applauses because now we were musicians too and musicians have to support one another.
Then it was our turn to take the stage (actually it was just a lobby area with awful echoing acoustics). But we took our place and Jonathan inhaled deeply and held his breathe. He exhaled, raised his hand and began snapping his fingers. He snapped the samba and we tapped to his rhyme. He gave an introduction and he spoke with a tone of enthusiasm which I didn’t think was possible for him. But he spoke pleasantly, like he was having fun with us. We played the first song and that drew a crowd. There were maybe 20 people now listening to us. They were enthusiasm and seemed genuinely impressed with us. They were generous with their applause. And that was intoxicating. We got through the entire program and we loosen up with each song.
And when we were packing up, we all congratulated each other. We were pretty pleased with ourselves. And we convince ourselves that we should take the course again next semester so we could play together again. We spoke as if we were tight with one another.
When I looked around, Jonathan was gone. I stayed for the chorus. And as I was leaving, I heard one white haired woman say to another woman, “Did you hear the last group, the drummers. They were pretty good.” I proudly picked up my drum, grabbed another cookie and went home.
