What do you think of Drum Circles?

[glorplaxy]

I'm curious as to what people around here actually think of drum circles.

It's pretty obvious that djembes are the drum of choice at your everyday drum circle, even though they are usually the very bad kind.

what about the rhythms? the people who go to them?

[Allurelife100]

I have a question for you. How long have you been drumming? I know it's irrelevant to your question, just quite curious. BTW, I don't really do drum circles. They are messy a lot of time, if you are not the instructor, it can be headache. They can be fun with the right musicians holding the dun-duns down.

[freefeet]

Just about to start one - something to do on a Sunday afternoon to keep the winter blues away.

Most experiences of drum circles so far have been at festivals. Sometimes they can be a bit tedious, especially when the "beat challenged" turn up, but then other times you can end up having the most amazing few hours you've ever had with a drum and make some really nice friends.

Then there's the adhoc dancers who just seem to appear - i like that bit, especially the ones in bikinis.

I love the idea of people just joining in and going for it without being told what to play - as long as they don't f**k the beat that is.

[Djembe-nerd]

SInce you are from Houston, there are a few drum circles here. The full moon (which stopped now for the time) was an OK one, there were some of my friends who would keep taking the beat faster and faster till it gets a power show, but was still OK for an experience. There are some west african rhythyms sometimes, some liberian/ghana/South African grooves.

There are some other ones but they are quite basic and I don;t attend those.

[rachelnguyen]

For me, they are a nice change of pace. It gives me a place where I can just let loose and experiment. And around here (New England) we have a few really good circles.

The down side of drum circles is that the rhythms are often painfully simple... especially when you compare them to the complex rhythms of West Africa. But I usually get a kick out of soloing and I love playing the dun duns at drum circles. Some West African dun dun rhythms seem to lend themselves to a drum circle environment. (And some REALLY don't, LOL. I tried playing the ballet version of Maraka and got a room full of blank stares....)

[Mikeleza]

Yep drum circles a great but its unfortunate that some great traditional rhythms are often too hard to include.

[freefeet]

Yep drum circles a great but its unfortunate that some great traditional rhythms are often too hard to include.

Anything ternary is usually screwed up by someone playing binary to everything.

Still, bless 'em, at least they learned to count to two.

[glorplaxy]

I have a question for you. How long have you been drumming? I know it's irrelevant to your question, just quite curious. BTW, I don't really do drum circles. They are messy a lot of time, if you are not the instructor, it can be headache. They can be fun with the right musicians holding the dun-duns down.

I've been playing different types of drums for about 5 now. My best drum is the darbuka, but I am new to djembe. Honestly, the people at drum circles made me really uninterested in djembes at first.

I've gone to a couple of drum circles but they are really not my thing. I like the idea of a group of an impromptu gathering of percussionists but only if the rhythm is good..and the rhythms I have heard at the drum circles I have been to are not. It also wouldn't hurt for some better instruments...or people who knew how to play them a little better (I've seen a lot of atrocities at drum circles, like some college girl hitting darbukas and djembes with drum sticks and people trying to tune their synthetic drums over a fire!). If a drum circle had these things then I would be all for it but so far, it seems that the most of the ones in my area do not, so I don't bother.

I like the idea of having a private, small drum circle with only a selective group of individuals, but I don't know many people who play percussion (besides drum set, that is)

[glorplaxy]

SInce you are from Houston, there are a few drum circles here. The full moon (which stopped now for the time) was an OK one, there were some of my friends who would keep taking the beat faster and faster till it gets a power show, but was still OK for an experience. There are some west african rhythyms sometimes, some liberian/ghana/South African grooves.

There are some other ones but they are quite basic and I don;t attend those.

Do you go to any at all these days? I've seen some west african based things advertised but I was unsure of their quality...and besides that the only things I really know of in Houston are Last Concert and Sirroms

[e2c]

there's one near me that's focused on W. African rhythms and djembe/dunun. It's orders of magnitude better than any other circle I've been around, yet very welcoming to newbies. (Really, to anyone who wants to play, at whatever level.)

Am not a fan of drum circles on the whole, though...

[michi]

When I was new to drumming, I used to go to every drum circle I could find. That was because virtually everything I heard was new and exciting, so the drum circles offered plenty of learning and practising opportunities.

Over the years, my enthusiasm has worn off considerably, for a number of reasons:

• Most drum circles don't have dunduns. But without dunduns, many rhythms sound so similar that they might as well be the same. The music quickly gets boring and repetitive that way.
• The signal-to-noise ratio is poor. Occasionally, drum circles can really take off and do awesome things. But most of the time, the music and energy just don't happen. If only one out of every 10 or 15 drum circles I go to is fun, I'm not inclined to take the risk of going there only to be disappointed.
• Lack of skill and experience of the people often mean that there is no discipline, and no concept of maintaining no more than two or three accompaniment parts that form a pleasant rhythm. Instead, everyone plays whatever they like, with the result that pretty much every 16th note is filled by someone or other, resulting in a constant drone without accents or structure. (This is called "the train" here in Australia, because it sounds not unlike the almost continuous roar made by a train.)
• A drum circle can be great if there are three or four strong players who help to keep things together. But that rarely happens. If I'm at a drum circle and I'm the only strong player there, I can help start something but, as soon as I deviate from whatever I started out with and play a second part, most of the other people lose it and the whole thing melts down. No fun.
• Sometimes there are people there who are rhythm deaf. They are having a lot of fun playing their drum or a shekere, but it's no fun at all for the other people when one person with a very loud shekere continuously plays something that's out of tempo and irregular, or insists on playing a clave that is phase-shifted with respect to the rhythm.
• Active resistance to learning something new or maintaining some sort of musical discipline can be an issue. Quite a few drum circles have members who refuse to play a particular part or to learn anything new, on the grounds that "this is about freedom of expression, not about being shoe-horned into being a 'cog in a machine'." They are of course entitled to their point of view. But this also means that the music rarely has a chance to come out because making music, among many other things, requires discipline and a willingness to play a minor and constant part in a larger orchestra.
• Sometimes there is a person (usually male) who insists on dominating proceedings, soloing continuously and without skill, trying to play riffs far beyond his ability and messing them up. Other participants who would like to get a chance to speak too, but are not as extrovert, quickly get pissed off (rightfully so).
• Sometimes there are two such persons, who then compete with each other and, inevitably, play equally badly. That's a great way to destroy the energy of the circle.
• I've been to drum circles where maybe 25 or 30 people sit in a circle, there is a groove going and, suddenly, four or five people in a corner decide to play something completely different, with different tempo and different time signature, often causing complete melt-down of the circle or, at best, creating a cacophony of noise.
• I've seen two and three people soloing simultaneously, in blissful ignorance that all they are doing is making noise. On many occasions, I've seen players start soloing, despite being fully aware that someone else is soloing too and hasn't finished yet. That kind of disrespect and destructive behavior really turns me off.
• There are often cliques and factions in drum circles, where people who know each other or come from the same area arrive together and then compete with other groups. Again, that's a recipe for bad energy.

I still go to a drum circle maybe once or twice a year, but it's been at least three years since I've been to what I would call a good one. It's nice to catch up with people whom I otherwise rarely see, and I drum along for while but, on the whole, it's an experience that I can take or leave.

In my opinion, a successful drum circle requires facilitation: that seems to be the only way to get enough discipline to make something that resembles music. But virtually none of the drum circles I've been to have a facilitator.

Cheers,

Michi.

[rachelnguyen]

Ha, Michi,

You nailed a few of my pet peeves. But I have a couple more:

Overbearing facilitators- I have been to a couple of circles where the facilitator was really controlling. For me, that is no fun at all.

The last drum circle I went to there was a guy that latched on to someone else's dun duns and would not let go until the owner demanded them back. It was pretty tough to take because the guy was setting every rhythm and for the most part they were pretty dreary. I was glad I had my own set of dun duns with me... but even then, there was only so much I could do while he was playing.

My biggest pet peeve of all is when a member of a drum circle starts critiquing other people's playing. I have more or less quit a local circle because one of the drummers spends most of the night commenting on other people's drumming. It is no fun at all.

[e2c]

Oh man... michi and rachel have just covered all the reasons why I avoid drum circles (except for the one I mentioned above).

And it's very interesting to see how the person who leads that circle handles things... because he teaches parts by demoing (in a very non-showy way) once the rhythm is going. (Other members do that, too.) It's so low-key - and yet, focused - compared to anything else I've ever done. (Then again, a lot of the people who come are pretty well-versed in the music and used to ensemble playing.)

It's very non-competitive, and I like that a lot!

[FreekAce]

i started out playing in a circle and i do enjoy them, but now that i'm taking classes the idea is not a appealing as before. as a beginner its nice to be able to get lost in the wall of sound, no worries about looking like an ass.

i need a better drum though, now i feel like an ass bringing my not so good drum to class! never imagined the difference in sound being so extreme.

[BobF]

I like the idea of them when I haven't played in one for a while, then I go and don't like them so much. Every once in a while it's a good time but the drum circles around my area are pretty much all beginners and it gets old quick. Usually I'll stick to duns and try to be happy that I'm playing but the "constant/interrupting soloists" that others have described above usually end up getting the best of me and I give up.