Drumming is another favorite musical pastime of mine. I think the beauty of drumming is that you don’t have to have much musical ability (I don’t!), just a simple ability to keep a beat and to follow along with others if you’re in a group and you can learn very quickly.
I owe my fairly love for drumming to my friends Danny and Rebecca of Tuatha Dea Drum Nation and their contagious passion for drumming as well as their uncanny and nonjudgmental ability to turn anyone into a drummer in an hour.
Drumming transports me to a place outside the mundane cares of my day and much more.
In the shamanic tradition I practice, the 4.5 beat per second drumbeat helps transport those who hear it into a transcendent state. The heartbeat rhythm not only brings everyone into a deep state of relaxation, it actually has been shown to entrain the hearts of all those who are in the room, creating a powerful sense of community.
Just like with singing, there are myriad health benefits connected to drumming, some fairly obvious, like stress relief, and others much less expected like potential cancer prevention and enhancement of brain activity and memory.
Here are a few particularly exciting ones:
Participants in an hour-long drumming session reversed their hormonal stress response and increased their natural killer cell activity, showing improved immune response, their blood tests showed.
Increased natural killer cell activity has been shown time and time again to defeat cancer cells. Could drumming be a cure for cancer? Time will tell.
Stroke patients were able to re-train their brains using the slow steady rhythms of the drumbeat, which also benefited Parkinson’s patients.
Older people with depression who participated in drumming found they were less depressed, less anxious and had higher self-esteem.
The universal language of drumming allowed people with Alzheimer’s disease to relax and communicate in a simple and friendly way as well as allowing them a time for all-important socialization. One study even suggests that drumming helps people with impaired cognition can forge new neurological pathways, potentially increasing brain function.
Pain relief for such common ailments and, counter-intuitively, headaches; the sound of the drum actually reduces stress and eases the throbbing pain.
I have an African djembe and several small frame hand drums. They are played very differently, but they are equally simple.
I have my own favorite African drumming teachers on YouTube (a great place to learn and it’s free!), but drum teachers are a matter of very personal preference, so take a little time and find one you resonate with (pun intended). Hint: Tuatha Dea—I’m still waiting for your YouTube video. You are the best instructors I know!
Drumming is another favorite musical pastime of mine. I think the beauty of drumming is that you don’t have to have much musical ability (I don’t!), just a simple ability to keep a beat and to follow along with others if you’re in a group and you can learn very quickly.
