Drumming at the Edge of Magic: Mickey Hart's Drum Journey

Reading "Drumming at the Edge of Magic" by Mickey Hart, the long-time drummer for the Grateful Dead, and an ethnomusicology researcher (the branch of music dealing with the various forms music takes among world cultures) in his own right, has been an eye and ear opening experience. Once I stared reading it, I couldn't put it down.

Hart, whose own life-story is reflected in these pages, focuses on his quest to understand the roots of drumming and rhythm. He really makes the case that drumming is an important cultural expression that should be cherished into the future, and even brought into more prominence in our relatively "non-drumming" Western culture.

Why isn't drumming as prevalent in our Western culture, as it is in, say, Africa or South America? Hart's answer, after several decades of research (with ethnomusicologist colleagues and Joseph Campbell as friends helping him out!), is that, for the most part, drumming was relegated to the military in Western culture (with the exception of orchestral drumming) . It was basically divorced or de-coupled from the sacred aspects of singing and dancing, a very long time ago (somewhere between three and four thousand years ago).

Hart has a very interesting thesis (which he backs up with scholarly research)--that drumming was a key part of the earth goddess (or Great Mother) worship of pre-classical Western culture. Unfortunately for us, the traditional and sacred uses of drumming were, for the most part, lost with the overpowering of this matriarchal culture with the patriarchal culture of classical European and West Asian civilization. (Some notable exceptions were the ancient Greek cults of Dionysis and Cebele).

There are many gems of drumming lore in the book, interspersed with personal stories of Mickey Hart's personal journey in life (as well as some neat stories ranging from ancient myths to the tales from his drumming friends). Here are a few to share (all from "Drumming at the Edge of Magic, Mickey Hart, 1991):

"In much of Africa, music is as large a part of everyday life as conversation or cooking or the birdsong. It enhances the significance of all the important way stations of life, from birth through initiations to death...there are special songs sung when a child's first teeth erupt and songs sung to cure the same child of bed-wetting....You could almost say that African peoples have a song or a dance for every occasion. 'A village without music is a dead place, ' says an African proverb." This quote reminded me of what Severt Young Bear said in "Standing in the Light", about how closely connected singing, dancing, and drumming are in Lakota culture.

"It takes years to become a master drummer..the reason for this is that you have to know not only the rhythms but the dances as well...you have to know all the songs and all the dances that go with them....Many of these rhythms are only played at specific times, during the festival for a house raising, for example. Or when a drought occurs....but, the most important rhythms in Yoruba (West African cultural group) land are those that communicate with the Orisha (powerful deities or spirits)." This quote comes from an excerpted telling of his life by Babatunde Olatunji. It points out, again, how the powerful trio of drumming, singing, and dancing, played in a central role in West African life.

"The best way to keep time in a polyrhythm is to create a rhythm of your own and merge it with the group's. Apparently most Africans, both listeners and players, learn this truth at their parent's knee." African culture's rhythmic sensibility is polyrhythmic (multiple rhythms going at the same time). What I find interesting here is that the HealthRhythms protocol includes joining of one's personal rhythm to the rhythm of the group as a whole. HealthRhythms' synergy of African drumming and Western science makes it interesting as a cultural phenomenon. It's as if we're trying to recreate the meaning of the drum, borrowing from another culture's expression to fit our own.

And about the master drummer in the African drumming ensemble:

"His position depends as much on mastery of drum lore as on technical skill...knowing the right rhythm to play on an occasion is as important as being able to execute that rhythm. A good master drummer at a social dance can keep up a regular monologue on his drum, telling jokes and proverb, rapping out rhythms that might say 'hi'..or call others up to dance." This shows another confluence of the drum with cultural communication. This aspect of drumming seems to cross the globe, found in Native American drumming, for example.

It also expresses an awesome part of African drumming, what's known as the "talking drum". African cultures have developed this drum, one which allows the modulation of pitch as well as a beat, to such an extent that actual "drum languages" were created and used to communicate across long distances--a sort of Morse code using drums.