Palm Springs, CA Drum Circle @ Crystal Fantasy-2012

Djembe 

 Palm Canyon Drive (California State Route 111) in Downtown Palm Springs, California. 

I entered late. Stopped to carefully take in the sounds.

Breathe, meditate, then “leapt in.”

Listening is important, I reminded myself, as drums pounded.

To my disappointment, slow and heavy tonight. I needed a lift, wanted transported to a brighter realm.
This wasn’t going to do it, for me, but I knew the night was young.

Bass thubbed and thubbed, and little toms ventured in with a weak (or too mellow) heart.

(Laid back Southern California, after all, I thought. My culture shock from NYC street rhythms I left, in tectonic dust).

We stopped, as the leader sat questioning empty spaces between notes, it seemed.

I had to pick up the pace! Besides, I was a little nervous. On edge, in my new environment. Pace of Friday night traffic on Palm Canyon had culminated in a mad dash across for safety, across the street. A black Cadillac SUV  car had swung at me, seemingly trying to knock me off so she could get to somewhere important. Around here, being late for tee time is an emergency, I thought, while she careened off, with contorted, angry expression on her drunken, overly painted,  well-to-do face. Tires squealing.

Chill, I thought.

boom ta ta ta ka boom?

boom ta ta ta ka boom?

I asked, on my hand-carved from a tree trunk, djembe……

Was soon responded to in kind. Then, “discussion.”

I accompanied with “snare” notes, improvised flams, strains. (My background being in jazz and rock ).

All joined in. An Arabic guy beating a painted Indian tom-tom and the woman with a loud, insistent snake-rattle. A bunch of guys on smaller djembe drums and other exotic brightly painted percussion instruments. We’d never have spoken, in real life, of course.We’d disappear into the night afterwards, I knew.

Now I was playing support (bass tones) and lead,  as the flow of the music suggested (dominating when intensity beckoned in my gut).

I closed my eyes, to try really listen, not be distracted by appearances, as a Native American flute player began improvising. Chanting started……

After we stopped, I looked for the flute, but there wasn’t one. I asked about it. The owner of Crystal Fantasy shrugged and apologized

“Sorry. The spirits can’t help themselves, sometimes.”

“Spirits? I asked, not believing, looking at him carefully to see if he was making fun of me.

He wasn’t laughing, he meant it. (CF is such a trippy place, anyway, I thought). He talked on about Indians that used to live in the area. Said this kind of thing also happens at drum circles a lot, everywhere.

Drums stopped beating around 8:30. So quiet. We chatted a bit, then dispersed into the Palm Springs luxurious night. Palm trees swayed in strong wind s while I walked to my car.

Drumbeats still energized my body. I listened to street music coming from an outdoor karaoke bar, and hummed a happy tune all the way home.

 

Healing Drum Circle, 8/18/1012, Palm Springs, CA

 

Morna rhythm model (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Rhythm & Motion Student Showcases (Photo credit: davidyuweb)

English: Rhythms on rhythmic staff. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Compound triple drum pattern: divides three beats into three About this sound Play ( help · info ) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Tonight was a Healing Drum Circle. We intentionally sent out “healing vibrations and wavelengths” to anyone in need.
At the start, a woman picked up a drum (a tom-tom with a calfskin head) and led, like a Native American shaman.
Overall, the group seemed overbalanced with estrogen. Just the leader (facilitator) and me were men.
There was a female drummer in the circle so “outspoken” and insistent in her loud, offbeat drumming the facilitator told us he would follow her.
So we did. I wanted to create along with her vision and strong insistent sense of rhythm. Just to see where we would go with it.
Besides, she certainly wasn’t going to listen to all the rest of us.
Just like a woman, IRL. (Just kidding,  lol).

Anyway, Scott (facilitator) tried playing something experimental very fast. He used kind of abstract rhythms (without clear, obvious groove so more like ocean waves than dance steps). etc.
I felt compelled to give some structure so others could follow along. (There were various levels of ability in the group, down to rank beginner so adjustments were necessary).

I tried going off in rhythmic “adventureland,” doing “my own thing” in improvisation, but found I lacked confidence in the small, relatively timid group of drummers. There was no one to provide the backup. They needed something solid and sturdy, most of them, anyway. So I tried to play for the greater good.
Realized from experience in small groups it was not good to stop playing strong rhythmic patterns abruptly. Even though I  wanted to create, play, explore, have fun. In a large group, this would have been OK.
When I played “extra” to basic rhythms wasn’t “taking off,” to my satisfaction, so stuck with obsessive insistent strong rhythms,  again providing structure with accented bass notes, playing it very safe lest the entire group come unglued, and have to stop playing. lol.

No real consequence to this. Just silence after chaos, if the entire group did fall apart. In music the penalties aren’t too severe, no matter what happens. We go on, the music can always start fresh.

Left feeling lighter, however. This was a “healing” drum circle, I suppose the passion I was expecting from drums, the excitement and energy was not intended to be there, as much as in an ordinary drum circle?

At least that’s my experience.

Note I did very well on “brain exercises” (on lumosity.com) afterward. Slept very well that night as well, so may be related?
Used to drumming that jars you awake, makes me feel wired, keeps you up for hours and hours, as in heavy metal or fusion drumming (playing drum set).

 

Journal-Blue Moon Drum Circle-Erotic Drumming from a Drummers Mind

Aerial view of Palm Springs, with the Canyon Country Club in the center (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ace Hotel, Palm Springs, CA,
August 2012

Whoa last night! The party and (I hate parties, me the curmudgeon introvert) had a blast. Torrents spine thrilling drum beats and pulsing rhythms,  led by an extroverted performer (who seemed like one of the Blue Men without the makeup).

It was pack jammed around pool and palm trees, crowded and sultry in desert heat, drenched in monsoon sweat. Hundred plus degree heat, in August.
This event was not Burning Man, (as in Arizona).  Our flame throwers tonight were only electric, but very colorful. The cool, liquidated Palm Springs version of Burning Man is coming soon, BTW. August 11.

(No nudity, damn it all).

But I had the delight of my drumming life. I remembered Nick Cannon’s line  in the movie Drum Line. When the pasty white (bass) drummer, who lost his place on the (all black) drum line. He thought it was  discrimination, cause he was white. He asked Nick what was going on, what was wrong with his drumming? Nick explained the right way to play it is “like he was making love to his girlfriend “(something to that effect). I made a mental note of that, at the time. Wanted to try it out with my drumming, just to see what it would do to my performance.
Ho ha! A belly dancer on the male persuasion was in the circle tonight, for my viewing pleasure.
(Perhaps only in gay PS would this happen?) He could have been straight, I wondered. But he danced along, with several Turkish ladies, and gave no obvious clues.

At one, unfortunate point (to me, since it paused my gay fantasies) he even held a baby as the dancing continued as the night grew more deep under the cooling bright orb nestled in the palms waited, quivering bib by bit in the aching desert winds.
And as such, he snaked and quivered along. Prompted, by under our control, us drummers. A slave to the pouring, pulsing drum beats thrusting, making suggestions in his direction.
And him so very willing, I dreamed. But did not say anything.

He had my full attention, riveted I was, to his body, with the naked, taught, rippled, smooth chest. He had “jangling bells” hanging, rubbing his tight Levi’s (if thats what they call the shiny ornaments belly dancers wear from their costumes).
I noticed his were thick and dangling, like…..?

Huh! I didn’t want to seem to obvious in trying to seduce him with my drums. I’m a man for one thing. You can get beat up etc. even in PS. Not a word ever emanated from my lips. No one spoke at any time. Just pure music and its intoxication.
Plus I’m shy. lol.

Oh. You’re supposed to blend in rhythmically. Make smooth “logical” transitions between strains of musical phrases.

But i didn’t think go that till too late. When I tried it, more than once, could not constrain my enthusiasm. When he danced close to me, I said come closer (with my drum beating)
“I want to do you, possess you, have you. Come closer, I will show you the wild time of your life. I will make you so happy. Do not resist me.”
With my drum beats, I talked him into…..
But what with my sudden spurts of loud enthusiastic pounding as he came close to me,  making it obvious to him and everyone I wanted him, not the ladies.
Embarrassed at my lack of restraint, premature cadences, I thought, with chagrin.
But the night wrought on, the moments of music stretched out, as his athletic young body writhed and belly twisted and mine grooved with him in my mind, and we had sex all night long and it was hot and good.