The Forest of Percussion

'Adventures don't begin until you get into the Forest'

Quiet yourself and eventually you'll start hearing the rhythms of nature, or feeling them. Quiet yourself and focus inside and eventually you'll start feeling your own biorhythms.

A journey into the spirit of percussion. The ear is the brains antenna. a part of the brain poking out into the world, always on, scanning for information in the form of vibrations. What we call sound is simply the limited spectrum of vibrations that this antenna can register.

We are explorers of one of noises most interesting qualities, the ability to create rhythms. Rhythm is one of the things we are coded to scan for.

Most drums produce a sound that shotguns out into a wide range of pitches, this scatter causes the drumbeats energy to decay much faster than do sounds that are vibrating close to a single frequency. Leaving us with a kind of short sharp sound bite that is perfect for laying down rhythm.

All drum parts are named after human body parts. To produce sound a drum must resound from its head, resonate in the inner chest, and speak from its voice through the mouth.

There is no rhythm without repetition.

Strike a membrane with a stick the ear fills with noise, unmelodious, inharmonic sound, strike it a second time, a third you've got rhythm.

Everything is rhythm and time- wind rustling through a tree

Everything has a clock the growing of trees, the flight of birds, the movement of mice at night.

If there is rhythm give it enough time and you will hear it.

"the order in the movement" How Plato defined Rhythm.

The key to duplicating rhythm apparently lies in our ability to measure the spaces between the beats. In music we call this time keeping.

Olatunji's Tale

Where i come from we say that rhythm is the soul of life because the universe revolves around rhythm, and when we get out of rhythm, thats when we get into trouble. For this reason the drum. next to the human voice, is our most important instrument. It is special.

The body of the drum which comes from a tree, contains the living spirit of the tree. Great care is taken to make sure that the wood of the drum is alive and the same is true of the skin, it also contains the spirit of the animal. When you join these two spirits with that of the person playing the drum, the result is an irresistible force, a trinity, a balance that gives the drum its healing power.

Entrainment tells us that two objects moving together use less energy than those moving opposite or differently. It's the tendency of independent systems to sync up, to start to move in sympathy with one another

One way to think about the connection between the universe and planetary rhythms and the personal rhythms of our own bodies is that we are entrained with these larger patterns, we are in sync with them because nature is efficient and we are part of nature.

We are composed of rhythms and surrounded by rhythms.

To be rhythmically attuned to the cycles of nature, your own body and your fellow people. Is a great ideal.

Bringing the drum circle outside into the woodland, reinforced my knowing that the ultimate environment for well-being and fun is the great outdoors. Drum circles become more alive connecting mind, body and soul of participants and connecting to the living environment surrounding them. Participants are able to become more relaxed and expressive.

'There was something about the outdoors, the fresh breeze, the sounds of nature, the crackling fires'