I've been drumming, you see

Yep, just a few days. But hey, I feel like I have a life right now. And even if I don't, the tour is over, so I won't stay up late trying to see who wins the stage!

Been drumming a couple of times in the last couple of weeks. Turns out, there a "Living Rhythms Community Drumming School" that's basically FOTP (Free and Open to the Public, for all those non-PR people out there) on Saturday nights, here in the bustling metropolis of the Krispy Kreme Capital of the World. Something really great about the community building they're doing there.

It was pretty unusual. My girlfriends and I were out having a unusual "girls night out," wandered around, and found this tea/coffee shop we'd never been to, so we thought we'd check it out. Well, turns out this tea/coffee shop is also the tai chi/yoga studio that opens onto a back patio where this drumming session happens every Saturday night.

We stood around at the edges of the crowd, and I know that I (at least) was thinking, "Wow! This is really neat! I wonder who these people are." We watched, pretty much mesmerized for probably 20 minutes or so. During that time, we saw little kids come running into the middle of the circle, pick up some sort of noisemaker, and start in.

It echoed that principle (for the life of me, I can't remember what it's called) that my world music instructor shared with us during the last semester of undergrad. In fact, perhaps that's part of why I enjoyed this drumming thing so much: she brought some guy in with a whole bunch of African drums, etc., to class once. For a solid hour and a half, that's what we did.

I'm pretty sure the idea was to show that you don't necessarily need musical training to make good music. In fact, a good number of the kids (I was the oldest one in the class - the rest were Freshmen or Sophomores) had absolutely no musical experiences at all - other than singing in the shower. After a while, we were told, a group just finds a rhythm.

It happened. What makes it even neater is that not only do you find a rhythm while you're playing, your body matches the rhythm: your heart beats with it, you breathe in time to it, if you're moving, you move in time to it. Very cool.

So, nonetheless, I've been very interested in drumming ever since - and this was just another opportunity to experience that feeling. I highly suggest it, even if you are a stick in the mud and don't care for that sort of thing. There's something therapeutic, relaxing, and comforting about being around people who don't even care if you can find the complicated part of the drumming - just add in on the baseline.

And hey, the kids are pretty cute, too.