A funny thing is happening in Muskoka. Every Wednesday night at dusk, people gather in a circle on the Georgian Bay shore to beat drums. If the first image that comes to mind is a coven of Wiccans, think again.
Picture a gathering of the straightest, most mainstream Canadian families -- thirtysomething dads with drooling babies and grandparents in Tilley hats -- banging away together on African djembes, congas and Cuban tambourines. What they are doing is called "community" drumming, or a "drum circle." And along with being one of the biggest family night draws at the proper, 150-year-old Delawana Inn at Honey Harbour, the ancient, tribal practice of group drumming is emerging across North America as one of the hottest new tools for schools, offices and big corporations for fostering community and building team spirit.
The aptly named Doug Sole, author of The Soul of Hand Drumming, and proprietor of Toronto-based Sole Drums, runs family drum nights at the Del. Ten years ago, Sole was one of the first to run drum circles here in Canada. Now, besieged by requests from special event planners and corporate clients, it's his full-time business.
"We are encoded to play music together," says Sole. "When we are born, we come into this world screaming and crying. Drums -- the sound of thunder, the sound of the deities -- are older than language."
Sole, and his California-based counterpart, Arthur Hull (author of the book Drum Circle Spirit) call themselves "facilitators." Increasingly they find themselves in packed rooms of people who have never played an instrument in their lives. Drum circles today are happening at retreats, community centres, coffeehouses, schools and treatment centres. As Hull recently told The Economist, part of the reason for the surge in interest is that group drumming has shed its alternative image. "It no longer has the bad connotation of hippie thunder-drumming. This is family-friendly."
Sole, who sees himself as a sort of missionary of the healing, communicative power of drumming, begins his drum circle by handing out a wild gamut of percussive instruments, one to each participant, so that each drummer has his or her own "voice." Circles can be so well-attended that plastic garbage cans and empty bottles of Crystal Spring water -- "anything that makes a noise when you hit it" -- sometimes accompany the bongos and congas.
At first, the all-ages, open jam session is "rhythmical chaos," says Sole. "But then as I start to lead everyone in simple, rhythmical games, people just naturally start to fall into this easier, pulsating beat."
Anyone, no matter how unmusical, can do it. "It's like a heartbeat," says Sole, who points out that group drumming is so basic to our humanity that it exists in every culture, from the most remote Indian village to the Arctic. "People will naturally synchronise, or as we say, 'entrain' together. And just like way out in the deep ocean, when the waves get really rhythmic, they will start to cooperate effectively, and we'll get this larger sway, this pull and push of silence and sound."
Lisa Lauder, sales and marketing manager for the Delawana Inn, says that the Sole Drums events are among the Del's most popular. "Nobody has to be musical in any way," she says. "It's completely outside of the box. And it really works. Somehow, at the end, when you are all working together, actually making music, there is this high-energy sense of tremendous accomplishment."
An hour into a session, people are flying. Because it is group music that is created "in the moment," says Sole, "people feel free to express themselves." People laugh, people cry. Sole has had participants literally fall onto the floor in giant peals of laughter after a high-energy session, or come up to him suddenly wanting to share their deepest secrets. The basic, communal sense people get from making music together, just like we did when we were living in caves, seems to be an amazingly effective stress buster -- particularly in today's cranked up high-tech environment. Hull has run drum circles for Apple Computer, Toyota and General Electric, Sole for Kodak Canada, IBM and Xerox.
Intrigued by the communicative and stress-relieving benefits of group drumming, adherents have begun to use drum circles as a therapeutic tool for trauma victims, emotionally disturbed teens and the severely withdrawn autistic, with some promising results.
And recent medical research, like the 2001 study led by California-based M.D. Barry Bittman, suggests that group drumming not only reverses the "classic stress response," but actually reinforces immune system function, which may aid in combating cancer and viral illnesses.
Like other "fringe" practices such as aromatherapy and yoga, which are now as mass-market as Coca Cola, drum circles sound like wacky New Age innovations. But clearly the beat is on -- and people are starting to move to a different drummer even in some surprisingly un-hippy-dippy quarters. As Hull recently told The Economist, "Even if you're not looking for any deep healing, religious or cosmic experience, when people get together, stuff happens."
CORRECTION
Michael Goldberg, an analyst with Desjardins Securities Inc., is estimating that Toronto-Dominion Bank will earn a profit of $3.50 a share in fiscal 2004. Incorrect information was published on Thursday.