Jim Lindroth

Toady was my first time interacting with this group. Well, actually, that sentence needs two clarifications.

1. I had actually been to another event put on by these same people. It was last summer at Alum Creek Beach — a drum circle I was visiting for the American Religious Sounds Project. Another person and I were there to record the event and document various aspects of the day for the sake of submitting it to a cache of recordings from around Central Ohio to demonstrate the many ways that religion manifests itself in sound. I don’t think I actually ended up submitting my recordings. I had forgotten a wind screen and it was very windy on the beach that day. Nothing would have come out. I was also very bad at submitting to the project in general…
2. I didn’t interact with anyone.

I was there with a friend who had just come back from some fieldwork, so we were catching each other up on our summers. I also had to leave for work about an hour after we got there so my schedule diminished the possibilities of interacting with people. The people who seemed to be leading the session, a group of about four or five drummers, were so involved during the event that I would not have been able to talk to them without interrupting their activity. It seemed to me that their playing was also acting as a standard for the level of energy people should be bringing to the circle.

A few things stood out to me on this visit.

First, there weren’t 1000 Drummers and Dancers. I didn’t count but I saw somewhere on social media afterward that there were a couple hundred people in and out throughout the day. Also on social media I could see that others who were not able to make it to Columbus were drumming in other parts of the state in solidarity with these meeting in Columbus.

Secondly, there was such a mix of instruments from different traditions. There were djembes, doumbeks, Native American drums, Irish bodhrans, bongos, toy auxiliary percussion instruments — all instruments that looked vaguely, if not explicitly, ethnic. “Tribal” drawings and colors decorated the drum shells. I plan to inquire what the significance of these particular traditions might be and why they are the ones that have been chosen as the choice instruments. I suspect they are seen as coming from cultures that have deep spiritual roots.

Musically, it was a free for all. Drummers were adding whatever rhythms they felt like. Some randomly tapped on their drum heads, some

I’m having some trouble being willing to participate in this group because