PHOTO BY FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STAR-BULLETIN.COM Arthur "Head Elf" Hull is the organizer of the event.

We’ve got the beat

It’s not about pounding
your own drum but learning
to listen and play with others

---

By Gary C.W. Chun
gchun@starbulletin.com

It's all about shaping the beat, the rhythm. One person, the "facilitator," leads a group of drummers and percussionists -- male, female, old, middle-aged, young. To facilitate requires the desire, knowledge and skill to take tens or hundreds through an evolving or sustained groove without it collapsing into undisciplined rumbling mush.

For seven years running, the Johnny Appleseed of the community drum circle movement in the United States, Arthur Hull, has seen his annual workshops at Camp Mokuleia grow in both interest and participants. The culmination (or graduation ceremony) that ends each week's intensive learning -- the interisland community drum circle -- attracted more than 400 people to last year's event, by Hull's count.

Calling himself "Arthur Rhythmseed," Hull brings 20 years' of experience as a teacher the world over. He first viewed drumming as a metaphor for corporate team building, but has expanded his classes to include anyone with an interest in rhythmic expression. His instructional video, "Guide to Endrummingment," and new book, "Drum Circle Spirit," are just two of his tools, along with his unflagging, in-person enthusiasm for the power of the drum.

"The makeup of the community has changed over the years," Hull said over the gentle, syncopated drumming of a small group gathered in Keehi Lagoon Park. "The rhythm-enabled culture is growing in the U.S. I projected that something like this would come to light in 10 to 20 years' time. I was wrong. This grassroots movement is happening now."

What's helped Hull is the outgrowth from what was considered a male hippie experience to what he's dubbed "kinesthetic learning" for a wider range of people.

PHOTO BY FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STAR-BULLETIN.COM Beatrice Pinto brought her beat all the way from Guatemala. The drummers gathered at Keehi Lagoon Park before leaving for Camp Mokuleia to participate in the Inter-island Community Drum Circle.

"At my workshops, about 50 percent who show up are already drummers, usually non-professional hand drummers," he said. "The other half are school teachers, kids-at-risk, counselors, music therapists, priests and ministers, and other people serving in special needs communities, like the elderly, Alzheimer's patients and pregnant teen mothers.

"And what basically was a men's sport 20 years ago has now changed, gender-wise, to where women are an important part of the drum community. When I started this program here seven years ago, it was just 30 to 40 people. Last year 120, many of them returnees, came to learn drumming skills."

There's now a mentor program, where Hull -- with Don Davidson and Cameron Tummel, the senior facilitators at his Village Music Circle in Santa Cruz, Calif. -- help students establish themselves and become facilitators as well.

SO WHY drumming? "On one level, I think Western culture, as a whole, is relearning this kind of communal relationship," said Davidson, who joined Hull in the late '80s after an initial interest in psychology. "But on a simpler level, it's a fun, non-threatening way for people to come together to celebrate and connect with each other on an intimate level, without it being personal."

"Hawaii has become the premier facilitator training (site)," added Tummel, who was nursing an injured right hand (not because of drumming) but wouldn't let it stop him from teaching.

Throughout the nationwide drumming community, he said, "we've got the full range of people, from hippies to medical doctors." He told of a computer-company manager from Silicon Valley who, after a team-building seminar with drum circle applications, quit his job and become a facilitator himself.

"The drum circle has gone mainstream, what with schools and hospitals across the country getting involved as well," said Davidson. "And this is entirely different from the usual performance model of music. It's all about participation."

PHOTO BY FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STAR-BULLETIN.COM Drummers come from all over. At left, Yolla Knight, arrived from Petaluma, Calif., and next to her is a drummer from Tokelau'u Island.

IN ABOUT an hour's time, buses arrive at the park to drop off students from 11 countries, on their way to Camp Mokuleia. Most are first-timers, from places like Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea, India, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Guatemala and Canada.

They are people like Denise Gottschling from Calgary. She and two other members of Dansa Drumming are here, having learned about Hull's workshops through his Web site. "I got into the drum circle through a friend of a friend," she says, "and I'm thinking of going into social work for at-risk kids, using drumming as a tool as a music therapist. But we basically came to pick up more ideas and techniques."

If Gottschling pursues a social work career, she might look upon Deborah Bradway from San Francisco as a successful model. Bradway came here last year to further her skills in the work she had begun the year before. She was involved in a research project at a middle school in a low-income area, seeing how music therapy might help academic learning.

Bradway's here with five 14-year-old boys from that school who have proven themselves as student facilitators, leading their own drum group in a local community center.

"They've learned youth leadership through non-violence," she said. "And they've agreed to do four months of community service with this weekly drum circle. They now know how to deal with little kids; how to stop, listen and respect each other and be more social, caring and community-oriented."

Bradway said the first test of the effectiveness of their training came three weeks ago, when "two kids from gangs attacked two of my boys, and they chose to walk away.

"I wasn't there, I didn't control the situation, and the fact that they had the self-esteem to back off means they learned something from music therapy. It was something transitional, something they could carry into their world, and exercise it in a community where control and marking turf means everything for survival."

PHOTO BY FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STAR-BULLETIN.COM An Egyptian tambourine called a "Rigg" (pronounced rich) is also played.

IT'S ALL one big drum love fest. In the past week, there've been exercises and games, amounting to no less than eight hours of drumming a day -- and that's not counting the all-night, no-curfew drum circle that starts at 9 p.m. and goes on to whenever. Even though practicing drummers come with previous experience in West African, Ghanaian, taiko, Balinese gamelan, Afro-Cuban and Brazilian drum rhythms, the Camp Mokuleia experience is supposed to be "one large, facilitated drum event and non-cultural specific," said Hull.

Tomorrow's community drum circle is open to the larger community and "entirely accessible to moms, dads and kids, as well as the 'rhythmically challenged.' All are welcomed to the group; there's a place and space for everybody, and you don't need to be a musician or drummer. Extra drums, hand percussion and shakers will be available."

7th Annual Interisland Community Drum Circle Where: Camp Mokuleia, 68-729 Farrington Highway When: 2 to 5 p.m. tomorrow Admission: $1 donation Call: 377-3786

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