in this video i'm going to be talking about
drum circles and music therapy and why they are different although they may appear to be similar
i'm kalani this is world drum club and this will be a talk and by the end of this talk you'll
understand the definition of what a drum circle is you'll understand a little bit about what
music therapists do and what music therapy is and you're also going to understand why the two
are not the same or one is not inside of the other even though there is there are some similarities
between them and i'm going to be citing some of the research and books that have been written by
people so you're not going to take my word for it but i am a board certified music therapist i've
also done tons of drum circles and taught drum circle facilitation i'll show you that i've got
a pile of books here we're going to go through so that's what this video is about if you're not
interested in any or either of those things you can click away now save yourself some time this is
going to be a little bit long talk but my goal is to clear up some of the misunderstanding around
the term drum circle i realize that some people have been using it to define what some people do
in music therapy i made a video a couple years ago called nine reasons drum circles are not part
of music therapy uh because they're not and i got a lot of aggressive answers and replies um you
can see that video on my kalani music channel but i want to address it here on world drum club
because this is a bigger channel and i also want to be really clear that i enjoy both and i'm a
fan of both drum circles and music therapy so if you want to beat me up in the comments you
can do that for my for my views but i i want to say this and this is not an egotistical
comment i know what i'm talking about because i've been around a long time and i've
been around before the drum circle movement i've been around to watch music therapy and and
became a music therapist and i know a lot of the history of that i'm going to share some of that
with you books by other music therapists and also drum circle facilitators and just clear up some of
the misunderstanding because i there's no reason that we need to have confusion uh both things are
valuable you know drum circles are valuable i'm a fan music therapy is valuable there's no reason
to conflate them though and get and get confused about it so let's get started with that i want to
go back to uh 1987 and this book which is called improvisational models of music therapy written
by kenneth ruther russia this is a book that we all had to get in in our music therapy study and
this book contains a lot of techniques called music therapy clinical improvisation techniques
this whole book is about improvisational models of music therapy it was written in 87 1987
and kenneth brucia does a great job outlining major approaches uh to improvisation based
music therapy he also lists over i think it's 60 over 60 clinical skills or techniques that are
things that a music therapist does in the moment with his or her clients to create music
improvisational music improvised music but also with a view to serving their clinical goals
and objectives you know techniques that they use these are musical techniques and i have a book
i'll talk about in a few minutes that also recaps a lot of those and and organizes them and talks
about them but this book is amazing it it's a it's a bit dense as you can see but this was in
1987 all right so that's important to understand so let's we're going to move on in the timeline
uh but first i want to talk about the origins of uh drum circle what is the word drum circle
where did that come from why do we call it that well the word drum circle uh is is used
to define kind of an american phenomenon of people spontaneously or you know casually
gathering to play music together usually on drums and percussion although other instruments
are used and some people just dance or sing or do whatever they want at the drum circle the idea
is that it's an open kind of community based improvisation based you know music created
in the moment for celebration and joy and in a minute i'm going to read you a definition
from arthur hull who is the self-proclaimed father of the modern drum circle movement so i
agree with that definition um nothing wrong with that you know this phenomenon it would occur
at beach like drum circles would happen at beaches around campfires at rainbow gatherings
you know grateful dead concert parking lots it's great it's a way for people to get together
and connect and show their unity and share their spirit uh and you know it's just a phenomenon
so people started calling those drum circles those things specifically so the
what's happening down at the beach you know happening over here but it's not that
people were gathering in a circle with drums that makes a drum circle it's beyond that it's
not the just the form of it right if that were the case i could just have a line of drums and
then i could say i have a drum line but we all know that a drum line is a certain thing right
it's play certain music for a certain function um competitive drum line you know it's not just i
line up a bunch of drums and now i'm a drum line leader you know so drum circle is the same kind
of thing it's uh it's a certain type of community music making experience or event all right so let
me go to look we're going to go forward in time this is arthur hall's book called drum circle
spirit he gave me this he even autographed it there you go and this book is 1998.
So 12 years
after the breusha book and and um there's a lot of stories in here there's some there's some
anecdotal stories and things but arthur came out with this um his first training was in
94 and that's when the drum circle you know officially like drum circle facilitator thing and
the modern drum circle movement kind of started so mid-1990s all right and uh and then arthur's
gone on to write some other books um after this so i'm gonna move forward in time
after that 2004 i came out with this book which is called together in rhythm uh a guy a facilitator's
guide to drum circle music now called developmental community music i came out with
this book in which i bring together a lot of teachings from a lot of different teachers
including arthur and other other facilitators and then i've expanded on this work for a number
of years and just kind of expanded it into all all kinds of music uh a lot of it's based on my
orf shiver training uh and so you can look into this and the other books that i mentioned i'm
just giving you all these books a look at these books so you can do your own research if you
want to look into them a little bit later but here's where i wanted to get to with music
therapy this is a book called music therapy improvisation for groups by susan gardstrom
this book came out in i believe it was 2007 yes 2007.
And i want to read you a little passage
from this and i'm going to shift to the overhead view and right here let me put my little
spectacles on all right right here on page 21 it's called improvisation versus a drum circle so
clinical improvisation versus the drum circle and she says it's it is critical that you understand
the distinction between clinical improvisation and a drum circle the two experiences
are often mistaken for one another even though they are more different than like
and then down here she quotes arthur hull and it says a drum circle is the use of
a rhythm-based event as a tool for unity collab collaborativity collaboratively sorry
self-organized and musical event created in the moment by all the people who participate
and a means of expressing timeless joy passion and release through the power of rhythm she
then goes on to say that there are similarities and differences and on the on the following
pages she even has a table that shows all the differences between impro clinical improvisation
music therapy and a drum circle all of these categories here and all the differences so you
don't have to take my word for it is my point this is written by a music therapist teacher and
she's saying that these things are very different so uh which i agree with they are and that is i
want to be clear you guys i support both everybody this is not about valuing one over the other
it's just saying that these things are different that's all so i wanna i just wanna reiterate that
because for some reason what i published the video about you know different reasons that drum circles
are not part of music therapy um some people got their panties in a bunch about that they thought
i was hating on drum circles or something i'm not absolutely not so you can attack me if you
want for bringing you facts and information and sharing my professional opinion which this is and
if you know you can also click away you don't have to listen to me but i've i've done drum circle
stuff for 30 years i've done lots of training i'm a fan you know i'm totally supportive of
that i'm also a board-certified music therapist of about 12 years and learned from a lot of the
people in the music therapy community so i can speak to both as a veteran you know i've got a lot
of experience in fact in 2011 i wrote this book called the way of music creating sound connections
in music therapy and in here i also go over some of the same things i'm i'm saying in this
this book is also about clinical improvisation techniques and how we can use music and create
musical experiences for people you know that are improvisation based even ones that use drums
and they can still be purely music therapy we don't need to call them anything else right group
drumming in music therapy you don't have to call it a drum circle in fact if you call something
just because something is group drumming if you if you go ahead and call that a drum circle just
because you see people in a circle with drums or a semicircle with drums or if you do that not only
is that kind of a misnomer but it's also i believe a form of cultural appropriation because you're
just taking something out of context that has a context has a historical context that is evidenced
by history and people's writings like arthur's and then you're just repurposing it for your
own you know your own goals or within your own narrow understanding and that's wrong and i don't
believe that's i don't believe we should be doing that i think we should use terms uh appropriately
um not misappropriate them we should use them with understanding and intelligence and respect so
i don't want to do that i try not to do that with other things and i hope you don't do that
either now why is what we do in music therapy different because all the relationships are
different and susan guardstrom in her book points that out she says look the roles the
role of the facilitator in a drum circle is very different if even if there is a facilitator
let's assume there is sometimes there's not but the role of the facilitator in drum circle is just
to help people have fun and make music and connect that's that's very different than the role of a
music therapist in a group drumming experience totally different huge responsibility you're the
person's therapist in music therapy the clients are there with specific needs goals objectives
that the music therapist is helping them meet that's not the job of a drum circle facilitator
totally different um the kinds of techniques that we use again in music therapy even if it's with
drumming the techniques are older than the whole drum circle movement they're from 1987 and before
because the book was published in 87 which means the techniques existed for several years before
that obviously so it you know it's not like music therapists are borrowing or stealing from music
from a drum circle facilitation that's i just the timeline doesn't show that the techniques don't
show that none of the music therapy literature mentions anything about using drum circles in
music therapy except that they're different that's the only thing it says in there so you guys
this is not my opinion only i have no agenda you know this is not anti-drum circle it's just
i'm just saying that it's it's somewhat of a mistake to say that drum circles are part of music
therapy or that music therapists do drum circles as music therapy now could a music therapist
also facilitate a drum circle absolutely why not i do on occasion i do fewer these days
than uh than i had in the past but that's just because i'm getting old and i don't want to schlep
a bunch of drums around i've done my part you know i'd rather see younger people doing it who who
want to do that and i think it's great to do that it's awesome but when i do music therapy i use
music therapy techniques clinical improvisation techniques and that whole book is full of them
if you're interested in learning about that any of you could get a copy of together and i'm
sorry together in rhythm or the way of music and i do recommend the way of
music for any music facilitator even if you're a music educator i teach some
of those techniques in music to music educators uh music facilitators of any kind they're valuable
techniques they're really really amazing to create empathy to create connection to validate what
people are doing to be supportive of people to shape those relationships through music over
time it's it's really fascinating you guys um and i use some of the music therapy teachings
actually when i do drum circles now if i if i do a drum circle i can borrow from music therapy
so if anything i think music therapy has informed the drum circle stuff more than the other way
around uh in any event um i hope that clears up some of the understandings or misunderstandings
about what drum circles are again i want to reiterate that a drum circle is not just group
drumming of any kind you know if you're if you want to talk about group drumming whether people
are in a circle or not just just call it group drumming because it could be a lesson it could
be a performance it could be some sort of other type of experience that people are doing like
rhythm games or something it could be stories with with percussion sounds we just don't know if
if we see a group of people in a circle with drums um that's not a drum circle it's a drum circle
if you know it it if it's like what arthur holt described or susan garson described in her book um
if it's kind of open improv you know no no agenda anybody's free to participate do whatever they
want that's then it would be a drum circle but the drum circle is is a type of group drumming the big
umbrella term is group drumming or music actually music group drumming and then i mean i identify
at least seven different types of group drumming including and drum circles is one of those we
also have rhythm games we have guided interactive drumming we have drum ensembles we have you
know all sorts of drum play and different different types of group drumming experiences okay
music therapy is an allied healthcare profession it's i mean it's it happens in the same places
that physical therapy happens uh cognitive therapy occupational therapy speech therapy when
i work as a music therapist i'm visiting the same type of clientele that other allied health
care professions also treat right so very different environment than your classic or
your even normal what would happen with a drum circle which would be more like an after school
thing or at a camp or you know recreation or even in corporate training if you do corporate
drum circles it's still a drum circle so the fact that there's a facilitator um doesn't
change the outcome or the it shouldn't change the essence of what a drum circle is and it's
different than the essence of what music therapy is so i hope that makes sense if it doesn't if you
have any questions or even if you'd like to debate any of this i welcome i do i welcome bring some
evidence bring some facts bring some reference points to information that contradicts what i'm
saying please if you can do that do it uh i'm open to it i'm absolutely open to it if you're
just gonna personally attack me you can do that you can do that in the comments everybody can see
that that's up to you if you'd like to communicate with me behind the scenes if you don't want to
debate me out in the open that's okay too you can send me a you know dm me or send me an email
i'm happy to answer questions i answer lots of questions from different people all the time i
realize there's some confusion out there because some music therapists actually do promote
this idea of drum circles in music therapy i don't know why that is it might be because of a
misunderstanding it might be because they have an agenda like they're trying to sell something
or promote some specific products or services you can decide that for yourself
if you decide to investigate but i think it all starts with you know getting the
big picture maybe talking to more than a couple people uh like i said you don't have to take
my word for it you can do your own research but my goal is to clear up misunderstandings
and and be supportive of everything but also you know be real and be truthful about
things and just try to you know set the record straight so that's all i'm trying to do again
if you're a drum circle facilitator bless you and i hope you do a great job hope you enjoy
it and i hope you're i'm sure your participants uh enjoy you and what you're doing for them and
if you're a music therapist i hope this clears up for you you know what your profession is about
and where you go for information and how you're gonna operate and how you can talk about what
you do and if you're a lay person watching this congratulations that you made it this far uh but
maybe you can also use the terms drum circle more effectively and accurately and responsibly and
also the term music therapy because that's a whole different conversation is a lot of people
think music therapy is just like music that makes you feel good or something but that's a different
lecture for a different time um i'm going to wrap this up now but again i want to invite you
to send me your questions leave your kind and helpful comments below if you like connect
with me at patreon.com kalani or kalanimusic.com and have a great day you guys alright uh if
you want to get notifications of new videos hit the bell subscribe to the channel make
some great music and share it with other people as much as you can i'm connie this is
world drum club i'll see you in another video