The Arts in Psychotherapy 29 (2002) 261–264

Community building through drumming

Vanessa Camilleri, M.A., MT-BC*,**

As we have seen during recent events in NewYork, Pennsylvania, and Washington, DC, violencecan occur in unexpected locations and times and caneffect each and every one of us in different ways.For this reason, we need to be prepared at all timesto deal with consequences of violence, as well as totake preventive measures. Whether global or localsituations, violent acts have the power to destroy livesand communities, as well as to undermine our senseof security and freedom. Likewise, governments,schools, the media, and families have the power toinstill non-violent values, and to foster environmentsof caring and peace.

As we pick up the pieces of our lives, and accumu-late information regarding the recent terrorist attacksin the United States and their international repercus-sions, we struggle to find meaning and purpose in thepresent situation. To this end, our school has com-mitted to using this tragic opportunity to talk to ourchildren about tolerance, respect, and peace. In addi-tion to the countless expressions of solidarity we havewitnessed across the nation and globe, we believethat students can positively contribute to the situationby learning about the roots of violence, discussingalternatives to violence, and adopting non-violentpostures and behaviors to use in their lives andcommunities.

The Reach Charter School is located in an innercity, at-risk neighborhood in Manhattan and ser-vices elementary age students. Many of the childrenwitness and are victims of violence in their homesand communities. For this reason and due to recentinternational events, our students are consistentlydealing with and having to make sense of visiblerepercussions of terror. Such social/emotional stress

∗ Vanessa Camilleri is a Music Therapist at the ReachCharter School in New York City.

∗∗E-mail address: vanacam@aol.com (V. Camilleri).

and trauma can get in the way of academic successand can have negative life long psychological conse-quences. To address this and to expose our studentsto a climate of hope and achievement, efforts mustbe made to make our school, a safe heaven form vio-lence. As stated byCookson (2001), a school shouldbe a “safe place [for students] to develop as citizenswho can resolve differences peaceably and build oncommunity rather than dividing through competition”(p. 42).

Violence often stems from ignorance about peoplewho are different from yourself. These differences areemphasized by families and the media in the form ofstereotyping and unfounded judgements about supe-riority and inferiority. Not knowing about a specificgroup of people can breed jealousy and fear, whichwhen taken to the point of hateful assumptions andactions, can have devastating effects. In schools, stu-dents often feel the need to put others down in order tomake themselves feel good. Feelings of insecurity canpush students to commit hateful actions to gain sta-tus in the school community. Such posturing createscliques, pressure, and labeling of students by studentsand can have damaging results for victims and per-petrators, for example, recent school shootings acrossthe nation. Often, students who actually do resort toextreme violence, are outsiders from the school com-munity, and belong to no particular group. They haveoften been persecuted or teased by their peers for be-ing different in some way, leaving them unconnectedand apart from existing social circles. To seek revengefor the suffering they have endured, they often turnto violence upon themselves or others.

Clearly, schools are not immune to violence, andcan in fact become breeding grounds for misinforma-tion and permissive behavior. Staff and administrationhave to make concerted efforts to minimize and pre-vent occurrences of violence by acknowledging thempublicly every time they happen rather than turning

0197-4556/02/$ – see front matter © 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.PII: S0197-4556(02)00158-2

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a blind eye. By having a zero tolerance for violenceattitude as well as fostering a safe and peaceful com-munity, steps are taken to combat isolation and tobuild community.

The premise of this article is that as a preventivemeasure, if you build a solid community of caring in-dividuals in your school, you are paving the way for anon-violent environment. As stated byKagan (2001)“the best way to prevent school violence is to replacedisparagement with respect, exclusion with inclusion,and lonely isolation with collaborative community”(p. 54). Community building can take many formssuch as, team building activities, school wide units onglobal issues such as peace and non-violence, com-munity outreach programs, raising money for a cause,school beautification projects, classroom songs, anorchestra, assemblies, plays, character education andmuch more. As stated byCookson (2001):

This doing and doing together plants the seed oftolerance. No one ever became tolerant becausethey were told to do so. Tolerance comes fromshared activities, shared failures, and shared suc-cesses. The appreciation of diversity springs formsharing, making membership in the group real andpositive. (p. 43)

As part of therapeutic services at the Reach Char-ter School, Music Therapy has become an integralpart of the community building process. To this end,the versatile modality of music is used to bring ourstudents together and to excite them into actively con-tributing to the creation of our school community. Theuse of drum circles with entire classes and with smallgroups of students has proved to be a valuable way ofbreaking through cultural, racial and religious differ-ences, making connections, and creating community.As stated byHawkins (1999), “Drumming togetheris a powerful means of unification—reaching beyondlanguage and belief system—to bring people togetherthrough heart connection” (p. 18).

The sound of drumming is the sound of friendsbeing made, connection being forged and emotionsbeing worked through. Drumming brings children to-gether without words, without competition, and with-out comparisons. It is an equal and common meetingpoint created by essential contributions of each child.Structured drumming exercises provide a safe andpredictable framework within which children learn tocome together, becoming positive and active groupmembers. Such social skills as listening, concentra-tion, sharing, cooperating, respecting, risk-taking, andmany more, are developed through the fun and mo-tivating medium of drumming. As trust develops inthe group through successful experiences of play-ing together, the way is paved for individual chil-dren to be creative, to try new things to discover their

own imaginative capacities, and to work on importantpersonal issues. Drumming allows children to focuson themselves and others, as it requires both listen-ing and sound production simultaneously. A highlyemotional and physical activity, drumming mobilizesmind, body, and heart, creating shared moments ofpure connection, joy and surprise.

The following is a description of drum circletechniques that have been used and adapted at theReach Charter School during small group musictherapy sessions and with entire classes to achievegroup cohesion and to foster community. Activitiesare described, goals are discussed, and examples ofstudent reactions are shared.

The impact of the drumming experience is mosteffective when the session starts from silence. At theappointed signal, a leader leads the group in an un-structured drum rumble (Hull, 1998), giving clearstart and stop cues. Drumming with the group is anon-threatening way to get started and to try some-thing new. This is a chance for children to experimentwith the drum in whatever way they choose, know-ing full well that when the leader raises her arms,the drumming will stop. Students laugh gleefully attheir freedom and the permission to make noise, oth-ers cover their ears, and some can barely containtheir excitement. Children become the rumble mas-ters and mistresses, leading the group through loudand soft rumbles and fast and slow ones. This giveschildren a chance to be in control, experiment withleadership and following, and practice their impulsecontrol.

For students with self-esteem issues or an inabil-ity to express feelings, drumming can give student avoice, amplify emotions such as anger, and help themwith assertiveness (Slotoroff, 1994). Being given per-mission to drum allows a child to express strong emo-tions constructively, in an appropriate fashion and ina safe environment. Instead of hitting another student,a child can use the drum to get out anger and frustra-tion. As stated byFriedman (2000):

Recent incidents of violence at numerous highschools around the country illustrate the importanceof teaching anger management to this population.Drums are a very natural way of helping adoles-cents deal with anger for a number of reasons:drumming is a peer-respected activity, drummingis fun, drumming provides a means of releasingpent-up emotions and drumming helps to develop astronger concept of self-worth. (p. 91)

Giving voice to emotions through drumming is away of validating their existence in the group context,therefore normalizing them, and decreasing possiblefeelings of isolation. Furthermore, drumming helpsto organize possibly chaotic feelings, and provides a

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venue through which children can creatively channeland express them (Hull, 1998).

By this time, children are creating sounds on thedrums with their nails, fists and palms. These sug-gestions are acknowledged as we discuss the variousways of using the drum and different sounds that canbe made.

Once the children become comfortable with thetools of drumming, we can move on to using the drumto introduce ourselves. Each child says their nameand drums out sounds at the same time. The grouplistens and then mirrors back, amplifying the soundthat a child has made, providing immediate gratifica-tion and feedback. Tommy says his name hitting thedrum twice loudly, matching the syllables in his name.Annabelle draws out the vowel sounds and scrapesher nails lightly over the surface of the drum in acircular motion. The children are given a chance tomake a statement about who they are and what theyare feeling through the abstract medium of the drum,and to have that statement echoed back to them.

We move on to listening and imitating games, suchas “The Mirror Game” where one person makes asound on the drum and the group copies it back. “TheEcho Game” is another favorite, where one personmakes a drum sound and then one person at a timearound the circle copies the rhythm creating a waveeffect. These games give children a sense of prideand ownership as their idea is heard and magnified.Every sound is accepted for what it is and because ofthe symbolic aspect of drumming, there is no right orwrong.

“The Echo Game” is similar to a game called“Telephone” in which a whispered message is sentaround a circle, and the group discovers at the endwhether the message was conveyed correctly, orwhether it changed into something else. During onemusic therapy session with 6th graders, a conversa-tion about the spreading of rumors was jump startedby one student whose drum message changed as itwent around the circle. Students shared why theythought the drum message changed (lack of concen-tration and listening), and compared this to how arumor spreads, and how this makes them feel. Stu-dents described experiences of having rumors spreadabout them, and about how they too have often beenlinks in a circle of children who were spreading arumor. The student who brought up the issue in re-lation to his changed drum message had the chanceto send his rhythm around again, and this time withmore awareness about what it takes to convey infor-mation accurately, the students successfully sent hisrhythm around the drum circle.

Continuing the development of confidence andgroup unity, a leader goes into the middle of the circleand conducts the drumming with her body language.

Jazmin stomps around like a giant, taking huge stepsand moving her arms up and down with each step. Thegroup bangs in time with her steps, amplifying a sub-tle emotional quality of anger that is coming throughher movements. She tricks the group by stopping sud-denly, catching some kids unaware, who continue todrum. Haqueem timidly gets up and asks if he canchoose a partner to come with him into the circle. Theboys whisper and begin to tiptoe around the circle.Quiet drumming accompanies their delicate rhythmicsteps. As a rhythm solidifies, the boys start to danceto the beat, spinning around, doing the “running man”and swiveling their hips to the steady drumbeat andthe sound of cheering classmates. They beam as theyreturn to their seats, proudly paving the way for oth-ers to lead the group from the center of the circle.

Drum circles can be used to challenge students towork together regardless of differences, to achieve aspecific goal. For example, groups of children willtime how fast a rhythm travels around the circle, eachtime discussing methods of speeding up and tryingto beat their previous time. Speeding up the beat ofthe rhythm, or moving in to make a smaller circleare often ways suggested by students to achieve theirgoal. As described byHawkins (1999):

Drumming is an efficient, non-verbal way to syn-chronize our energies. . . . Work songs around theworld have long been used as a way of helping agroup of people function together as a team: drumshave led warriors into battle, shamans to other real-ities, dancers into ecstatic trance. (p. 37)

As the excitement builds, children want to sharebeats and ideas. The uniting force of rhythm has cap-tured their imaginations, coaxed out the most timidand organized the most chaotic. I ask them what theyhad for lunch in the cafeteria “pizza and beans” comesthe answer. We start a repetitive chant, using ourdrums to articulate the rhythm of the syllables. “Pizzaand beans, pizza and beans.” Slowly, the words fallaway, leaving the steady drum rhythm. More chantideas are suggested, some very silly, such as “stinkystinky cheese man,” some more serious such as “Imiss Mom.” Each chant sends a message and thedrums create a unique form of communicating it andcontaining it. When asked a different question such aswhat their favorite food is, invariably groups emerge.Some like spaghetti and some like hamburgers. Eachgroup drums out their food name one after the other,matching the syllables: “We like spaghetti” then “Welike hamburgers.” Slowly, the rhythms merge andsoon both rhythms are occurring at the same time,creating a complex rhythmic improvisation.

Variations on these rhythms emerge, creating dif-ferent groups of children drumming different rhythmsin time with the basic beat. Typically, individual

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leadership falls away, leaving room for a creativeand improvised group drum circle to emerge. Bodiessway, and eyes meet across the circle as we findourselves playing the same rhythm as someone else.Children hear their rhythms being echoed back andthey look around the circle to locate them. We smileat each other as our rhythms join and each personfinds his/her place in the music. The group movesinto holding a steady beat while soloists take theirturn to shine over the basic beat. As the drummingdies down, what we are left with is a heartbeat“boom boom, boom boom.” We play together as ifwe are one person making one sound on one drum.The sound dies down, leaving an intense moment ofsilence as the drumheads still quiter and bodies stillsway to the memory of our song. Then come thecheers, the clapping and the smiles.

With groups that meet regularly and dependingon the purpose of the group, more in depth conver-sations can emerge as the group discusses group dy-namics that occurred during the drumming. Questionssuch as, who was playing too loudly, who couldn’tbe heard, who always chooses the biggest drum, whonever gets the drum he wanted are addressed, unlodg-ing feelings, and creating a forum for expression. Themusic therapist can take a further step as she asks achild when else in her life was she not heard, or whenelse did she not get what she wanted. With the helpof the music therapist, this can encourage individualstudents to explore deeper issues that may be preva-lent in their lives.

Drumming is a unique way to jump start con-versations about group dynamics and each person’srole in them, or can serve to bring groups of chil-dren together to develop social skills, and to buildcommunity. This empowering modality can teachstudents through doing, valuable lessons about team-work and tolerance. The classes at the Reach CharterSchool continue to experience the power of drum-ming and as the mould themselves into strong class-room units, the hope is that they will bring this senseof community into the larger school population.A strong school community allows tolerance andconnection to thrive and diminishes occurrences ofviolence.

References

Cookson, P. W. (2001). Fostering moral democracy.Educational Leadership, October, 42–45.

Friedman, R. L. (2000).The healing power of the drum.Reno, NV: White Cliffs Media.

Hawkins, H. B. (1999).The heart of the circle. Freedom,CA: The Crossing Press.

Hull, A. (1998).Drum circle spirit. Reno, NV: White CliffsMedia.

Kagan, S. (2001). Teaching for character and community.Educational Leadership, October, 50–55.

Slotoroff, C. (1994). Drumming technique for assertivenessand anger management in the short-term psychiatricsetting for adult and adolescent survivors of trauma.Music Therapy Perspectives, 12, 111–116.