My first experience opening a gathering with a drum circle was last summer at a BuildaBridge Artology camp for children. My first thought was I wished that many of the 10,000 or so meetings I’ve attended at work, church, my labor union and elsewhere had started that way. The drum circle helped the children make the transition from all that was going on outside to the work to be done, and it gently required children to listen to the rhythm of others before they took their turn at improvising on what the leader had started.
We used the drum ceremony at the BuildaBridge Arts for Hope Camp on the Flathead Indian Reservation last summer in Montana. We learned a lot more about how to use it this week, from James E. Borling, a professor of music at Virginia’s Radford University and a board-certified music therapist.
Drum circles are used to help people of all ages work together in settings like the Artology camp in Philadelphia and the camp Indian children in Montana and for serious therapy sessions with children and adults suffering from a variety of personal demons and addictions.
“A good group is six-to-eight, but I’ve forked with much larger groups,” Borling said. “It engages the fundamental core of wanting to be alive but being afraid to do so. . . music is a vehicle for change.”
The sessions help people deal deeply held anger and grief.
You don’t have to be a trained musician. Playing drums in a rock band requires serious talent, but almost everyone can play well enough to participate in a drum circle, where others help move past times when you mess up.
Professor Borling learned first hand the power of what he’s teaching and using as a therapist. Twice in his youth he was deeply into addictions which led to two near brushes with death. “Thanks to the grace of God and 12-step programs” and the work he now teaches and practices “I’m 22 years clean and sober,” he said.
Music has been a huge part of my personal growth,” he said.
Drums are just one of the skills taught at the BuildaBridge Institute 2010, which has attracted people from many regions of the United States as well as Haiti, Guatemala, Scotland, Australia, Korea and the Bahamas. Dr. J. Nathan Corbitt and Dr. Vivian Nix-Early, BuildaBridge cofounders, will soon post materials we used online. They are preparing to offer BuildaBridge training online and overseas in alliances with colleges and universities.
– Henry J. Holcomb, BuildaBridge volunteer Artist on Call and board member
James E. Borling, music professor and board-certified music therapist
Professor James E. Borling teaches how to use drums as instruments of change
