THE SOUND OF SIX from Clearwater had a record on the national Laurie label. Members had previously been in groups such as Those Five and the Noblemen, both of whom recorded for Paris Tower. Helm went on to Bethlehem Asylum; Muse wound up in Fire...fall and the Marshall Tucker Band. Article from www.davidmuse.com.
This was shot a while ago in our store, Seasons, in Santa Monica, CA. The store is where the drumming meditation/healing got started over twenty years ago. Along the way we have done interesting things. One of which was shooting video through an aquarium with our Beta fish, Elvis, as a featured guest.
When the African rumba came across the Atlantic on the Slave Ships, it was transplanting itself into the new world because it was needed: not only by the slaves but also by all people. It was the same six beat that was in Ireland (the jig), the ghost Dance in Native America, the Far East, Mediterranean South America, and Siberia among other places. The point is that these rhythms are common to all humans. This is proof to me that we are all related.
The original rumba became the survival groove that became the Blues. It is particularly strong and powerful. It can be used for a number of different situations. The Blues is not about feeling sorry for your self. It is about getting over it and moving on. It is about the constant changing nature of life. Since we are now facing the specter of our whole planet being used as a slave plantation this survival energy in the groove is particularly important now.
The manifesting nature of the groove is of specific interest to me because I have witnessed it’s transforming aspects in personal and spiritual lives, but also in manifesting material and cultural realities. If we hit the groove correctly, things happen.
The Universe responds to rhythm because it is the basic programming language of reality. Without rhythm, there is no reality. Using these basic simple patterns connects us to the ultimate programming language, our on system and the universal processing core.
Teaching at Paralounge in Live Oak, Florida, this last weekend, gave me more insight into how and why the drumming therapies are working for people. I have the opportunity to do two separate events: the first one is a large drum group where I teach the groove, tell stories about the history of the groove, move people from a place of want into a place of power. The second group is about the healing drum, and that really gets the energy going in a high vibrational way. The people were lit up with inspiration and came up to me afterwards to discuss their insights. I am very excited about this process and how it affects the world.
The groove is a palpable thing; it is an energy flow that we do not have meters to measure, other than our hearts. I give a lot when I drum and talk, but I get a lot in return. I do not see other drum teachers doing this the same way as I am. There are now schools where people can become trained in the mass of drumming groups. There are procedures for organizing the group of drummers, and ways to have fun with learning different drumming parts and playing them together. All of this is wonderful and empowering to a certain degree.
I am being pulled into a more esoteric region of groove therapy where people are shedding old behaviors, even illnesses and moving into a specifically created new reality. The grooves are very sparse but swing really good. There aren’t a lot of notes because the tone of the downbeat needs to be felt without the distraction of a lot of high pitched show biz style notes. It is all good and fine- I like to cut loose to and wail, but there is also the more subtle way of quiet groove riding that is akin to sitting on a board in the peaceful water with all the waves around you and feeling the single attachment to mother ocean where we feel part of the wave. It reduces the amount of ego involvement and increases the feedback from the universe itself. Our personal operating systems become defused of anxiety in receiving the momentous flow of life force that the group generates. This is less about organized drumming and more about connecting to our own sacred drummer within our selves that plays for the groove and doesn’t need to shred so many notes. Then each little syncopated lick has a sweetness and power instead of just filling space.
I use some tricks, of course; slowing tempo is something that drum instructors still don’t understand. If and when I meet a drum teacher who knows how to slow a group down while keeping the groove alive will be a kindred soul to me. The effect of reducing tempo while maintaining the feel is subtle and magical. Advanced musicians don’t even feel comfortable going there, let alone beginning drum teachers. The fear of slowing down is inherent in our culture.
I have other tricks too, I’ve been trained as a drummer my whole life, since the age of eight, and I’ve been doing the drumming healing touring for over twenty years. So I know from experience what works. I also know what I prefer to do and what I have a strength for, as well as what I do not enjoy doing; i.e. competing. Competing kills healing many times and the drummers don’t realize that they are competing. Women are great drummers because they don’t compete. They support the groove and the community. Many men get this approach also, but they are still subject to being tested by other men.
Drumming in our culture is in its infancy. We are still discovering our sacred grooves. Usage is the key. When the groove is working for a specific reason, then that is worth remembering.
I had one erstwhile soul this last weekend at Paralounge tell me that he too wanted to be a drum shaman using the techniques that I was employing. A woman therapist said she had investigated other healing arts modalities working with children but this process was the closest to what she had been looking for. The tools I use are versatile, yet simple and universal.
I am pleased to say that it seems like I will continue performing and teaching this particular drumming technique. I had my doubts and challenges over the last few years about what I should be doing, but when I witness the light in people’s eyes I cannot ignore this blessing. I seem to be channeling a positive force in the universe that is more effective than just drumming. I see other people also channeling this force in their own modalities. I have been reserving the esoteric teaching for my Helmtone drum protocols workshops because I did not what these powerful tools to be used by irresponsible drummers. Now, I see there are so many wanting this type of healing that I am rescheduling my life to accommodate the many requests for healing meditation drumming using the Helmtone method based on the downbeat. The name is the funny part. I wanted a name so odd that no one would want to steal it. (I’ve had publishing names stolen in the past,i.e. Asylum music) So I use the name Helmtone to designate a specific style of drumming healing protocols that has evolved in my work through my whole life of drumming. This is not a vain attempt at self-promotion. It is a mark of demarcation to distinguish this process from other drumming styles that claim to be healing, ( i.e. Remo and others) They no doubt do assist in healing but there is something missing in their approach also. It might be the merchant mentality that interferes, or the ego, or that there is vocabulary missing from their work. I only wish to differentiate myself from the herd so that people know what they are getting. I have seen it work time and time again. To avoid the traps of the ego, I constantly have to maintain a sense of invisibleness. That is a paradox for most drummers. They have invested ego in their identity as a musician. This drumming techniques do not work too well when ego demands attention. The flow of divine healing is impeded when the ego is not left out of the equations. These rhythmic equations are specific and time tested. They have certain conditions, they free up certain blockages and they empower in unique ways. This is an evolving process that is a part of our emerging culture. It is teachable and it is also a shaman tool. It conjures reality and it changes reality. It heals and it enlightens. I am grateful to be doing this.
I am excited when a student gets past the use of muscle and ego and gets to where the drum is making music. The muscle interferes with the melody of the drum. When the patient can get strong enough to keep a basic rhythm solid, then the healer can improvise on top of that stable groove, which opens up the flow of healing energy into both of them. The soloing does not work as a healing tool if it comes from ego and muscle. It must flow from the Gods. From God. ALL INDIGENOUS CULTURES UNDERSTAND THIS.
The Helmtone method of getting a patient into this musical creative mode using the drum is what I have been teaching. It makes an avenue for healing and abundance where there was only vacant space.
“I am probably hitting too hard” is a mantra that bears repeating every minute or so.
“I am probably speeding up” is also a mantra that could be repeating as often as possible.
I am grateful for the people who have come to me to heal using the drum. When I am sharing the groove with them, insights into my own condition along with their insights makes for a miraculous session, over and over again. I have recently come to understand such conditions as “Rhythmic dislocation” where the person cannot hold a stable groove. This has traditionally been diagnosed as someone “with no sense of rhythm” . That assumption could not be further from the truth. These people have an incredible sense of rhythm and they want to get to it but the trauma history gets in the way. Eliminate the trauma loops and they begin playing in the groove! Their lives improve. This has nothing to do with talent or music.
“I am probably hitting too hard” is a mantra that bears repeating every minute or so.
“I am probably speeding up” is also a mantra that could be repeating as often as possible.
Rhythmic Dissassociation is also a new and dynamic concept. Which comes part and parcel with the psychological dissassociation caused by abuse. These condItions can be seen at work. They become visible to the patient as they drum. And it then becomes a Behavorial Feedback tool . We can thank Elmer Green for creating the study of biofeedback, and what we have here is a new tool for modifying behavior and belief in a short time.
Today was a a breakthrough session with a patient of three months. This person has a life threatening illness. When they arrived at our door step at Seasons in Santa Monica, He could not hold a steady beat. His muscular spasms where a reaction to past trauma history, not music. Three months later, he held a complicated driving six beat trance groove steady and solid while I improvised healing energy over it, resembling “Los Munequitos” type of shamanic grooves. It is very fast and unexpected.He stayed steady and strong for a long time, then we ended with a triumphant “Big Ending”
This patient had done the work on themselves, and it showed in his drumming. He stayed steady and strong. What he needs to heal with. But his past was no longer impinging on his present. And as a reseult he could drum very well. At the beginning he could not drum at all with out getting very agitated. He enjoyed it but it was not in the groove of the group. Now he is quite capable of drumming on his own and in a group. The old habits are stil near though.
Remembering to hit the drum so softly that muscle is not activated is an important evolution FOR ALL DRUMMERS. Then the drummer can connect to the egoless source of healing power. This is quite a long journey for drummers because ego and drumming seem to go together. But that is a mundane level of drumming.
DRUMMING FOR THE SACRED HEALING DANCE. That means watch the world around you and how it responds to your drumming. The dancers will teach us how to drum. The patients will teach us how to heal with the drum. Hitting the drum so softly that only the melody is heard creates a release of ego and muscle. That then connects us to universal power that heals reality.
“If I am fearful or angry, I am probably in the past, if I am smiling, I am probably in the present.”
This Saturday night, I’ll be peforming original songs at “Talking Stick” on Lincoln Blvd in Venice at 9 pm. Be there!
Changes in plans:
I will be doing a drumming dolphin cruise in Florida on Oct.25 with DJ Todd of the Nightwatch internet radio show.
I will be at Paralounge October 17, Sat.
Then maybe out to Kansas before I head back to Seasons in Santa Monica.
In the process of using the Helmtone Drum Protocols to move us through trauma and into a place where our sense of rhythm is restored to wholeness, the phenomenon of hyperfocusing is a useful and easy method of instilling a new belief and a new behavior. Most people have a challenge in meditation because of the constant distractions we encounter in our own lives, both interior and in the outside world. The ideas of meditating on the void, the rhythm of breath, the physical sensations of our bodies, or the mantra given to us by masters are all workable methods, but for our culture the challenge of sitting and “doing nothing” is a difficult chore that can be accomplished sometimes only after long and intense practice. Helmtone protocols is a method for our culture. We need to be doing- that is our nature. The steady relaxed drumming is an activity that works for us because it occupies that part of our awareness that gets distracted easily by present and past episodes.
The concept of Rhythmic Dysfunction has been born in the recent years by me because there was no other vocabulary to describe what people were approaching me to help them with. They are sincere, intelligent, talented people with a common occurence: they are disassociated from their sense of rhythm.
