R.D.A. - Recommended Drumming Allowance

by Christine K. Stevens, MSW, M.A., MT-BC

Our R.D.A section is an on-line guide for using rhythm to enhance your life. All of our suggested prescriptions include creative forms of active music-making. Based upon research demonstrating more benefits associated with active music-making than with passive music listening, these RDAs will encourage you to become involved in the wonderful experience of making music and creating your own personal rhythms.

While some of these exercises are solitary activities. others involve recruiting friends, loved-ones, colleagues or co-workers to join you, such as in an aerobics class.

Our RDAs are intended serve as "how-to" guides to get you started until you begin discovering your own personalized activities that meet your particular needs.

This Month's R.D.A. - Heartbeat Harmonics

Lub-dub, Lub-dub, Lub-dub.

What happens when we take the rhythm of the heartbeat and apply it to the drum? The external sound links to our internal state. We play a pattern that is so familiar to us, it pre-dates our consciousness and our birth.

At a recent drum circle devoted to recovery after the terrorist attack on the United States, we began the circle by literally listening to someone's heartbeat. By connecting a medical machine called a Doppler, a monitor for fetal heartbeats, into a sound system, the group of over 100 people gathered at REMO's percussion center, gradually joined into the rhythm. Eventually there was a symphony of rhythm, initiated by one person "sharing their heart."

Isn't that what musical expression is really about...sharing our hearts?

Today, take time to find your pulse and really listen to your human rhythm. It is your unique finger-print, an ever changing metronome of the rhythm track of your life. Play your heart-beat rhythm on your drum. Use this heart-beat rhythm as a meditation. Allow it to center your spirit and your mind and your body.