by Gemma » Tue Feb 22, 2005 3:11 pm
Ok, Yoni, Untal, everybody, here we go!!!
As mentioned in another thread, I had the idea of creating a new thread with the name "The Drummer's Diary". A place where we all could write down and share with the rest of the world's drumming community whatever happens to us while drumming. The events of last night's gig for instance, or about the guy(s) we play(ed) with, the places we play in, or even something that happened to us on the way there. Anything that we like to share, written in a diary-like way. And to start with, I would like to describe something that happened to me last Saturday afternoon. So.... here we go!!!!
Frankfurt, 19th February 2005.
Due to a sudden change of family-plans for the afternoon I had all of a sudden the entire afternoon free! So I decided to call a guy I have been playing with once a week for the last four weeks. We hardly know each other. I play the congas, sometimes a bit of djembe, and he plays mainly djembe and a bit of bongo. Besides the two of us there is another woman who plays the drums and her husband who plays bongos, cow-bell etc, and a couple of times another djembe player who came along. I only met them about six or seven weeks ago and although we have a great time playing and do talk about this and that during our sessions, there private lives are still pretty unknown to me.
Last saturday, however, as he lives just down the road from me, I will call him "N", I gave him a call to ask him whether he had time and fancied a little short notice two-djembe-session. He agreed and we arranged to meet at 2 pm. When we met at the entrance to the place we practice in, a 2nd world war bunker which has been renovated and colorfully devided in lots of rooms of several sizes for bands to practice in, I noticed at once, that he was not well. He looked knackered, bags under his eyes, unshaved, a wreck. We started playing slowly. I myself wasn't feeling very lively anyway, sort of slow physically and mentaly, so that for the first half hour or so it didn't sound quite right, we just could not get into the rhythms porperly. I slowed the whole thing even more and started to play some very simple 6/8 pattern, very simple, nothing fancy. He got the hang of it and after just a short while we "connected". We started to get faster, our hands gradually got into this magical dance on the drum heads, and we got faster and faster, with me pushing in some solo varaitions inbetween with plenty of slaps, fully within the rhythm, almost in a sort of trance. We did this for at least 15 minutes and then stopped, both at the same time, suddenly. The whole situation had changed, we both felt it immidiatelly. He also looked different, still knackered but somehow more relaxed. And then, out of the blue, he started telling me about all the problems he's been having at home with his girlfriend, who is getting divorce from her husband, about all the trouble the still-husband is causing, about the two kids, 15 and 10 years old, who are having great difficulties assimilating the whole thing etc, etc, etc. I just listend to him, there was nothing I could do, there was nothing else he wanted me to do apart from listening. ´
After that his face changed. He was still sad, perhaps even more tired, but there was something else in his face, there was relief! And I just know, had we not have been drumming, his heart would have remained shut.
The magic of drumming!
Gemma, Frankfurt, 22nd February 2005
Edited By Gemma on 1109148971
QUE SIGA LA MARCHA, SIEMPRE!