India! What a intense and amazing collection of smells, sights and sounds. In
that order.
This was my first time in India but certainly not my first time in a third world
country.
I saw more brahma bulls in Bombay-Mumbi than I saw stop lights. But as I found
out, stop lights are only considered as suggestions to most drivers. Motor
cycles, three wheeled motorized rickshaws, mini- cabs, colorfully painted
delivery trucks, and BMWs fight for every inch of road in this city. Even the
white dividing lines, ( when they are there), are also considered as
"Suggestions".
 Zubin
Blazer greeted me and
hung out with me for my whole visit to India.
Zubin was my main drum support shill at both Mumbai circles. Zubin, from Pune
India, is a Hawaii Graduate and has often been in America Apprenticing with
Heather McTavish on special needs circles. He works full time with a diffrient
special needs populations in Pune. I watch a 20 minuet video of of one of his
projects. I watch a time laps video of Zubin using drums and a harmonica working
with special needs autistic kids. They were unsocial, nonvocal, inattentive and
hyperactive in the beginning and much more social, talking, socializing and more
attentive after 6 months of visits from Zubin.
Thanks Zubin.
The Drum Circle at the Pala India Light and Audio show, NSC Complex, Bombay
Exhibition Center.
We Pre-set a REMO Drum Circle out the front entrance of the show.
I saw that the show population was low. So I reduced the chairs by half. We had
a two row, 50 chair circle with a extra stack of chairs placed in three places.
REMO banners all around
As we started we gathered a lot of spectators but only a few people sat down and
we didn't fill the circle until Abe, the REMO Rep in India, and I took drums out
into the "Audience' and enticed the people into the fun while Zubin held the
circle together. Once we filled up the first two rows, as I did drum call, Abe
and his helpers set up and filled up a third row wit participants.
India is a rhythmaculture with a 5,000 year drumming history. So It was not
surprising to me that these Indian participants in this circle, played together
very well.
The third row became the transient row, as people came and went through out the
event. But most of the drummers in the two center rows stayed, allowing me to do
more than just a transient drum call circle. I was able to do some more
sophisticated drum song sculpting and a little showcasing.
About one third way through the event we had a big closing transient point where
the curious left and the excited stayed. I had a circle of about 20 players who
knew what they were doing. The playing was hot and furious, (Mostly Guys). The
transition points were far and few in-between. So I got a chance to just sit
down and "PLAY!".
It is nice to remind myself that as a facilitator, I can also be a drummer. I
had tuned up my favorite REMO Arthur Hull Signature Series Rope Tuned 13" Ashiko
and wailed with the rest of them. It was an exciting circle with great, locked
in rhythms.
Sitting next to me was a 10 year old boy named Siddharth. As I found out later
he is a professional drummer. He sure played like one. when the circle became
the Di-Hard players towards the end of the event he held his own with the big
boys. So I showcased him and he did a great solo while the rest of the circle
hit accent notes.
At the end of the circle, after all the thank yous, and shmoozing, Siddharth
came up to me and said "Teach me something". So we sat down and I taught him the
west African Mombassa rhythm. He picked it up immediately so I show him how to
play it on three drums. Once again He picked it up immediately so I taught him a
calypso rhythm from Trinidad. He picked that rhythm up immediately so I placed
one drum in front of each of us. We sat facing each other with our drums
touching. I then placed one drum on either side of us so that even there were
only four drums between us we both played three of them, sharing the two side
drums. This was possible because as Siddharth played the "Up Beat" oriented
Mombassa rhythm, I was playing the "Down Beat" oriented calypso rhythm in such a
way that we never played the side drums, we were sharing, at the same time. The
result is that two drummers create a drum song that sounds like four drummers.
The Orphanage drum circle
They are changing all the British colonial names in India, so the city of Bombay
is now called Mumbai.
My "Tithing" Circle for this visit was at the "Saint Catherine of Siena School
and Orphanage for Destitute Children".
They pull the kids off the streets and from street parents, who are trying to
sell their children, and cloth, feed, house and teach them.
The population of street kids in Mumbai is amazing. Their choices for surviving
are begging, stealing, pick pocketing in gangs, scamming or prostitution.
In the Victoria district, where there are a lot of foreigners, the street kids
come up to your car window and either spit on it and wipe it with a rag, do some
quick juggling and hold out their hand, try to sell you stuff that "Fell off a
truck", or if your window is open tell you that they are hungry.
This Orphanage had 230 healthy, well dressed and well behaved children along
with 40 helpers. The age span of the children was from
16 years old to kindergarden kids.
The helpers were mostly young woman in their early 20s.
There are many diffrient tribal dialects spoken throughout India.
Being an ex-British colony, English is the language everyone understands and
speaks in mixed company. But many of the youngest street kids in the Orphanage
were not English educated and only spoke Hindi. So when It came time to work
with them, I spoke Arthurian gibberish which worked just fine.
With only 190 REMO drums and Percussion available I had the school master divide
the population of kids in half for two drum circle events.
We pre-set the circle in the compound under the shade of the trees, in "orchestrational
fashion.
( A drum in every other seat & Percussion or sound shape in every other seat).
We sat the oldest group of kids down in a covered patio section overlooking the
drum circle. I then divided the kids into three groups, by age and class level.
 The oldest kids went in first, filling up the inner circles and playing the
biggest drums. While the the two younger groups watched and waited. After 15
minuets, while the first group played, I invited the next youngest group of kids
to fill up the next row of seats and join in the music. 15 minuets later I added
the last group in "Drum Call" fashion and we played in full plenum for another
15 minuets.
The next group of kids that were brought in were the youngest half of the
Orphanage population. This group started at "4th standard" class went down to
"senior Kindergarden". When I went through the same scenario as the circle
before, I found out that there was not enough room for the youngest "Junior
Kindergarden" age children.
So they had to sit and watch while I ran the second circle.
After the second circle was finished and cleared out, I invited the "Junior
Kindergarden" age children to sit and play what ever instrument that they
wanted.
There were plenty of chairs and instruments left so I also invited all the young
women helpers, who had been patiently watching both circle events, to join in. I
am not sure who was more excited to play, the Junior Kindergarden kids or the
helpers. Non the less, the age mixture made it a fun and exciting drum circle
for myself as well as the "Kids".
These circles were not only a gift to the kids. It was a gift to myself.
When I encountered the other, not so fortunate, Bombay street kids, I knew that
there were places in the city like the Saint Catherine of Siena School and
Orphanage for Destitute Children that could help them.
This short stop in India was purely a REMO sponsored Rhythmical Evangelism part
of my tour. For the past 12 years REMO has been sending me around to do hundreds
these type of drum circle demonstrations in cultures and countries that has
never see drum circles before. A few more visits in India and we will do a VMC
FAC Training.
As seen what has happened in Europe and Japan over the last few years, these
REMO tours have made a significant impact in the growth of recreational drumming
throughout the world.
Although REMO still supports me in this type of Rhythmical Evangelism, the
majority of stops on this REMO sponsored tour is focused on the Village Music
Circle's weekend Facilitator Playshop trainings.
The REMO Rhythmical Evangelism drum circle tours have given me the opportunity
to "Give the people Fish ", But this REMO sponsored Village Music Circle
Facilitator Playshop training tour is giving me the opportunity to " Teach the
people how to Fish for themselves".
Remo, the man, and REMO the company has been supporting the growth of this
recreational hand drumming community long before we even had a community.
This tour is just another example of REMO putting it's money where it's mouth
is.
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