Philosophy and Attitude of Facilitators

For community drum circles, an attitude of service to the community is the foundation from which to operate. You want to communicate an attitude that welcomes anyone who comes to your circle to participate at any level they want, even if it’s standing outside the circle and tapping their feet. Welcome any instrumennt they bring, including drums, other percussion toys such as bells and clave, and homemade toys such as a can of rocks, as well as their voices and clapping hands.

The ultimate objective of a community drum circle facilitator is to make yourself obsolete by guiding the circle to a place where they won’t need to be facilitated to play well together. I call it leading the people to lead themselves. As the facilitator, you do this by communicating directly, sometimes specifically, sometimes guiding them with metaphors, to the basic principles that make a circle successful. When the group becomes able to self-facilitate the logistics of making music together, that frees you as the facilitator to guide the dynamics, energy, and direction of the event. My personal end goal in an event is to be a part of the circle, playing with it instead of leading it.