Class discovers drum rhythms from two cultures

By Carol South
Herald contributing writer

The walls of Sun Radius Music reverberated with the sounds of African and Caribbean rhythms Friday evening during two hand drumming workshops that drew a dozen students.
Scott Parker Mast of Boulder, Colo., led the workshops, passing on rhythms from Cuba and Zimbabwe that he has studied and practiced over the past 11 years. Mast taught a social dance rhythm from each culture, leading participants step by step through the complex hand motions.
After the students mastered the basics of the rhythm, he divided the group into smaller components with each playing one part of the rhythm. The resulting blend of sounds emulated the traditional call and response of these cultures.
While guiding students in the techniques and sounds he has learned from master drummers, he also encouraged them to pursue their own muse.
"Any rhythms I would teach or have studied from Cuba or Africa, there are many, many ways to play them," said Mast, whose drumming education includes a three-month stay with the Shona people in Zimbabwe as well as studies with Cuban and African drummers and groups.
"The main thing is to try to be as true as possible but it can be personal, too," he noted. "Pretty much all my African teachers say you have to work until the drum sings."
Mast discussed base, tone and slap techniques, as well as ways a drummer can muffle, sustain or sharpen a tone. He also contrasted the masculine and feminine elements of the different drum pulses.
"Upbeats are the feminine components of drumming, which are totally lacking in the West," he said. "In Africa, not that women there are treated totally great, there is a little more balance of masculine and feminine natures and it is reflected in their drumming."
Mast encouraged the students to delve into the roots of the sound they played, not just play for entertainment. He discussed the cultural influences behind each style and their similarities and differences.
The Michigan native also emphasized that the most important part of being a drummer is learning to listen, the key to improving.
"In the folkloric styles, regardless of where it is from, you need to know how to listen," Mast said. "Coming to a class like this you will learn a lot about listening."
Laurie Thompson of Traverse City has been hand drumming just a few months and came to the workshop to improve her skills and repertoire. Thompson plays with her church band and has moved from playing the tambourine to playing hand drums, picking out rhythms as she goes.
"I think hand drumming is the beat that I have inside me that just needs to come out," said Thompson, who played the spoons as a youth. "I am really glad that I came to tonight and I'm going to start coming to drum circles on Tuesdays. I have found people I can click with and learn from."
Marc Alderman and Didi Cronin, owners of Rhythmic Adventures in Traverse City, soaked up all they could from Mast, who was conducting his fourth local drumming seminar. While both have extensive experience in drumming and teaching African rhythms, they were intrigued to learn some Cuban style sounds.
"I think it is pretty nice to get a specific Cuban rhythm because when you learn Conga music, it is all Latin American," Cronin said. "You get a South American feel but don't really know where it originated. It is nice to get a specific place where it is from, especially because of the work Marc and I do with kids while teaching."
Alderman meticulously scored the rhythms he learned at the workshop on paper to add to his growing collection of written music for traditional drumming. Cronin said that their library includes mostly West African rhythms that they use for teaching or at drum circles.
Cronin noted that scoring traditional drum music is a controversial practice in the hand drumming world. Traditional African drummers learn their craft as an oral tradition and some drummers believe that the drumming should be taught only that way.
Alderman and Cronin see it differently and want to capture the music for preservation, teaching and playing.
"As Americans, we're not saying we're African drummers, so that is why we write it down," said Cronin, a student at Northwestern Michigan College. "Sometimes it is true, you do lose the feel of the music. Sometimes it swings a little bit and you can't capture that on paper and some things don't even fit in measures and time signatures because Africans don't learn it that way."