Rules of My Drum Cirlces

Why This Matters

These practices, based on a decade of running drum circles, work together to make for successful and memorable performances.

How You Achieve Success

These practices show you how to be knowledgeable about the equipment and the drum circle participants, and respectful of the circle and the performance.

To help you quickly digest the info, I keep the lists short, and then later in some pages elaborate more deeply.

What You Do

Before the Performance

• Care for Your Drum
• Arrive On Time
• Only the Circle Leader Can Promote You
• If You Can Play on Tempo, You Are Welcome

During the performance

• Respect the Circle and the Leader
• We are Half of a Performance
• Understand Your Role in the Circle
• Play on Tempo
• Every Drum Circle is a Performance
• Follow the Lead Drummer
• Responsibilities If You Start the Rhythm
• Understand The Ramsey Method

Rhythms

• Give the Silence the Full Duration

When not performing

• Use the Drums Only for Music
• Only Touch Your Own Drum

Why post all this material?

These customs make each performance higher quality, more enjoyable, and hopefully more memorable.

When the household The Grand Alliance was coordinating the revelry at the various events, it became clear that "there's a lot to this!" (making them successful). During the performance part of each hafla--the drum circle--it's just as true: there's a lot to making this successful.

Over a couple of decades more than a dozen "best practices" have become clear. By sharing the information, newcomers to the drum circles can:

• Become comfortable with the circle sooner,
• Participate more skillfully quicker,
• Understand the reasons for each of customs, and
• Hopefully participate more often because of those things.

Kudos

Thank you for these folks for helping me edit this huge section of information, and in the process make the info much more readable!

• Cathy Sundheim
• Dorothea M'Queyn
• Jim Shane
• Mat Bowman
• Naia Abal