Drum Circle Technique: Get Your Groove On!

*note:  A presentation/workshop to students at James Madison University, March 28, 2014.  Much of this Prezi is in outline form and was presented simultaneously with in-depth discussion and experiential drumming.  The material is adapted from the writings of many of the group drumming pioneers and experts in the field, and further developed by my own training from these individuals as well as my music therapy clinical experiences.  Many thanks to Arthur Hull, Christine Stevens, Kalani,  and Bill Matney, to name a few.

 

More fun with Remo Drums! The Aroma Drum!

Okay, you caught me!  I spent a lot of time at the Remo booth at the national conference for the American Music Therapy Association last week in Jacksonville!

The Aroma Drum is not new.  It has actually been around for several years.  But, recently, I began investigating essential oils like the ones used in the Aroma Drum.  The Aroma Drum comes with four different essential oil diffuser packs:  lavender, pink grapefruit, patchouli and eucalyptus.  You can see the drum up close in this video.  Although the video is a bit contrived, it does get the point across!



I used to think that the aromatherapy component of the drum was just a nice gimmick, but I have discovered that some of the essential oils may have statistically provable anxiolytic effects. My investigation so far has revealed that the lavender essential oil may be the most widely and historically used oil for stress relief. 

One randomized controlled study, by Sultani et al. (2013), found that post-tonsillectomy pediatric patients used significantly less acetaminophen (Tylenol) than a control group. In another study, dental patients spent time inhaling lavender while waiting for treatment (Kritsidima, Newton, & Asimakopoulou, 2010). The patients who waited under the influence of lavender aromatherapy had significantly lower state anxiety levels. 

These are just two of many studies relative to lavender essential oil. In light of the growing research base that confirms historical and anecdotal evidence of the effectiveness of essential oils, I find the combination of essential oils and drumming a wonderful partnership! 

Unlike the lady in the video,however, I think the Aroma Drum used in a drum circle setting might be more effective, especially inside, where the scent could be more concentrated. A drum circle setting where a drum leader or facilitator would be walking around and waving the drum might more easily diffuse the lavender aroma. 

In any case, I think this drum is worth checking out! It is sold by itself or as a set with an accompanying CD and stress management guide. You can also purchase refill packs of the essential oils. Let me know if anyone out there has used one for yourself or in therapy. I am interested to know your thoughts! 

Happy drumming!

 

Kritsidima, M., Newton, T., and Asimakopoulou, K. (2010).  The effects of lavender scent on dental patient anxiety levels: A cluster randomised-control trial.  Community Dentistry and Oral Epidemiology, 38, 83-87.

Soltani, R., Soheilipour, S., Hajhashemi V., Asghari, G., Bagheri, M., and Molavi, M. (2013).  Evaluation of the effect of aromatherapy with lavender essential oil on post-tonsillectomy pain in pediatric patients: A randomized controlled trial.  International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology, 77, 1579-1581.

*Music Makes Sense is now part of the Blogdash network.

More conference fun! Remo Artbeat drums!

Did any of you attending the national conference for the America Music Therapy Association in Jacksonville see the new Artbeat line of Remo drums??  These drums have actually been around since 2010, but now they will be on sale for the public starting in January!

These drums have special textured canvas heads that allow several different kinds of permanent art medium like paints, chalk and more.  Here is a short video that shows the drum being used for art: 

 

I was impressed by the resonance and overall good sound that came from the drums when I played them at the conference! I don't have any links for the new drums yet, but I did play one of the buffalo drums similar to this one at Amazon, just with the new canvas head:
 


I was informed that the drums would soon be available in different sizes and will include frame drums, djembes and even rainsticks or paddle drums! My first idea is to use a large frame drum during a group session to create a large mandala! I have proposed to my students that will be seniors next year to think about doing a fund raiser to purchase a large frame drum and then create a group mandala on the drum as a senior project. This drum can then be donated to the music therapy program as a senior gift! They seem to like the idea and I am very exited about this idea as well as other therapeutic applications. You can find other ideas about combining music and mandala art in one of my other posts here. 

Happy Thanksgiving and happy drumming!

Remo's New Versa Drums!

I had a chance to try out the new Remo line of Versa drums at the American Music Therapy Association national conference.  I was really impressed!  

They were amazingly light, but still had the good sound of a Remo tubano or djembe.  In addition, the ability to stack them and use the heads as hand drums makes them extremely versatile!  I think the name fits!

These drums are definitely worth checking out!  And great for the mobile music therapist!

  

That Bird Has the Beat!

Researches have discovered that some birds really do have the ability to match their movement to a rhythmic beat!  Maybe this can help explain some of the dancing bird videos that have been so popular!


One of the interesting things found in the research was that birds with vocal learning abilities are the ones that may have the rhythmic synchronization necessary to pick up a beat.  


For the full story, flap on over to nature.com.   

Kat Fulton Gives a Primer on Drum Circle Facilitation!

Today I have to promote Kat Fulton's latest entry about being a drum circle facilitator!  Her blog post has a short video packed with good ideas to get you started learning how to facilitate your own drum circle in therapy!  


Check it out here and be sure to sign up for Kat's newsletter and updates.  She often has great ideas for Boomwhackers and drumming with older adults!  

A Smorgasbord of Thoughtful Treats

The Daily Muse

 Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

There are close to 500 posts on Music Makes Sense, so I thought it might be a good idea to point out a few of the highlights!


Music For Relaxation: A Flowchart for Decision-Making
This post contains a decision-tree to help you find the most appropriate music to use for relaxation.  This chart took me a long time to formalize and I think it could be very useful.  I welcome any and all feedback about this chart.


6 Ways to Empower Your Music-Assisted Relaxation
This post is another discussion about music for relaxation, but it delves deeper into the exact relationship music has with a relaxation protocol.  The ideas in this article come from years of clinical practice using music to facilitate relaxation.  I really feel that music can be helpful in relaxation, but we can really squeeze out much more effectiveness from its use if we pay attention to the details!


Memory Booster!  Using Music to Memorize Lists and Facts
This is one of the most widely read posts on Music Makes Sense.  It really gets back to the fundamentals of music therapy.  I often had to break down the way music works when trying to help teachers and parents understand music therapy.  


5 Tips for Drumming With Individuals in Psychiatric Treatment
Much of my recent work as a music therapist has occurred in the psychiatric setting.  Much of my advice in this post was learned through real-world experience!  Drum at your own risk without reading these important considerations! 


I hope you enjoy looking back through some of these posts with me.  It truly has been a rewarding time putting "pen" to "paper" over these years.  And now we are less than 50 posts away from the  500th post!   

Skypedrum With Kat Fulton!

The 3rd Semi-Annual Skypedrum event at 

Florida State University

We held our Skype drumming event today in my music therapy drumming class.  Kat Fulton has been very gracious in facilitating simulated drum circles for my class the last three semesters.  Her experiences using drumming in the real world have been an invaluable resource for my students!  I love giving them a different perspective and bringing in guest lecturers to share their specific knowledge about target populations.  

Teaching via Skype has its own learning curve and sets of rules, but facilitating drum circles over Skype is still in uncharted territory.  Kat has done more than anyone I know to develop some protocols for facilitating drumming over Skype.  One of the most difficult things to overcome is the time delay.  Her strategy to help manage this phenomenon during our session was to encourage the group to self-facilitate.  Essentially, she gave instructions and then had a person from the group do the leading.  But Kat was also able to do some facilitating on her own by ignoring the sounds coming from her computer and just staying in time with a chant and drum response.  This worked well for a class of music students who could keep a steady beat, but I wonder how well it would work with real clients?  Something to explore!

Today we were studying about the psychiatric setting.  Kat introduced an activity called, "Evolution."  She credited the activity to Arthur Hull, but it worked very well as an activity that could be adapted for use in a psychiatric setting.  You can see that in the picture above the students are seated in a circle facing outward.  There actually had been small percussion instruments placed on each chair before they were sitting down.  They went around the circle and stopped together at times in front of different chairs to play a group groove/rhythm.  After each person had played all the instruments, Kat had them talk about what instruments they liked and didn't like.  This discussion easily transferred into real life examples related to social interaction, personalities, mood and emotional expression.  A great stimulus for group discussion and processing!  

Than you, Kat for another wonderful installment of Skypedrum!   

A Lesson From Kat!

The Daily Muse     


Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

Kat Fulton, founder of Rhythm for Good, has been doing some great work with drumming and corporate team building! I love her description and task analysis of a typical corporate drum circle event! You can view this incredibly useful blog-post here. Kat is rapidly becoming one of the foremost experts on drumming and music therapy so please take the time to sign up for her newsletter and other resources! You can also get her Drumify dvd by clicking on the link in the right sidebar of Music Makes Sense.  Great stuff!



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The Daily Muse: Kat-ch What's New at Rhythm For Good!

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

Kat Fulton continues to amaze all of us with her diverse repertoire of music therapy skills and activities! She has recently posted new videos on her Rhythm Renegades series as well as a great article about music therapy with large groups of kids. I am envious of her 100+ boomwhacker inventory! Please make some time to read her recent posts over at Rhythmforgood.com. Don't miss the video about the Cat song. I love that she has a song that speaks her name!


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The Daily Muse: Drumming With Parkinson's Patients

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

Fantastic news out of Washington State! It is great to see drumming highlighted as a treatment for Parkinson's Disease. There have already been news stories about Parkinson's choirs and dance therapy, but it is nice to see drumming in the mix too! Great work out there by music therapist Bill Dluhosh! The news story has a nice video to go with the transcript.




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The Daily Muse: Sound Garden at Southwestern State Hospital, GA

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

I have been involved with an incredible project in Georgia for the last six months. I have joined with other music and creative arts therapists who work at the state psychiatric hospital in Thomasville, GA, to help design and build an outdoor sound garden. I had not planned on announcing this so soon, but the proverbial cat is now out of the bag! The local CBS news station recently ran a story about our project! I look forward to sharing with you much more detail about the project as we move forward, but the basic highlights are covered in the news story. The hospital has already committed a significant donation to the project and I am submitting grant applications for the rest. The grant-writing experience has definitely been an eye-opening endeavor and I will likely share about that process in the future. In the mean-time, stay tuned for more updates, pictures and construction plans as we move forward with this unique and innovative use of music in the psychiatric setting! The news story on WCTV is here.


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The Daily Muse: Kat Fulton on a Quest for Rhythm Renegades!

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

It's Friday! I often like to highlight some of the great blogging going on regarding music therapy. Kat Fulton at Rhythm for Good has started a fantastic new series of video blogs called "Rhythm Renegades!" These videos spotlight some of the unsung heroes of music therapy and other musicians out there who are using music to influence people's lives for the better. Take a minute and enjoy the start of this new feature and don't forget to sign up to follow Kat on Facebook while you're there!



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The Daily Muse: Friday Fun with Bach and the Bouncing Ball!

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

If a ball bounces down a huge xylophone in the middle of a deserted forest, does it make any sound?? Susan Seale at Make Me Musical shared this amazing video on her blog. She has several great blogs and a knack for finding superb videos! This video is apparently a commercial for a cell phone encased in wood! You can find it here.




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The Daily Muse: How to Hear Without Your Ears

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

This is an amazing TED talk given by Evelyn Glennie.  She is a phenomenal percussionist who also happens to be deaf since the age of 12.  Although this was a lecture from 2003, it is worth revisiting.  Evelyn provides such ideas about how she "hears" rhythm and music and encourages all of us without hearing loss to expand our conceptual view about sound.  This is a must see for every music therapist! 











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5 Tips for Drumming with Psychiatric Consumers

I have the pleasure of working with consumers* in an in-patient acute psychiatric setting. One of the interventions I do is a "music expression" psychosocial rehabilitation group. I usually have approximately 8-20 patients at a time depending on the hospital census and doctor referrals. The group of male patients is always changing, so I never have the same set of people twice. Even though the group is different each week, however, there are certain things that remain constant. One of these factors is safety. The safety of patients and staff is always a concern and something I have to consider for each activity. The group participants are all considered acutely mentally ill while residing in the unit where I go to do the music expression group. It can be challenging to engage these consumers in music-making since they are at all different levels of functioning because of their illness, physical condition or effects of medication.

Drumming activities are often a very good way to engage the clients in my group. I have done both organized rhythms with them as well as more loosely structured facilitated drum circle activities. The consumers seem to like the drumming and usually stay engaged with this active type of music-making. I want to offer you some of the things I have learned in doing drumming activities with this population:

1. Take caution! Some instruments like the REMO tunable tubanos have tuning bolts and other potentially semi-sharp or exposed parts that could be dangerous in the hands of an agitated patient. In addition, I usually will not take tambourines or a Gankogui into an instrument activity with the acute psychiatric patients.





2. Emotions. Expressing and managing emotions are very difficult for many people with mental illness. Exploring emotions and appropriate ways to express feelings is a good topic for music therapy sessions. This can be done through song-writing, improvisational instrument ensembles and especially drumming. After you have taught the clients that they can make unique sounds by playing drums in different ways, it is a great activity to have them express feelings exclusively through playing on drums or rhythm instruments. I like to do a guessing game where I assign emotions to different people and try to have them play a drum in a way that the group can determine the emotion.

3. KISS! The old adage, "Keep It Simple Stupid", applies to rhythms. Many of the patients are on high doses of medication that cause drowsiness, decrease focus of attention, and sometimes motor skill impairment. The easiest way I have found to overcome these obstacles is to use words and syllables as the basis for rhythms. Drumming your name is probably the most common example. You can actually have a pretty rockin' rhythm just by getting everyone to play rhythms that match how they say their names!

The Daily Muse: Metronomes of the World, "Unite!"

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

Music therapists often talk about the idea of "entrainment," especially when using drumming with certain population groups. Entrainment is the phenomenon that occurs when things with motion tend towards moving together in synchrony (Here is the Wikipedia definition for entrainment). A very steady audible pulse, for example, will often create a very uniform drum beat among groups of people who might otherwise find it difficult to play a steady beat on a drum as a result of cognitive or physical impairments. Michael Marcionetti, one of the music therapists representing Music Therapy Drumming out of Texas shared this video about metronomes. I am not sure if this is really an example of "entrainment" since they use the cans and the board underneath the metronomes to help them synchronize? I took physics in high school, but that was a long time ago! What do you think? Does this video support or diminish the idea of entrainment?




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The Daily Muse: Music Therapy and Drumming for Tornado Ravaged Alabama

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

Music therapists around the world often are some of the first people to respond after natural disasters. There are many examples of music therapists helping after 9/11, the Oklahoma City bombing and after the tsunamis. The news out of Alabama after the tornadoes has a similar story. I love how drumming is being used as one of the mediums for music therapy! Foxnews has the story here.


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The Daily Muse: The Rhythm of Life

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

As a drum circle facilitator, I often encourage drum circle participants to get in touch with their own natural rhythms. Some good examples of this concept are the heartbeat, breathing and walking rhythms. Sxip Shirey has taken rhythmic breathing to a whole new level!  His presentation is a bit odd at times, but TED felt it worthy to include in their prestigious TED talks series.  What do you think?  







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The Daily Muse: DrumSkype with Kat Fulton!

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

Kat Fulton at Rhythm For Good has written about her experiences doing Skype drum circles! I have had the pleasure of participating in two of her Skype sessions with my music therapy drum class! These "DrumSkype" sessions really are a different kind of experience and Kat has done a very good job explaining all the unique elements of a DrumSkype session. I look forward to the continued development of DrumSkype and "Telepractice"! Thanks again, Kat!


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