I have loved doing the research and exploring this microUMA, finding out more about my new beloved instrument. I have dug some way into it’s origins, found the person that made it by their own hand, researched more about the history of percussion and particularly tuned ‘drums’ such as steel pans. I’ve explored and considered it’s name – a ‘steel tongue drum’ and why it might be called that, who mas made these drums. I’ve asked and wondered about the relationship between these instruments and senses of masculine and feminine energy, and I’ve been drawn to see who is playing these instruments, especially where this feels queered in some ways.

What I feel up to now, is that using vibration and sound is deeply embedded in human ways, and always has been in all places. Meeting the need for sound and sound connection, and the use of sound as a way to engage with ourselves and others has resulted in the innovation of all kinds of different instuments, over human history. The first place we make sound is in our own bodies, our voices, the clapping of our hands, stamping of feet, through movement, through contact with things around us. Through our own heart beat and pulse. There is a beat to it all, a movement, a vibration, expression. And instruments that are made are a way to further enhance, amplify, and vary our expression of this. My experience is that the instrument that I have helps me to release and channel a sound that comes through me but that I try to interfere with as little as possible. It’s a vehicle for the expression of an energy and a sound that is more than me.

By the way, I’ve decided my drum is called Snaily, because of the pattern on it looking like a beautiful snail shell, and as I love snails it feels fitting. So I will refer to it as Adam (who made it) did, a steel tongue drum (even though it isn’t technically a drum, I want to respect his sense of it), but then in my work and way with it I’m going to just call it Snaily. I hope, once I’ve settled into my own practice with it, to offer sound baths to other folk who like it too.

I’ve just been reading this article by Jennifer Engrácio. I loved this part:

“Drumming is often used in shamanic healing ceremonies; the drum can be used to shake up low vibrating energies that are lodged in the client’s energy field so that transformation can occur. The drum is used to harmonize chakras and restore balance to the energy field. In fact, studies are now showing that engaging in singing and percussion activities can help to heal the effects of historical and intergenerational trauma. (I highly recommend Resmaa Menakem’s book “My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies” for those who want to learn how to use these embodied practices.)”

Jennifer Engrácio

These feels so resonant to me and what I was describing in my first #microUMA post about psychic attacks and my experience of playing Snaily. I read this from Shaheen Miro:

“Because of the vibratory nature of bells they are an extremely effective form of spiritual cleansing and protection. Bells can ward off negativity and unwanted visitors, this is the origin of the funeral toll. The vibrations from the bells will break up the negative and stagnant energy left hanging in the air. They move and jolt to life the stagnant and worn-out.”

Shaheen Miro

What I want to say also at this point, is that I’m really not into the idea that playing these instruments, making this sound, is reserved in some way for some people, some places, some ways. Sound is a healing modality. It can clear our bodies and energy. It can break through aspects that are not serving us, that may be blocking or harming us in some way. It’s really powerful, and I fully believe in everyone feeling that they are entitled to and have permission to engage in this directly, and not be dependent on somone else or be limited by ideas that it’s not for them to experiment and engage in this. Some people like to wild swim, some people like to run, some people like to stretch, there’s s many different ways that people might be drawn to for spiritual and energetic care and healing. Making sound, by using percussion for example, can be as normal and everyday as getting in the shower, or stretching first thing in the morning.

I like to create a ‘set’ when I play Snaily – I like to light some candles, breathe first, relax, set up in an intentional and careful way. It helps me then to feel into what is happening and have as intuitive and free experience as possible. But that isn’t necessary all the time. I like to sing, I like to listen to music too, remembering to bring that into the every day is good for me.

Snaily was made from repurposed steel, from a recycled gas tank:

Adam forged it with love, care and intention. But this is Snaily, this is where Snaily came from, what it is made from, and I don’t intend to forget that by removing my sense of playing Snaily from something that is deep and down in the ground, from it’s roots. This is what has helped me heal myself and cleanse my energy. From this gas tank. Thank you gas tank.

Steel pans/drums also come from these types of material origins:

“In 1877, the ruling British government banned the playing of drums in an effort to suppress aspects of Carnival which were considered offensive. Bamboo stamping tubes were used to replace the hand drums as they produced sounds comparable to the hand drum when they were pounded on the ground.

These tubes were played in ensembles called tamboo bamboo bands.

Non-traditional instruments like scrap metal, metal containers, graters and dustbins were also used in tamboo bamboo bands. However, by the 1930’s these metal instruments dominated the tamboo bamboo bands. The bamboo tubes were eventually abandoned and replaced by the metal instruments.

These early metal pan bands were a rustic combination of a wide variety of metallic containers and kitchen utensils which were struck with open hands, fists or sticks.

The metal pan players discovered that the raised areas of the metal containers made a different sound to those areas that were flat. Through experimentation, coincidence, trial and error, and ingenuity on the part of numerous innovators, the metal pan bands evolved into the steel pan family of instruments.

As the pan makers knowledge and technique improved, so did the sound of the instrument.”

https://www.steelpan-steeldrums-information.com/steel-pan-history.html

And look at Evelyn Glennie play her kitchen:

The first percussive sound, first beat and vibration that we hear must be that of our mother’s hearts when we are in the womb, a constant beat. My babies are big now but they still love to cuddle up to that beat – it must be healing. This is my baby when he was little, resting against my heart:

I’ve had an idea for the hand bells that I am going to have access to once I’ve moved in a few weeks time. I’m going to try out something that I’ll call ‘intuitive ringing’. One of the great things about Snaily is that it’s tuned to a chord. That means, that whatever and however you play, the notes are complimentary. I want to try seleting a set of bells that are also a chord, distribute them to those that are there to play, and then create the opportunity for each person to ring their bell as and when and how feels right to them. I think I might experiment with setting a timer for this, so lets say, we all can play in this way, in the chord, for 3 minutes. I’d also like to try it where there is no timer, and like with Snaily, we start and continue until it feels time to wind down to the end. People will be able to close their eyes, and not worry about making a ‘wrong note’, becuase there will be no wrong notes. And we can see what it is that emerges, what we make together. I think it will be great.

I want to explore more about how I might bring bells and Snaily into my own spiritual and witchy practice. What types of ways I want to do that, how it might be and what if any other percussion I might want to add to what I already have as part of that. My partner Max has a rain stick, and I’d love it if she might want to weave that into this story too….

Note:

Today marks the last day of the microUMA 2 week stint, inspired by work taking place within the current Consent-Based Education course which also finishes today.

I’ve been reflecting on the drum/pan name question, and have had some thoughts.

I’m wondering these things: are pans and tuned metal percussion instruments, such as bells, the steel tongue drum, chimes, more fem in energy? And are drums, more masc? The folk I have come across so far that are creating steel tongue drums/tank drums like the instrument I have are guys, and they are making their instruments and calling them drums, and I am wondering if there is something in there that is around their own masculine sense of identity – being a drum maker, calling the instrument a drum – when it might more acurately be called something like a pan, or a bell or chime related name due to the kind of instrument it actually is?

The process of making a steel tongue drum, for example, is quite masc energy in it’s activity and action: sawing reclaimed steel, fire and forging, the sawing of metal to create the notes. And then the end result, is this beautiful ‘drum’, that feels effortlessly fem resonating, and in the way that it is played, intuitive and fem feeling – but perhaps in the most gong like ring there is some heart of masc as well?. Perhaps it is the combination of a masc energy process and a fem energy end sound that is part of what makes it so special? Do the two somehow become forged? Or is it not like that?

When I am writing about this, mentioning masc and fem, I want to make it clear this comes from an energetic perspective. I believe that we can move in and out of these energies, that we can be in them differently at different times, that some folk might be more masc or fem leaning energetically – perhaps have a masc or fem dominant energy, or may feel in balance generally but at times lean into each way, but that this energy is not the same as the form of their physical body, or necessarily their gender identity. It is an energetic sense, an energetic quality, with a distinctive feeling. For myself, I experience myself generally as been masc fem energy balanced, but know when I am leaning more into a masc energy, or more into a fem energy. So it isn’t loaded for me, for example, if the steel tongue drum is either masc or fem leaning, becuase I can meet it in either place by shifting in my own energetic state of being.

These types of things are though very culturally loaded. I’ve done a lot of lovely deschooling around this for myself, and to me, what is amazing is when people feel really, really free in their energetic movement in the masc/fem spectrum/space, and do not hold any kind of self-judgement or sense of one or other being somehow better or more ok.

In our culture, which traditionally has held a very strict sense around what it means to be masculine or feminine, and who can be these things and what that looks like, this kind of movement and feedom in masc/fem energy and experience, can be described as ‘queer’ or ‘queering’. (Another tricky term due to it’s history as a slur, but the best term I have for describing this, I am using it as a function: to queer, means to me to move effortlessly across the masc fem space regardless of other features and identity.)

So, you could say, that a woman playing a masculine type of instrument is ‘queering’ if she is playing that instrument by leaning in to a masculine type energy to do so. Or a guy, leaning into a very feminine energy to play a feminine feeling type of instrument, is also queering it. It’s mixing up and playing with all of these things at once.

When I plat the steel tongue drum, I play it intuitively. I play mostly with my eyes closed, and with no intention of a tune in mind, but instead try to ‘get out of the way’ of what is happening, and play in as channelled and intuitive way as possible. To me that feels very fem energy. It ends up in a very flowy, meditative and cleansing experience that feels divine fem. I know what masc energy feels like, and I think I know what divine masc is, and that I think comes across more in other ways that I work and express myself. I know that I am not partnering with this instrument in a masc energy way.

But then again I come back to wondering whether there is an energetic union taking place. Becuase when I play, I experience the steel tongue drum as a means by which to express the essential energy that comes through me. By that, I mean the white light energy that is neither masc or fem but just is. And the instrument is just that, I means by making that divine light energy resonant in the world and a way to let it pass through my body without accumulating.

I’ve been doing some reading about this:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/mar/08/why-do-orchestras-have-so-few-women-percussionists

and:

I’m interested in the history and issues around women playing – some earlier research about steel drums/pans in Trinidad and Tobago thew up something interesting about this:

“It really came from the bowels of our impoverished lower classes and we are extremely proud of that,” says Michelle Huggins-Watts, a Trinidadian steel pan arranger.

“It helped bring the players recognition, it allowed them to travel and see the world, it brought opportunities they would never have had if they had not been involved in this art form.”

Huggins-Watts is a rare thing. She is the only woman arranger to win the island’s prestigious Panorama competition with her band, Valley Harps.

“It wasn’t until the late 1970s or 80s that women even started playing the steel pan. It was a street instrument, it took a while to become respectable,” she adds.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18903131

I once happened to end up at an event where Evelyn Glennie was the keynote speaker, I’d love to know what she thinks about all of this, and what her persective/experience is. As she moves through different types of percussion, that I might thing of as masc or fem, I wonder if she experiences energetic movement, in and out of the masc and fem as she plays different things, or not? I’d love to know also what her thoughts are on sound and healing too. I’m going to look some more to see what I can find from her online.

I’ve started reading about sound healing. I’m trying to start to build my understanding of the work being done around this:

https://harmonicsounds.com/sound-healing/ and https://gostica.com/spiritual-nutrition/sound-healing-instruments/

If you know any good resources on sound healing, please send them my way!

I’m so excited to say that I managed to find the creator of my steel tongue drum. His name is Adam. I’ve been in touch with him and he’s shared some really beautiful things about how we works – that his work is about being creative and making things that bring joy. He created his design for the drum through a “labour of love” process, including many “failed attempts”, to perfect them to how they are now. They are made from reclaimed steel, by dismantling old steel cylinders, cutting a sound hole and playing notes into them. The top and botton secions are then welded together, and a blow torch is used to heat the steel and create the coloration and pattern.

Adam said he doesn’t play them himself really, but that something led him to create them for others. He’s in Devon and has a workshop called Triple R Workshop – you can find his work on FB: https://www.facebook.com/TripleRWorkshop

I feel so happy to have found him and learnt more from him about my drum! He also said to me that his preference is “drums that play with a bang!” and he’s learning to play a standard drum kit.

I really love the role that fire plays in creating these instruments, and my instrument. That they are made through fire, feels so resonant to me, as I’ve been interest in fire as a medium for a while, reflecting on the energy of my own work as having a fire quality to it, I’ve also been reasearching and exploring over the last few years fire’s role in healing, including healing and caring for the land through aboriginal fire practices for example. I’ve been reading Fire Country by Victor Steffenson which is a brilliant book about this.

I’ve felt that fire is one of those things that can be easily misunderstood, or read differently in different gazes and with different senses of understanding. It can be felt as healing, warmth, regenerative, nurturing through cooking on it, exciting – I loved the fire at the bonfire night I went to last night, so hypnotic – but also can be seen and experienced as frightening, threatening, distructive, something to be put out, a danger. How does fire sit with itself in amongst all of this? I have considered now for some time how that is similar to how I have expereinced myself, in how I am seen also. It links to me with thought and feelings I have had about connection to Kali energy. I know that fire is part of my way, and I’m loving learning more about how to be with that. I feel it on a very physical, spiritual level, fire in my heart body and soul, I feel it in my work.

I’m grateful to Adam.

Wow so this is so intersting! I wasn’t expecting my research to go in this direction, but when you are trying to explore and understand something, the search terms that you use are crucial to that process and to finding missing links and connections, and figuring out the right search terms for what I’m looking for isn’t so straight forward!

From what I’ve been reading, people have been making sound through hitting things for as long as forever. All throughout history and across all cultures, traditions, and geographic locations, people have innovated percussive instruments to make sound, and have used them for a variety of reasons – to get people’s attentio/communication (signalling a start, calling for prayer, warning of attack, marking time), for celebration and ceremony including as part of religious and/or spiritual traditions, to ward of bad/evil things including approaching storms, for relaxation/meditation/healing, in protest and conflict. The instrument that I bought, mentioned in my first post, is a percussion instrument – sound is made by hitting it – but more specifically, it is an idiophone. This means, that it is the instrument itself, that makes it’s sound, as wiki explains, “An idiophone is any musical instrument that creates sound primarily by the vibration of the instrument itself, without the use of air flow (as with aerophones), strings (chordophones), membranes (membranophones) or electricity (electrophones).“

Therefore, my instrument is not a drum? As a drum has a membrane.? The instrument I have is surely an idiophone, but I when I bought it, it was labelled as a tongue drum. Why is it called a drum, when it isn’t a drum? The roots of the instrument I have are hard to figure out – some say it was invented by a guy called Dennis Havlena in 2007, wiki mentions it’s also called known as a hank and tank drum – hank comes from merging the two words hang, and tank (referencing the propane tank it’s made from). Dennis Havelena writes more about this on his website (where the design and instructions for making it are open source, which is awesome becuase other folk have patented similar instruments) that it was inspired by another instrument called ‘hang drum’ which is a patented design and expensive. On his website, he says: “hank drum: inspired by the hand pan/hang“.

As I read more and more, I feel like I’m tuning in to a world of instrument creators, innovators, imaginers, manifestors. I just watched this video showing a guy making a tank drum – it’s amazing- and it’s made me think about the person that made my drum, who I know is local to Devon – I think I might have found who made it, and I’ve messaged them to see if I can find out more about it. But I think there is this community/network of pretty badass instrument craftsfolk out there, making these things. And in some cases like the hang, innovating a design, patenting it, and then moving on to innovate another design, taking it out of production which then leads to a scarcity of the intstrument where the artists who created it’s interest and time/capactity has moved on to create the next iteration/something new.

Anyway, there are so many different names flying around to describe the instrument – some names are protected through patents, like the hang. Maybe drum is used in reference to the material used to make it, steel drums for example are also technically pans, but as I understand it are called drums in reference to the oil drums that they are made from. Is it ok to rename an instrument that has been made by someone, for your own personal understanding of it? When I play my ‘tongue drum’, I don’t feel that it is a drum, becuase of the material it is made from, how it sounds and also how it’s played really. I’d rather call it a pan I think, but that feels harder to say. And in researching it, my search terms are dipping between the different terms to try to find out as much as I can and trace this quite amazing creative landscape of instrument creation.

Part of the UMA process includes blogging all the bits and bobs, kind of as part of the discipline and to try to make the process as transparent as possible. For me, it’s also where some of the key deschooling happens, because of the vulnerabilty of posting scrappy content. Today I did a bunch of reading and research on my phone in amongst a busy day, but I didn’t have the opportunity to process it and write up notes and reflections properly. So this late night post is mainly a link dump of what I found, to come back to later. Grateful for the internet, and all of the things that I can find there!

A few things that came up for me today that were interesting, was the history of steel drums in Trinidad and Tobago, the Canboulay Riots, and that in 1877 the ruling colonial British government banned the playing of drums. I’ve also been considering the name of the tongue drum that I bought, and questioning it’s name. In my previous post I mentioned wanting to call it a ‘bell drum’ and also referred to it as a ‘bell ball’. As I understand it, it isn’t actually a drum at all, pan might be a better description. The tongue drum seems to me to be very similar to the steel pan (more about the origins of the tongue drum via the links below), and this is from wiki on the name of steel drums/pans: “Drum refers to the steel drum containers from which the pans are made; the steel drum is more correctly called a steel pan or pan as it falls into the idiophone family of instruments, and so is not a drum (which is a membranophone).” I alos love the etymology of idiophone:

“Etymology[edit]

The word is from Ancient Greek, a combination of idio- (“own, personal” or “distinct”)^[2] and -phone (“voice, sound”).^[3]“

Links from today to come back to:

https://www.shantibowl.com/blogs/blog/tongue-drums-complete-guide

https://www.tongue-drum.net/origins.html

http://www.dennishavlena.com

http://www.oddmusic.com/gallery/hank-drum.html

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiophone

https://www.steelpan-steeldrums-information.com/steel-pan-history.html

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/magazine-18903131.amp

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steelpan

We just had session 5 of the Consent-Based Education course, which is Living and Learning, Creativity and Flow, and for it I shared some resources relating to the unschooled masters project. As an optional between sessions activity, I suggested folk in the group could do a micro UMA, on whatever they wanted, as a way to get into the groove of their own self-directed education, and also as a support to their deschooling process (you can hear more about deschooling via the UMA experience in this podcast that I recorded with Pam Laricchia).

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to do one myself!

Here is the brief I shared with the group:

Create a ‘micro unschooled masters’, in two weeks. It doesn’t matter where you end up, or what form it takes, but as a suggestion for where you start: write your intention for it, and your why. Let yourself be led either by something that currently lights you up inside and ignites your curiosity, or something that makes you feel mad and is a problem you want to understand and solve. If you want to really push your deschooling during this, share each and every part of the process in the public domain

– Session 5, CBE Course Nov 2021

So I am going to respond to that brief here, and use this blog as a place to document my micro-UMA. Here’s the intention and why for what I am going to do….

Intention:

Over the next two weeks, I am going to explore the use of sound generated by bells and bell like percussion instruments, in folk and spiritual practices. I’m also interested in their symbolic representation, and stories that might exist around them and their use. I’m going to blog here what I find, and my reflections along the way. I’m hoping by doing this, to enrich and deepen my understanding of these things.

Why:

When I was young, I used to ring in a hand chime and then hand bell team. I did this from the age of about 9 – 14. I stopped when I was 14 due to having ‘less time’ due to exam pressure and other extracurricular commitments, and maybe because my priorities shifted at that age and it just seemed right to stop. Prior to that I had practiced in a team once a week, and loved it. I’m about to be moving to a new village, and a couple of weeks ago noticed on the village’s community FB group, that they were looking for people to come and ring the big church bells. I got excited at the thought of this, and then it got better when I commented on the post and and it turned out that there is also a set of hand-bells, that are not currently being used, but I have the chance to start a new team.

Recently I’ve been suffering a lot with psychic attacks, related I believe to the nature of my work. Nothing that I have tried to do (yoga, water, protective shields, meditation, rest, magic work, bodywork, nature immersion etc etc), either to protect myself from them or surrender to help the energy move through, seemed to help. The last one was really debilitating over a number of days and made me seriously consider if I could carry on with my work in the way that I have been doing – I felt so vulnerable to these unpredictable, dibilitating and horrible feeling experiences.

Last week, I was on a trip down to Devon, and was in Totnes. On the train there, listening to Yoga for Witches by Sarah Robinson, I had this thought about getting some witch bells for the door of the house. I held off ordering them, because I thought, of all places, I might be able to pick some up in Totnes. Anyway, I walked all over town looking for bells, and didn’t find any. A few days later, I was in town again, and this time, I visited a music shop at the top of the hill that I had missed before. In there, I found a few single hand bells, but I also found the most amazing tongue drum, which is like a big ball bell made of metal, that has tuned parts, that you can play with beaters or your fingers/hands. There were three of these tongue drums, of different chords, and I was allowed to play with them. To my surprise, it was the highest pitched tongue drum that resonated with me the most. The folk in the shop said they nearly fell asleep as I was playing! I knew without any doubt I needed to get the drum. So I did!

I believe that this lovely instrument was the piece I needed in the puzzle to help me stave off the messed up energy that was coming into my field, and help me be safe, balanced and sustainable in my work. Honestly, it feels like a life changing miracle, to have it. Nothing else I found could touch the weird shit that was going on – this belldrum (I’m going to call it) seems to cut straight through it in the most effortless way!

It has caused me to reflect on my early years of bell playing – did I in some way at that time know/feel that being in that sound was helping me keep clear and fresh from an energetic perspective? Perhaps that was what kept my interest in playing and kept me coming back for more? And what a funny syncronisity that in the space of a month I found my way to a set of hand bells, and then also this amazing bell ball, just when I needed it. I feel so happy and lucky to be open to these things and the process of exploring and trusting the tiniest hints of curiosity even when you don’t really know why or where it is headed. What a blessing.

So, in light of all of this, I would like to learn more about how bells and bell like sounds are used and have been used for energetic and spritual reasons.