Drum Arabesque Communique #6: Clicking, clapping and cucumbers.

Drum Drum Drum,

click one

click two

click three click

click four

click five

click six click

click seven click

With your off hand, click a continuous slow, steady beat. The rhythm is in seven, but you don't have to tell your off hand that. As far as your off hand has to know, it's just a one beat rhythm, repeated. Your good hand clicks on three, six, seven.

You could clap your hands against your legs, or pat your dog with this pattern. You could tap it out on your cat with just your fingertips. As I frequently say, tap it out on the steering wheel, use the indicator as a metronome, or play your patterns in cross rhythm duets with the ticking. Play these kinds of silent drum games at any time of the day or night, surprise yourself. Suddenly stop in the hallway to drum your patterns, and stay there until you get it real smooth, letting others pass you in your momentary study. Or stand caught in drum catatonia, mid dinner preparation, a knife in one hand, the universe in the other.

Tonight I cut the cucumber into twelve pieces,

four groups of three slices shared out on dinner plates.

One one one

two two two

three three three

four one four

one two five

two three six

three one seven

four two eight

one three nine

two one ten

three two eleven

four three twelve

one one one

I've only done one Taketina class, but it sure had a deep impact on me. I felt overwhelming patterns spinning through my body, dizzying, I loose count, loose my bearings, fall in vertigo, in and out of rhythms. Cutting cucumber is drum practice, in the same way that splitting wood is meditation.

We will drum together again soon.

Drum Drum Drum