As usual, it was a dame that turned my drumming all topsy-turvy…. Sorry, I’ve been watching too many Humphrey Bogart movies during this lockdown. But that lead is actually true. Besides overdosing on Bogey, I also recently started binge-watching Outlander, a Netflix series involving a woman who finds herself transported back in time after touching the standing stones at a megalithic site in Scotland. This led me to rereading this fascinating ancient-monuments study by Paul Devereux called Earth Memory, revisiting records by British-Isle folk bands like Planxty and Clannad, and eventually following hashtags on Instagram like #sacreddrumming. Now, I’m not generally the new-age type, and things like drum circles usually bum me out—it just seems so far removed from the flash and angst that drew me to drumming in the first place. But, I think maybe because this COVID-19 thing has me feeling a bit unmoored from the world, I’ve […]

August 2020 Issue