Percussionist, vocalist, drum-maker, educator and friend Jay Beck has spent his entire adolescent and adult life touring the world, performing and leading cross-cultural drumming workshops.
Now, we are blessed to have him here in Chadds Ford.
Jay enjoys teaching in yoga spaces such as BYCF, where he leads a beginners’ drum series on Tuesday evenings. A few weeks ago, we shared a meal and talked at length about his life and his teaching.
‘There is a deep desire for ancient, communal and spiritual practices such as drumming,’ says Jay.
We have become separated at the most root level from the earth, from each other, from ourselves. Most of us have no idea where our food is grown, nor do we know where our clothing is made. What’s more, we are continuously assaulted in our daily lives by consumption-focused advertising. Eventually, we lose most meaningful memory. All we’re thinking is, ‘Wednesday is pizza night.’
The point of drumming rituals is ‘communal remembering’. That’s why many of the songs we learn in class are seasonal. Even the drums Jay plays are made by families he knows. These families tend and harvest the trees from which the drums are carved.
Drumming is a living, land-based tradition.
‘The thing that teaches everything is nature. A healthy ecosystem has a diversity of species. Each wild place has a balance. The wolves cull the deer. The deer eat the plants and so on and so on.’
The polyrhythms of West African drumming mimic the dynamics of ecosystems…and traditional tribal cultures.
Layered, contrasting rhythms ‘symbolize the challenging moments or emotional stress we all encounter. Playing cross-beats while fully grounded in the main beats, prepares one for maintaining a life-purpose while dealing with life’s challenges. From the African viewpoint, the rhythms represent the very fabric of life itself; they are an embodiment of the people, symbolizing interdependence in human relationships.’—Peñalosa
There are many many sound intellectual and philosophical reasons to take up West African drumming. Jay and I talked extensively about the health benefits of drumming, too; i won’t go into them here.
What I have failed to mention about West African drumming is how much FUN it is.
If it’s deeply joyful…and astonishingly good for us ( as inidividuals and as a community)…then why aren’t more of us drumming?
‘Analysis and talking are great…but if we truly believe that disconnection and alienation are a shame…a horror…we need to act on those beliefs.’
I’m gonna go work on my polyrhythms. See you at drum class, I hope! Tuesday nights at 8:30…at BYCF.
Absolutely no experience required. There’s a place for you in our ecosystem, I promise!
Jay is a percussionist, vocalist, drum-maker, and educator who has been performing, teaching, touring and recording professionally for many years. He has performed with numerous groups including Madison Greene, Woodspeak, Miranda Stone, The Factorye, Phillybloco, Croatan West African Drum and Dance ensemble and Psalters. He has led cross-cultural drumming workshops in every venue from pre-schools to universities and international music festivals. Over a decade of touring in over fifteen countries in four continents, he longs to be a bridge to help bring the beauty and passion of the rhythm cultures of the world to the west. Jay believes that the resistance is in the drums, not in the spears; it is in the music, in the rhythms lived by communities whose myths and ways continue to nurture and sustain them. Jay believes, as Fredy Perlman said “if the drums no longer sound, then we must beat them. And if we have no drums, we must build them. And if we’ve forgotten how to play them, we must remember or learn again. And if we can’t renew our continuity with the past, then we must make a virtue of our discontinuity and make it all anew.
Megan LvR 