Drum Circle Facilitator Intensive Training

I had the privilege of attending the 6 days intensive drum circle facilitator training with Arthur Hull, one of the well known master drum circle facilitator who started the drum circle movement around the world.

I’ve heard, read, watched everything about Arthur and finally got to meet him in person. One should never trust the impression you conceived of a person by merely looking at YouTube video and photos, you simply have to attend their class to get a full picture.

After six days, I must have to say that Arthur is truly the legendary drum circle master. He reminded me of Master Oogway in Kungfu Panda, someone full of wisdom for life, packed with years and years of experience, have trained many other well known facilitators all around the world. His workshop is all about drum circle and is also not about drum circle at the same time.

I felt like everything single word comes out of him are essence extracted from years and years of experience. It was like a leadership training, where every aspect we learned can be directly applied into running small groups. And every sentence he spoke were nugget of wisdoms for life and everyday living. Drum circle? It’s just the tool or even the metaphor for learning.

Drum circle is a magical thing. I’ve been dying to attend a real drum circle ever since I’ve discovered such phenomenon existed from the internet. This past week it felt like I’ve just cramped in as many session (6 hours a day x 6 days) that could equal a whole year worth of drum circle experience.

Drum circle: in essence, it’s a group music making experience where people gathered together to play different types of drums and percussions. It requires no prior music skills and training, welcoming everybody from any age and ability level to join the circle. There’s a facilitator who assist the group to experience improvised music making together.

Drum circle can be evolved into different variation to suit different settings used by community musician, music therapist and music teachers to serve a range of population.

Rhythm, the backbone of music is indeed the simplest, the most accessible and the least intimidating form of music making that welcomes everyone into the act of playing.