Show description
Practicing emotional regulation - moving from high arousal to calm states replicated on the drum. This exercise is initially done on the drum but should also be transferred to the body (thigh).
The group or individual oscillate between high energy drumming and fading to a soft, slow Bass pulse at between 60-80bpm. This change represents changes in emotional intensity with participants learning how to transition gradually between these extremes. Do this, three times before fading to nothing or entering into a mindfulness exercise – see below.
For adult individuals or groups this exercise can be extended into mindful breathing and other focused meditations using the Bass pulse as a focal point.
One at time, around the circle, we repeat a very simple musical phrase (try BbB) - each time getting softer until it almost disappears, then reversing it so that each time it gets louder.
The challenge is for the increments to be as even as possible.
This is challenging as each player has a different technique and each drum a different resonance, so it can take quite a few goes to get even changes in volume - usually done across several sessions with a group or client.
Use a simple and very soft Bass pulse (40–60 bpm) or the Rhythmic Wave exercise as the focal point for this awareness exercise. Give instructions in a mellow, clear voice, speaking slowly and in time to the rhythm. Remember, the script below is just a guide – make it your own.
• Relax your body.
• Adjust your body until you feel comfortable and relaxed. You may wish to close your eyes or focus on one spot. Focus on and relax any tension in your neck, shoulders, chest, arms, hands, back, hips, thighs, lower legs, feet.
• Slow your breathing – focus on your breath, in and out, aligning it to the pulse, becoming still.
• Now focus solely on sounds. Listen to the Bass note of the rhythm first.
• Listen to it in all its dimensions – tone, pitch, frequency. Listen to it in its primacy as pure sound, rather than naming it.
• If other thoughts come to mind, acknowledge them briefly and move your focus back to the sound of the Bass note.
• If you feel comfortable let the vibrations of the Bass note move through your body, grounding you.
• Breathe gently, slowly.
• Let those vibrations travel down to your feet and exit into the floor, connecting you to the earth.
• Now focus on any other sounds. Experience loud and soft sounds, obvious and not so obvious sounds and the gap between sounds.
• Try and avoid categorising these sounds, but experience them as raw energy. If other thoughts come to mind, acknowledge them briefly and move your focus back to the sounds of your environment.
• Breathe gently, slowly.
• Slowly come back to a focus on the Bass.
• Hold your focus on the Bass and allow the volume to slowly fade away.
If possible, sit in silence for 40–60 seconds or if part of the Rhythmic Wave exercise, you can move back into the improvised rhythm play you started from.
This exercise can also be done using Tonal Chimes
Introduce the metaphor of a beach ball representing our feelings and emotions and asking people to support each other by keeping those feelings up – keeping the imaginary beach ball in the air using rumble energy. Say: ‘We start as a group lifting the ball as high as we can with our combined energy and then lowering it as low as we can before raising it to a median level, all the time tracking it with our eyes.’
Discuss the challenges of staying positive and the support we can give each other in keeping our spirits up.
Say: ‘Then we pass it on to one person’s drum and ask them to showcase where their emotions are at at present – low or high – before they pass it to another person using their eyes to track the ball as it moves between players, each person expressing the level of their feelings using rumble energy and the height of the imaginary beach ball.’
Discuss the changing nature of feelings, the sharing of feelings and the energy required to sustain our feelings – noting how much you have to put out to keep that ball in the air as an individual compared with when you are getting the support of others.
The exercise also develops teamwork, emotional control and self-awareness. In individual work, I have found this exercise useful in helping clients express how they are feeling and exploring the same concepts but with a more personal focus.
In this exercise, the facilitator takes the client or group through a storm sequence on the drum and links this to the rise of our emotions when we get upset or angry:
• What triggers your storm?
• How do we get control of the storm?
• What allows the storm to pass by?
• Remember - All storms eventually end – what helps your emotional storms dissipate?
Releasing feelings through the drum can be done at any stage and replaces the question ‘How did that feel” with ‘Play how that felt’.
It can be particularly useful at the beginning of each session to run an exercise – “Play how you are feeling’ over the top of a foundation rhythm as a way of checking in on the group.
EXAMINE
• Triggers for emotional arousal
• Calming strategies