Who is...

English teachers are probably all saying " Whom are  Drumfish!" but whatever the proper grammatical construction, this page is here to give our visitors a sense of what makes this drum circle special to so many people.

There's been the names for one thing.  Known informally at various times as, New Bedford Community Drum Circle,  New Bedford Unitarian Universalist Drum Circle, Gentle Spirit Drum (This lasted about a week)  and simply "The Drum Circle".  In 2006, when we needed to move our regular meeting place across the river to Fairhaven,  the Unitarian church there opened up it's building and more importantly it's heart to us.  In a fit of group inventiveness, the name Drumfish was adopted.

One thing that has always distinguished Drumfish has been the dedication to a freestyle approach to drum circles.     Some of our visitors are skilled facilitators who particpate with their own special brand of style or organization. Many of our members are fluent in a particular rhythm language and will often contribute a spontaneous lesson. There is a great sense of sharing, in passing on these rhythms and we add to the common base of music we draw from to create together.

 It's a risky thing, the freestyle approach.  Occasionally a piece won't "work."  It can crumble and dissolve from it's own weight, drag on too long or sound like dissonant pounding.  But this is the exception, not the rule.  We stop, regroup, listen more carefully.  .   A beat starts, whether from a novice or an experienced drummer.  Others pick this up, adding complementary beats, and then without planning or apparent signal, the group falls together, with wonderous and exhilarating results.     

Those rhythms may have come originally from Nigeria, Thailand, India or Egypt.  More often than not, these are only the foundations that start a piece of rhythm music on it's course, but the mixture of disciplines, inspiration and talents that  the roomfull of drummers brings to bear on any given night shifts, blends and can create a piece of music wholly new and wonderful.  These moments are rarely intended or facillitated- they emerge as the result of spontaneous interactions between the drummers, listening intently to each other.  Unasigned but vital roles are taken up in response to the dynamic, heartbeat and lead drummers  providing support or embelishment at the unplanned but so  right moment that on many nights, can create music of great power, or gentle emotion, moving some to tears, some to ecstasy some near to trance and all of us to joy. 

I think it is this experience more than any other- the creation of something beautiful and unique out of the combined intentions of the drummers- that brings us back time and again to the circle.

               The following is a brief story of the early days of this drumcircle, provided by Rick Cormier,  a co-founder of the original circle when we began in 1998 at the First Unitarian Church, in New Bedford, Ma.