In January 2021, I completed 10 months without doing a drum circle and 2 months since I temporarily moved to the mountains, here in Dharamsala in the beautiful Dhauladhar ranges. I was being approached to do a Drum circle with the local communities here and honestly, my hands were itching and my spirit was craving for it too but there was just one problem, No Drums. And getting them here all the way from Pune was just not an option. But if only one can find rhythm in life itself, the instruments appear. During a casual meeting with local artists and friends here, I met someone from this amazing organisation called ‘Waste Warriors’, a volunteer led organisation responsible for waste collection, segregation and processing of waste in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. And there was my idea, I offered to facilitate a session using junk as instruments and Waste Warriors happily agreed to provide all the junk we needed and we decided to organise the against the backdrop of the mighty Dhauladhars.
It was a one of kind activity for the community here and the participants were all from diverse backgrounds and different locations.
From families to artists, social entrepreneurs to students, kids and senior citizens, even for people who have earlier attended a Drum Circle in Delhi or around, it was still quite a unique experience for them and because of this, the session ended up becoming a medley of beautiful rhythms and lively energy.
We as Taal Inc. have previously conceptualised and facilitated these junk percussion sessions as Team Engagement Activities in Pune and elsewhere and also as Drumming Circles for Healing but never before have we used such a unique set of instruments in our sessions. It was such an unusual yet melodious blend of pieces like old briefcases,tyre rims, old utensils and plastic buckets, shakers made of plastic bottles and drum sticks of discarded pipes and many more and it ended up creating some of the most unique sounds I’ve heard in my sessions so far. Take a look at the instruments below:
It indeed was an experience I’ll cherish for life and probably all the people who attended the session will too as they realised one of the most important aspects of music making, the understanding that rhythm is everywhere and ‘We’ are the real instruments.
-Aman Joshi
Taal Inc. Drum Circle Facilitator
Aman Joshi is a drum circle facilitator with Taal Inc., a travel experience curator/facilitator, an avid traveler, cinema enthusiast, and a foodie. Read more about him Click Here