African drumming, sacrifice and heaven

How do you connect people coming from different parts of the world with each other?

African drumming.

But it goes beyond just building a connection.

In this small workshop, which was part of a 2-day trip organized by the Estonian Academy of Arts for the new international and exchange students, we were given an hour of exploration on African Drumming with our mentor Aakusti from Talking Drum (www.talkingdrum.fi).

First, we were just playing loud. Everyone was testing the instruments that they had between their hands. We were exploring the functionality, the different sounds the instrument can use, the range of sound and other factors. Things were quite chaotic and you can hear everything and nothing at the same time. Nothing that’s interesting enough for you to stop time for even one bit.

Later, Aakusti started giving certain instructions, guiding us, smoothly coordinating everything while we were “exploring” our sound.

Things started to get polished. Certain sounds started emerging from beneath the water. A beautiful composition appeared. We were at a point where we noticed our gradual understanding of the instruments at hand whenever he raised his hand for us to increase the intensity and whenever he lowered it to decrease it.

I looked around and I saw people smiling. I saw people enjoying themselves. I saw people celebrating this individualistic achievement of feeling and playing to the vibrations of their instruments. A task that required us to get out of our comfort zone, go out to the chaotic part of the exploration and come to a point where we become truly aware of what we are doing, to work better at it.

Following this first step, we randomly switched seats and picked up different instruments.

He conducted us again. This time, he grouped us according to the instruments we were holding (earlier, most of us were sitting at random). We built a rhythm and each instrumental group was given space to be creative, while others kept the rhythm going. It was truly interesting witnessing how everything was built from the ground up and also being part of it.

At one point, each group was playing a certain beat, a different inner composition, that’s harmonious to what the others were playing.

Aakusti, then, slowly lowered his hands down progressively, indicating the phase where we also slowly decrease the intensity of our playing.

Interestingly enough, after the sound was almost mute and the moment he raised his hands for us to play loudly, we started playing identical beats with different instruments. Something that I couldn’t help but notice.

The composition ended up sounding harmonious and beautiful.

When we are given the chance to think freely, our thoughts can be put on a scale between heaven and hell. And we can make sure that the initial thoughts with no training at all, with no knowledge of any subject given, would be hellish where the freedom of thought would have no boundaries.

Chaos would reign. Everyone would be talking their own language. Communication is bizarre at this point.

But I can go back to myself. Let those thoughts/ languages be driven and guided by virtue and truth, as truth is harmonious, and my own actions would become heroic. And I also have to understand that heroic actions require sacrifices.

If each of us holds that same responsibility, harmony would reign. Languages from all corners of the world would come together through virtue, and our individualistic thoughts, reasonings and actions can tilt the world a bit towards heaven.

Therefore, we would only speak and communicate in one language, the language of truth.