Hand Drums
 

hand drums are the most mystical and metaphysical of all the instruments. I know no more spiritual instrument, and playing the hand drums is a perfect meditation and holy praise. The hand drum connects the body and spirit directly to the currents of rhythm more so then other instruments, even more so then drum kits. Playing a drum kit is like dancing, playing a hand drum is like grabbing the powerlines and getting zapped.

do any of you out there also appreciate either playing or listening to the hand drum in music? what kind of styles/genres?

I myself am strictly nyabinghi drumming, and a little ethiopian styles now, but mostly nyabinghi.

I like listening to them, but I bought bongos several years ago expecting them to come easily (I had been playing drums since I was little), and I had no idea what to do with them. They're a deceptively complex instrument, and I don't understand them at all. My roommate can play them like nothing, though.

I love the sound of Tablas. But, like the sitar, it takes years to learn to play them well.

bongos are like a reubix cube

let's not forget hand farts.

how can a drum be metaphysical?

farts are way more metaphysical than drums

more mystical too

and they sound better than hand drums

Bongos are fun.

the experience which it creates is beyond physical explanation.

it is an instrument, and like all instruments it takes time, though because the hand drum is pure rhythm it takes a different kind of musician, as you are creating pure and primal music, based upon the fundamental elements of timing and emotion. it is the perfect merging of spiritual and physical, just like dance, it brings music into tangible reality, and brings spiritual feelings into the realm of the everyday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT0j8-h55TA

The hand drums are great in this.

Count Ossie and the Mystic Revelation of Rastafari demonstrate Nyahbinghi drumming

More Binghi

Ras Michael and the Sons of Negus

Yeah, it just surprised me when I got them. I was pretty young, and it does look very easy. You just hit the drum and it makes a sound, try to throw in some rudiment patterns from the snare drum, and bam. Oh, how wrong I was...

what's a physical explanation?

That's one.

only on sympathy for the devil

Angus Maclise was great at playing the bongos.

Urrr... in spite of the hippy spittle attached to the vague category of 'hand drums', I adore them. I wouldn't imbue them with anything like a metaphysical pres(i)ence, but there's a particularity to each person's playing. Easy to twat away at, impossible to master. I can play a handful of 'styles' (mostly south American) but ultimately it's all about me and my hands. Or summat...