If you heard the dogs barking...

I had my second drum class last evening, and while I will say that it was a vast improvement from last week, the title of this blog is not a hyperbole. At one point, when we stopped drumming, and I was able to hear sounds other than the almost deafening rhythm of the drums and my drum master, Emmeth’s, soulful “Yep” and “Hey”, the dogs were performing a soulful tune of their own. Here’s to hoping they were barking at some passerby, and not my attempt at the “Welcome Song”, traditionally played when someone important comes to your village.

Second drum class with Abril and our instructor, Emmeth.

Emmeth Young, drum master and our instructor. 

I went through a bit of a transformation between this week and last week. Within fifteen minutes of my first class, Emmeth was informing me that I needed to relax, to which I cried, “I am too high strung to play the drums!” Relax soon became a common refrain during that first class, and yesterday, bolstered by a particularly rough day at my internship, I went in with a different mindset. Drumming should not be a stress inducer, I decided. In fact, if Emmeth thought I was stressing about classes, he would likely tell me I should not come back.

Letting loose!

And with that change in mindset, drumming became my Belizean stress reliever. There’s something calming about zoning out (that’s not to say Emmeth did not yell at one point, “Breathe, I can see you are not breathing, breathe, let it flow”) while performing the same rhythm, your instructor making something out of nothing, adding additional accompaniments. There’s something great about the sting on your hands and fingers after an hour of drumming, so different from a day in front of your computer. There’s something fulfilling about finally getting a rhythm that your instructor quickly pounded out, and the smile on his face when you achieve it. And there’s something invigorating about letting your stress out as you pound on the drum, putting a smile on my face for the rest of the evening.

I'm pretty sure this is after I screwed up and he told me I needed to breathe. 

 

Drumming is so different from anything I’ve ever done, or would normally ever do, and that’s why I like it. No longer high strung, I’m back to the childhood photo my parents have had for years, hair wild, head back, a loud laugh on my lips.