The Community Drum Circle, in the context of how we are using it within our non-professional hand drumming culture, is the most basic and simple use of the drum and rhythm. It is the use of a rhythm based event as a tool for unity. A community drum circle in the United States is a noisy and fun, family friendly event, where people come together in order share their spirit by entraining rhythmically as a percussion ensemble. They empower each other in the act of celebrating community and life through rhythm and music. People of all levels of musical expertise come together and share their rhythmical spirit with whatever drums and percussion they bring to the event. Everyone who comes and participates has something to offer the circle, and any one is welcome.

The spirit and magic of rhythm expressed on drums and percussion instruments cuts through all ages, sexes, religions, races and cultures. “Rhythm,” as Gabriel Roth says, “is the mother tongue.” Rhythm is a universal language known to every one, even the youngest child, if we can just “remember.” So in a very objective, yet beautiful way, an interactive rhythm event puts us all on an equal footing with each other and brings us closer together.

Co-operation and collaboration is the basic glue to a community. A community drum circle is a collaboratively self organized musical event created, “in the moment,” by all the people who participate. When we, as a community, drum together, sharing our spirit in the form of rhythm, it changes our relationships for the positive. As we play together, we give ourselves a rhythmical massage, an a emotional release and a healing. The release and healing is different for every person that is in the rhythm circle, and it happens whether we are entraining ourselves into the circle by drumming, or standing outside the circle and listening while tapping our feet and clapping along with the music. To make beautiful music together, with rhythm instruments, all we have to do is bring to the circle whatever rhythmical expertise we have to offer, along with the excitement of sharing it with other people.

People of all levels of musical expertise come together in a community drum circle and share their rhythmical spirit with whatever drums and percussion they bring to the event. They don’t have to be a drummer to participate. They don’t even have to have a drum. They can play a plastic water bottle turned upside down with the neck cut off. They can shake a soda can with rocks in it or hit two sticks together. It is enough that they are in the circle and participating.

The quality of the music produced in an event like this is not based on the rhythmical expertise of the players, but on the quality of their relationship with the other people in the circle. The result is those magical musical moments where one powerful voice is created out of the many. In those moments, the players stop worrying about keeping time because time, as they know it, has stopped. In its place is a living breathing entity, expressing timeless joy, passion and release through the power of rhythm.

That is the beauty of a community drum circle.

Drum circle consciousness is a group vision manifest in sound, an attitude of giving of yourself and integrating yourself into a group to create a song. You become a part of a whole that is more than the sum of its parts.

When we come together and drum, the power of the rhythm moves us to a place where we all share the same space, time, and music together. We are focusing our attention to create a song. In that moment, we are not necessarily hitting the same note at the same time, but we are intimately sharing that rhythmical moment. Anyone can do this, even if you’ve never drummed before in your life! You don’t have to be a shaman or a professional musician to experience the magic of the drum circle. When you play with a group that wants to go to that place and create the magic of being in the same place at the same time, together you create that natural phenomenon called “entrainment.” You are in rhythmical alignment with each other.

When we are there, thoughts stop. When thoughts stop, time stops and healing starts. We connect beyond our intellects, in a primal kinesthetic dance that is expressed using sound, and by doing so we facilitate the bonding of our spirit connections in the circle.

We cut through all racial, cultural, and gender boundaries, to the core of who we are as human animals on the planet. That’s why the drum is a tool for unity. It grounds us to our primal relationship with each other, mother earth and the natural laws that govern the universe. Drumming under the full moon around a fire on top of a hill is an emotional, spiritual experience that is available to anyone, whether you know each other or not, with or without formal spiritual training, technical drum training or new age personal growth consciousness training. We come together to share ourselves in music and rhythm and to give and get an intimate rhythmical massage, a massage that goes deeper than the vibration of the drums, going through our skin and muscles to our bones. The vibration of the rhythms goes to those stuck places in our lives, in our hearts, in our souls, and massages them back into movement and health. Lack of the movement of energy creates disease. Movement of energy facilitates healing. When a group of people come together in a circle with focused intent, they facilitate the flow of the power that makes things happen. When you add drums as a vehicle for that focus the drums enhance the power to improve our health, our lives, and the very essence of our beings.

Arthur Hull is widely considered to be a pioneer of the community drumming circle movement. Along with being an internationally known drum circle facilitator, he also offers training for other facilitators and is the author of the book 'Drum Circle Spirit'.