2 posts tagged “udu”

     My hands thump a strange rhythm on my bottle-shaped Udu and I feel my great-great African grandmother sitting beside me. My roots include Irish, English, French, Sioux and Afro-American. Besides freckles, a wide nose and curly red hair, my  ancestors have endowed me with rhythm. Catch me doing dishes sometime and you'll hear me thumping out a rhythm on the cups, plates, pots and pans-my drumsticks a stainless steel knife in each hand.    
    "Sound, rhythm, energy and individuality," I read in Peter Elbow's Writing with Power" is basic to a writer's voice." Mmm, drumming and writing share the same elements. Another writer, Robert Hass, "thinks of rhythm as a power because it has direct access to our unconscious and because it can enter our minds and bodies and make us move."* Hass is talking about the rhythm of language. However, the same unconscious, motivating power is also found in rhythm from drums.
    A friend, told me that she does drums prior to writing. Although I light a candle, say a prayer and ring a little bell to bring my mind to focus, I longed to drum before writing. Then, while house sitting for friends, I borrowed their elk skin instrument and drummed before each writing session, drumming when frustrated with the process, drumming when overwhelmed with numerous anthology to do's. Drumming helped me center and enabled me to return refreshed to Rainmaker's Prayers Anthology.
    "I want my own drum."  I saw a Native American drum at an auction and decide to bid. It went for $300. Too much for my budget. Then, in From  Mud to Music, I recalled the mid-eastern, hourglass shaped ceramic Dhoumbeks.  But, one musician warned that as the leather dried, it pulled too tight, cracking his ceramic bases. I read about Udus, water bottle drums from Nigeria and, since I'm a potter, decided to make an Udu. Nigerians shape the Udu with clay coils. I don't like  manipulating long coils so, I decided to use the potter's wheel to form my Udu. "Start with nine pounds of clay," the Mud to Music author said. I can barely manage seven. Inspiration! Make bowls and put them together. Bingo. I've made hundreds of bowls. I love their round utility.
    "Instead of trying to match circumference to circumference," my ceramic instructor advised, "make several similar bowls and pick two that match. Use the rest for gifts." I ended up with four matching bowls. I put those together, added a cylinder neck, a bottom stand and decoration. I want my drums to be art pieces as well as musical instruments.    

    Now, a novice drummer, I surprise myself as I sit with my brightly glazed  "Udu."  This long necked, rounded belly ceramic drum echoes and reverberates. My hands, palms and fingers cup, slap and beat, producing different tones. "Do-ray-me-fa-so," I laugh, knowing that the notes aren't a musical scale, but five percussion sounds.
     My hands fly over the Udu's neck and belly holes. Once again, like swimming, gardening, painting and writing, my hands provide pleasure. I drum in the morning, drum when feeling scattered, drum to focus, drum to think, and each time, whether for five minutes or fifteen, I feel centered, peaceful and present. Mickey Hart writes in Drumming at the Edge of Magic, that for shamans, a drum becomes a vibrational vehicle of transport. I like that idea and file it under "advanced drumming."
    Drumming creates an ancient rhythm similar to the nearby ocean tides which pound and reverberate up the beach, through the ground to my cottage. Drumming is my heartbeat and breath, the unconscious power of life itself.                        

*The Writer's Chronicle, Vol 40, #3 pg 86.