gramberg here welcomes the positive energy and lighting television for the a balding told our topic on this show is the power of drumming the rhythm of a drum like a heartbeat touches something deep inside of us stirring our body and awakening our spirit on this show mark wood is going to explain why drumming is so powerful and how it helps people with emotional mental and physical disabilities stay tuned positive energy starts right now hey mark welcome to positive energy how are you i'm great thank you for being here thanks for having me so a pleasure pleasure is all mine start out by telling us a little bit about yourself your background and how you came to discover drumming for yourself well i've been a musician all my life started very young and as i grew up i started playing set drums and from there got into a lot of different bands played all kinds of different music the last band that i was in was a punk band and it just wasn't working for me you know we were pretty popular did a lot of shows did some tours did a record had a record deal you know the whole bit it just wasn't working for me so i kind of gave that up took a little hiatus and started playing latin percussion my brother's been playing jim bay for years and years and years before it was cool and kind of got inspired by that and figured oh this is a good way i can just stop throw a drum over my shoulder and take it to a circle and i'll be good well i have more gear now than i've ever had so i have like three rooms full of drum yeah pretty much and i have a storefront now so i have that full of drums along with my storage the stuff that i take along with me and but i started playing jimi just for fun going to drum circles and you know doing all that and then i got called to do so mork at a cancer center actually not far from here in bedminster and then it just kind of snowballed from there so it's  the my career pretty much found me when i got on the path it was pretty much one of those things where i wasn't looking for it it just kind of fell in my lap so to speak but and that's when you really know lined up with some bigger purpose oh yeah well you know it for me it's about simplicity you know african drumming in and of itself is based on simplicity so it's really simple so the more you play  and the more you learn the pieces and parts you realize that individually all the parts are very simple but you can take it back into your life and say you know it it really things just you can overcomplicate things very quickly and as western people we overcomplicate everything you know so you know for me it's like why are we all here anyway you know it's why are we here what's to get a good job to buy a better car to buy a bigger house you know like it's about really having a purpose in what you do so i really believe that i have a purpose in what i'm doing and it's you know helping people is just a great thing you know i agree i agree no it's a great message overall too because as i say look for your bliss find your bliss ya'll your bliss follow what you're most passionate about follow what you love and the rest really does come so we're surrounded by these beautiful west africa has problems and i know did you you have a teacher in west in with africa or yeah i have a few teachers actually my my main teacher right now is name is mustafa ji jew and he's from senegal and then i have another teacher who is name is ahmed yellow who is from guinea and i've studied with bob i'm a girl from guinea west africa and michael marcus who is actually from new york city but is ben was a protege so i studied with him for a very long time very inspirational guy great teacher so and there's there's a really nice studio around here called the lawrenceville drummond as learning center so if people are interested in about doing this and want to kind of fix you know kind of go down that road it's right in your backyard so if  want to listen then people imagine yeah there really is a lot more available even in the last ten fifteen years oh absolutely terms of drumming just coming into the mainstream and you finding it and you have that direct experience yourself because you're in some very mainstream  environments yeah so i know we're going to talk a little bit more about the benefits of drumming because there is actual science behind all of this but say a little bit more about your sort of mission and what you hope to achieve as a as a my mission is really just to to bring awareness there are a lot of people who facilitate drum circles there are a lot of people that do some of the work that i do it all has great value and there is so much work available for people and there's you know unfortunately because it isn't mainstream yet there's not a whole lot of money but it's not about the money you've got to get you've got to get the awareness out to make the money come you know the everybody needs this i don't care what anybody says everybody needs this even if you're not really into drumming just to go to a circle and be a part of it and dance and just be a pro part of the community you know my my catchphrase for my business is promoting unity through drumming and that's really what it's all about so that it all comes from the african culture you know yeah i love it because you can feel it it's such a direct experience it's like nothing else in that there's no delay it literally shifts in the moment when you see the way you feel your mood goes up and your stress goes down i mean who needs the evidence even though it exists well that is the evidence the evidence is that you know this works drumming is one of the few things that activates your whole brain so it puts us in that alpha theta brain state which is very meditative but it's also focused it's being present and then you know these groovy chemicals that come out of our brain my friend eric that's here he always says home cooking it's the best you know so that's what makes you feel good it's that it's those chemicals that make us happy chemical yeah yeah they're a tone and all about all that good stuff if you get all of that going yeah so i know that you work with various populations i do and i think it's absolutely wonderful and very interesting people with physical disabilities mental emotional disabilities and challenges both adults and children yes some who are blind and yet and even in hospital settings people with cancer what can you say about that to help people understand what that looks like what that entails and how how it helps and how it strives to help them at least well there's i work in a lot of different demographics blind deaf chronic psychological and you know psychological hospital mental health i o p s which are intense about patients chemical dependency recovery i work for a place called the vision loss alliance which later on you'll see one of my students from there is here again it's the bottom basic scenario is putting people in a community setting making them feel they belong making them feel that they have a purpose that they're they're included drumming there's no hierarchy it's really all about everybody is important the next that each person plays an important role in what we do so being able to to kind of have that as an example is a really you know a good way that helps and again we go back to the scientific evidence base as a practice this is done it lowers your cortisol levels increases your your immune system so these are all the things that it does as a practice if we do it once in a while it's a lot of fun but it's like anything like meditation ri sizing it's really over the long term that you're right reap the most benefit right one of the probably one of the most rewarding things that i do is i work for atlanta health medical center so given a shout out to my all behavioral health  peeps in morristown they you know i work with them and from and it led a health since two thousand and six in the last couple years i've been in there behavioral health which is you know chemical dependency and i own thing that they really like you know not the pat myself on the back of my classes are usually the biggest ones because it's something more people can cut loose and they can feel like they can be silly actually they can kind of be themselves it's encourage yeah and it should be spontaneous to go right low in and be in the moment and the rhythm just does that i guess parks that i mean it just stirs things up and makes you want never going to jump circles i laugh we all laugh we break down spontaneous laughter jokes are flying it's just in nature of the feel of the rhythm that is doing something very primal yeah within us and we laugh we we saying right we move you can't help yourself no no because it is in us and it's it we are rhythmic beings and it is very primitive the drums themselves to this day are are made the same way that they may made thousands of years ago they are all made by hand they're played by hand so and you you know if you're if you're a drummer and the drummers out there were understand you you develop a relationship with your instrument you know so it's for me it's the vehicle to my soul so it's the way to express yourself with you know by using a drone so it's how you speak you know it's how we communicate non verbal it's a form of communication absolutely and it's literally used that way i guess in some in some cultures and traditions they speak and communicate even at a distance yeah the drum beat yeah the drums are actually the way they're made for it call it the magic of it what they're the sound carries a tremendous distance now nowadays i mean when i was in africa everybody had a cell  phone you know but years ago it was in the villages they would use the drum for calls to call them the people in the village together you know here in america we gather and we drum in africa they drum right they drum to gather right so they drum they call each other together here in america we come together and we bring drums so if in atlanta if we went to west africa would we see all over him on every corner yeah we see people with with jim bays dirty much in the just on the bus stops on the buses in the restaurants probably a mad yeah pretty much pretty much wherever you go well they're into when when i was there we we would lay outside in the middle of two three o'clock in the morning we could hear drums off in the distance because people would be in the forest you know playing and then at five am you hear that the first prayer from the mosque was the coolest thing ever but then you go to the marketplaces and they're building them and they're playing and i got an opportunity to play with all these people that didn't speak a lick of english you know and they would just smile and laugh in and i sat behind a drum and played with them and it was you know it was just magical i mean it was just the coolest thing ever so so when you talk about of course kind of feel how much you love it and how much it it affects you how has it changed or transformed your life personally i mean what can you say is the difference that's upon what time do we have right well you know i used to be a different person i was totally into rock and roll and you know and punk and you know there's anything wrong with that you know what it was it was different you know i was very one sided in you know i didn't know a lot about the you know integrate of health and medicine and all that stuff and you know when you get into this you you fall you find these people that are that are in that they're there are yoga people teachers or their you know meditative people or whatever and they're all in that community so the community is bigger than just drumming there's other people that just come and some just dance but for me it's just you know it's it's very so what are you up to currently do you share anything about your current drum circles or anything you like to share about where people can see you or if they want to come join a drum circle yeah well they can they can always come i do too locally i do one prince's center for health and yoga in skillman the first saturday every night and in the summertime it's just a fire circle and the third saturday every month i'm at a place called easy well essential wellness in bridgewater so the one of bridgewater's from seven to nine the one in skillman is from eight to ten and then my community stuff i don't do a whole lot of anymore i like to keep my hands in it because i want to stay connected to the community but ninety percent of my work is is in hospitals and you know and schools and all that stuff so i know you would ask me for some pictures and it's like i don't have a lot because i'm not allowed to take them you're in a very clinical setting yeah where it's yeah where you're working with people you know not nonetheless we can kind of imagine yeah you know and kind of check that out so you just mentioned your website now you met your website is my website also well i know i do build them there's a people say that they're drum builders basically what i do is the shell comes from africa because the shells are hand cut and if you go on my website there's actually a snippet of these guys carving these drums out with these primitive looking axes and that's how they start with a log and then they chop it all up and they cut the hole and they get it all round and all that stuff and then that goes to different carvers and then it goes to  a rope guy so there what i do when i get the rochelle is all make the rings that go on top there's three rings two on the top one in the bottom and then they have to be roped so it holds the rope to hold the head and then it's usually cowskin mules going ok so this is the sheep go synthetic head holds on the bottom little bit taller so this is from nigeria and then we again synthetic head and there's you know this is got a little bit of a this got a tube inside of it that's hands to bottom and then don't step on them like cord creates the pulse so in the dance in the tradition of african music you have gem bays you have dunes you might have shaker areas you have bells you know there's a lot to it but the dunedin is where the pulses that's where the that's where the dancers the heartbeat right that's where they find their together and yeah i find that rhythm yeah i mean yeah and there's the whole idea of in train meant sort of the idea that somehow magically or subconsciously when folks strung together eventually there is synergy or pretty quickly there's some s between the rhythms yeah well it's our brain you know we were wired it's just we are wired and it's to it's it's to really tap into that you know people say to me all the time i have no rhythm yes you do you do have it you just have to get it out the problem is that you know again we're always from here up we're not from here down you know when we're going to work and we're paying our bills and doing all this stuff it's always here up when you watch a little kid pick up a drum you can pretty much tell him to do whatever you want to do and they'll do it because they have that free spirit we lose that after a certain point you know running in our heads yeah not in a way that he's in way too much drumming guidice generally there yeah yeah it works is there whether you want to or not if you're open to it you know again it's not you know it's not always for everybody but if you and it's like anything if you're open to it you're going to get from it you know it's going to come well encourage people to try if i could do it anyway yeah what you tell you brought some friends with you today i did and you are all going to play for us indeed my audience i'm very excited so say who you brought where the names of the folks you brought today the folks that i brought today are people that have you know i could i have to say i couldn't have gone down this journey by myself there was there's a lot of people that have supported me number one as my wife without her support and sat out i'll big time you know i would have never been in the place that i am today so thanks for supporting that my friend my friend eric phyla who is going to be playing these drums has been with me since day one and then as time progressed we ran we met ed at ashton he came to a princeton drum circle a long ago and now he's playing everywhere and everything and then the newest addition is kerry loftus who is a student at vision loss alliance who is started to play with me a little while ago as one of my students and now is something for a lot of my classes she assist me in a lot of gigs so some she really enjoys to do and she's words that you'd like what would you most want people to know about drumming if you can if they could know anything at all well how would you inspire them well i think it's like anything i think people need to try something different you know and drumming in and of itself is a great thing to do and it's about reconnecting people and i think the biggest the biggest problem we have in today's society is that we're we're so connected technologically that we're disconnected as a community so this is just one venue where you can or one medium that you can kind of come together as people and be people and energetically connect and look at each other and talk to one another with an instrument and kind of be that silly self you know we forgot how to play we forgot how to play so let's get back yeah let's create community through drumming that's your mission that will unity through drumming through germany correct well thank you mark for being here and we're alive partner right now to hearing and jamming with some rhythms with you right on