Drumming

Drumming has religious, ritual and community uses in many cultures, and is also offered today as a group activity for wellbeing and mental health. These two strands, the sacred and the social, are quite different, and this page treats them separately. The religious use of drums is widespread across history and the world, though not universal; drums are especially valued, and used in many ways, in South Asian, African, and Inner Asian and circumpolar shamanic traditions. Growing numbers of mental health organisations are developing community music-making programs for the people who use their services, and group drumming has been studied as one of them.

Description

Drums in religion

Drums are instruments that make sound when a stretched membrane, such as skin, is struck, rubbed or plucked. Where they are used in religion, their role is usually musical, but they may also serve for signalling, as silent sacred objects or offerings, or in other ways. In some traditions drums are treated as deities themselves. A drum may be linked with nature and the cosmos: its body may stand for the cosmic tree or mountain, its skin for the life force of the animal it came from, and its sound for thunder or a spirit's voice. The royal drums of Africa and of ancient South India were part of the symbols and tools of sacred kingship.

Drums are not part of every religion, however: they are absent from many Christian and Islamic liturgical traditions, and from some African religions.

Shamanic drumming

In the classical shamanism of Inner and North Asia, the drum is central to religious belief and practice. It is the shaman's main tool for attracting helping gods or spirits, for calming them or calling them to act, and for carrying the shaman on spiritual journeys to the heavens or the underworld. The drum may itself be counted as a living spirit helper, or as a steed such as a horse or a deer, and may be given life-cycle rituals like those held for people. The drum's importance shows in history: when Christian missionaries burned the drums of Sámi shamans, the Sámi protested that the drums were their compasses, without which they could not find their way in the world.

Group drumming for wellbeing

Group drumming for wellbeing is a secular, social activity. In one group drumming program studied in London, each participant was given a djembe drum and sat in a circle, and a professional drummer taught the basics of playing, led "call-and-response" exercises and taught rhythmic patterns. In a UK study of 39 people who took part in a program of group djembe drumming, participants described the group as a place of connection, belonging, acceptance and care, and the learning as inclusive, with no such thing as a mistake.

Scope

What it includes

• Drumming in religious ritual and ceremony
• Drumming in shamanic practice, including shamanic journeying
• Community group drumming programs

What it is not

• It is not an established treatment. Research on group drumming for mental health and wellbeing is limited. In the London study, participants were people already using mental health services, and the study was small and not randomised; a school program evaluated in Australia was rated as weak in quality (see below).

Research on drumming

The studies so far are small, and each looks at a particular program or setting, so their results should not be read as applying to drumming in general.

• A 2016 study in London compared 10 weeks of group drumming with a control group doing regular non-musical social activities, among adults using mental health services. Of 59 people recruited, 45 completed the study. The drumming group showed improvements in depression, anxiety, social resilience and mental wellbeing that were maintained three months later, along with changes in immune markers in saliva; the control group did not. Participants were not randomly assigned, and the control group started with lower depression scores, so the authors called the study exploratory.
• A 2014 study in which 39 people listened for 15 minutes to either repetitive drumming or meditation music, with instructions for either shamanic journeying or relaxation, found that cortisol (a stress hormone) fell in all groups, with no difference between them. People who heard drumming with shamanic instructions more often reported feelings of heaviness, a slower heart rate and dream-like experiences.

Traditions and lineage

Drums are not necessarily among the oldest religious instruments. Ellingson notes that drums are missing from the oldest religious music of several hunter-gatherer peoples, which suggests that drums are linked with later settled agricultural and urban societies rather than being especially ancient. In Central and North Asia drums were the main focus of ritual, while other instruments were used for secular music.

Context

Within Spiritualism

Spiritfold has found no published source linking drumming with Spiritualism.

In Australian Spiritualism

The Spiritual Mission of Noarlunga, south of Adelaide, which the SAcommunity directory lists under "Spiritualist", posts notes from a meditation circle on its website. One describes the circle opening with the sound of a drum and vocal "sounding". This is the only Australian Spiritualist use of drumming Spiritfold has found.

A Spiritualist perspective

A drum can help a group settle and focus, and a Spiritualist teacher would have no difficulty with a circle that opens with one, as at Noarlunga. What matters is purpose. In shamanic traditions, as described above, drumming is used to alter consciousness and carry the shaman to other worlds. Spiritualist development has a different aim: the sitter seeks to attune to the spirit world while staying grounded and aware, so that what comes through can be weighed honestly. A teacher would use rhythm, if at all, as a gentle aid to quiet, not to push anyone into a state they cannot manage.

Drums carry sacred meanings in many cultures, and those ceremonies belong to their own peoples, so a Spiritualist would not imitate them. Good practice also means keeping the volume comfortable, letting anyone step out, and taking the care noted above with animal-hide drums.

Drumming in Australia

A school-based group drumming and discussion program, Holyoake's DRUMBEAT, was evaluated in an Australian study published in 2017 (Martin and Wood, Children Australia), with about 60 students aged 12 to 15. Two systematic reviews summarise it differently. A 2023 review of Australian school wellbeing programs reported no statistically significant effect on wellbeing. A 2024 review reported significant improvements for boys, with higher mental wellbeing and fewer post-traumatic stress symptoms, but not for girls, and rated the study as weak in quality because of selection bias and a high unexplained dropout rate.

Safety and good practice

One hazard is not widely known: animal-hide drums carry a rare risk of anthrax. In 2009 a woman in New Hampshire, in the United States, developed gastrointestinal anthrax after a drumming event where animal-hide drums were played; investigators found anthrax spores on drum heads and in the building, suggesting spores had been released into the air from the drums. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) described the risk as "remote" but advised that people exposed to animal-hide drums should be aware of it. In 2007 a drum maker in Connecticut, and one of his children, developed skin anthrax after he worked with untreated goat hides from West Africa; the CDC noted the hazard of working with untreated hides from areas where anthrax occurs in animals.

Related modalities

• Sound healing
• Meditation
• Shamanism
• Art therapy

Further reading

• Ellingson, Ter. "Drums". Encyclopedia of Religion. Gale, 1987. Encyclopedia.com.
• Fancourt, D. and others. "Effects of group drumming interventions on anxiety, depression, social resilience and inflammatory immune response among mental health service users". PLoS One, 2016.
• Gingras, B., G. Pohler and W. T. Fitch. "Exploring shamanic journeying". PLoS One, 2014.