Facilitating emergence in a drumcircle
Emergence: from wikipedia
In philosophy, Systems theory and Science, emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions.
First steps
Be patient, chaos is your friend. A few years ago I tried out the idea of leaving the chaos at the beginning of a drumcircle and rather than forcing in a beat or a rhythm I would wait to see what emerged. Now I always work that way. If I have assistants working with me the rule is very simple; "Don't make up anything yourself, look around the circle and see what is emerging. Support beats or rhythms that you see or hear. As experienced drummers we are not here to lead, we are here to support."The point of this approach is clear when working with beginners. If the experienced drummers start everything off the inexperienced will feel intimidated and simply try to copy or emulate the experienced drummers. They will then get straight in touch with their limitations and the whole creative process will shut down. They may still have a good time grooving along with the "experts" but there is no ownership of the music that is created. The creative potential of the group has been disregarded and therefore does not come into play.
Working with breakdown
With a skilled and experienced facilitator a complex rhythm groove can emerge in this way within minutes, with any type of drumcircle. Once this is in place the facilitator shifts attention to helping everyone to develop a broad awareness of all the aspects of the team process. The music rocks when everyone is in connection with each other, when everyone is aware of the rich web of relationships in the music and between the participants.
At some point, inevitably the rhythm groove will start to break down. There may be an urge in the facilitator to leap in and rescue the situation. At the beginning of a circle I tend to let the breakdown occur. The circle may become aware of the breakdown and together bring in a new groove, or we may go back into chaos or grind to a halt. Leaping in to rescue the situation at this stage is again missing a great opportunity for learning about the team process. If the circle rights itself naturally the learning has occurred. If the groove collapses questions such as: "What happened? What could you have done? What was missing to allow that to happen?" will all put the responsibility back on the team members and start in them the process of developing the team skills needed to avoid, or recover from breakdown in the future.
Working like this you have facilitated the emergence of music created by the team and owned by them.You have also facilitated the emergence of a team culture and the emergence of a web of relationships that can be utilised to create success in any other situiation.