The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
GET IN THE FLOW
Untrained percussionists with drum circles part of flourishing movement
MIDDLETOWN » The rough, calloused hands of Andrew Mark Prue and Craig Norton are as much instruments as the drums they work their percussive magic on.
These self-taught artists, who believe everyone has within them an inborn rhythm of life, play at ease equally on the djembe — their instrument of choice — as the greying, well-worn boards of a picnic tabletop under the pavilion at Harbor Park.
“We call it the flow, to be in the flow is the magic place,” said Norton, 55, a Middletown resident. “It’s the same with running, it’s the same with race car driving, a basketball player, being in that zone.”
“It’s a feeling,” said Prue, 32, of East Granby.
And flow they did during a spontaneous mini performance Wednesday morning, expertly working their djembes under sunny skies with the blue Connecticut River as backdrop.
Djembes — the richly colored and resonant African goblet drums made of exotic hardwood with heads of mule, goat or cowhide skin — are rope-tuned, and allow the musician to produce bass, tone and slap tones. They’re set on a base and held between the legs.
When the two play together, they feed off one another and instantly slip into an easy rhythm.
And Norton and Prue complement one another musically just as they do the sentences or thoughts each will finish for the other.
Prue is a woodworker by trade who has been building kitchens for the past seven years. He also makes jewelry, drums and does carpentry.
He started playing in a curious but fitting way.
“Basically I started slapping on cabinets but then I would get yelled at, ‘We’re working! Not playing drums here!’”
He would also play the backs of drawers. “As I got further into it, I discovered cajóns, Cuban box drums, were originally made from shipping crates. They’d sand the edges of them down and they’d get it so the edges of the shipping crate would slap up against them and then you slap the middle of it and you’ve got the base — so you’ve got the base and the boom and the tap,” Prue said.
Norton, 55, visited the prison at Connecticut Valley Hospital recently and spent time with five or so inmates at the Whiting Forensic Division.
It was a transcendent experience, Norton said.
“I’m not easily rattled but walking into the maximum security facility for the first time was daunting,” he wrote on Facebook. “But seeing them smile and listening to them sing and play drums from the heart and completely lose themselves in the rhythm was absolutely priceless. My heart has been blown wide open,” he wrote.
He recalled the experience Wednesday.
“Wow! That was amazing,” said Norton, who has been drumming professionally full-time for two decades. “It totally blew me away: These people don’t necessarily have an opportunity to express themselves and be treated like a human..
“They had a blast. This one kid never stopped smiling. And another guy just never stopped drumming,” Norton said. “He just got on that drum and never stopped. He couldn’t stop himself and I didn’t stop him.”
“The healing power of drums,” summed up Prue.
The men have been leading monthly drum circles since June, every second Sunday of the month at Columbus Park (Harbor Park) on Harbor Drive. The next is Sept. 16 at 4 p.m.
They invite anyone and everyone.
“We’ve had a couple people walking by join in. It’s not a spectator sport. We encourage people to jump in and join us,” Norton said.
Prue also leads monthly drumming events at The Buttonwood Tree and MAC 650 on Main Street in the city’s North End.
Norton has hosted a Blue Back Square drumming session on the second Tuesday of the month for the past seven years. “That’s a huge one,” he said. During their drumming circles at the river, which attract large crowds of people — through word of mouth and followers of the state’s growing drumming community — they’ve had several surprise visitors.
Hula hoopers have shown up, people with big flowing tapestries on poles they wave around in time with the percussion instruments, belly dancers — and once, even a half-dozen tap dancers brought their portable wood floors with them.
“So they had their own drums in a way,” Prue said. “It worked. It sounded amazing.”
“The tapping and the dancing crosses over into the drumming,” he said. “A lot of technique and time signatures, they complement each other. It creates this whole other dynamic.”
“A lot of polyrhythm with that one,” Norton said.
Norton’s first exposure to the culture was in a church basement in Glastonbury. “It was like, ‘Once a month isn’t enough,’” so he began inviting people to his house or parks to get together and jam. Soon, he was playing at events and, then got a gig at the hugely popular Daffodil Festival at Meriden’s Hubbard Park.
That first year, 70 to 80 people showed up. Norton was amazed. Now, he almost exclusively teaches children and those with special needs: going into schools, museums, libraries and camps. He incorporates literacy, songwriting and rhythm into his lessons.
Norton’s drumming in math program “maxes out about second or third grade — about when my math skills max out,” he joked. The kids learn counting sequence, fractions — and he’ll even stop in the middle of a song, ask the answer to an equation, and, when the students get it correct, they’ll continue drumming.
“They don’t even know they’re learning,” Norton said.
“Connecting wires,” Prue said.
There’s something almost inexplicable and certainly unpredictable about free-form community drumming, the two agree. It’s like jazz in a way, with each artist bringing their touch, their point of view or mindset at that moment to the session.
But there’s also a variable introduced by those who’ve never — or minimally — played.
And every so often, they enjoy the gift of a natural who upstages even these veteran musicians.
“It’s kind of a line where you’re moving everything but not moving everything that much: using the energy of the drums to bounce your hands,” Prue said of the art. “There are things you start feeling as you get in sync with the drum more.”
He marvels at the ability of one friend.
“He barely touches the drums. It’s just so pure and there, and when we drum together, it’s just like” — Prue mimics the sound of angels singing, his arms raised toward the heavens — “and it’s something to complement and keep in flow and he’s barely drumming.”
“Some are the opposite and they’re kind of awful at it. They don’t have very good rhythm, and it’s OK,” Norton said.
“When you’ve got at least three or four solid drummers in a group of 10 or 12, 15 or 20 people, as long as you have that core group, it gives you a catalyst to carry the rest of the group — no matter how big the rest of the group is,” Norton said.
Rhythm is such a primal part of humans in ways many don’t realize.
“Our heart beating, our breathing,” Norton said.
“We literally can’t walk without rhythm,” Prue said.
The music of percussion was born long before spoken word, Prue explained.
“We used percussion as a way of communication before we had established languages,” he said. “In Africa, there are villages that don’t have telephones, they have a drum line that carries an entire language from village to village across the entire region.
“Drumming connects people in a way that’s kind of magical. It’s a very powerful experience, it’s a very primal activity that goes back way before our generation,” Prue said. “An ancient technique that we’re tapping into and giving people a chance to express themselves and connect,” he said.