Drumming Up Hope
Drumming Up Hope at Durham Recovery Celebration 2011
Click HERE to see a video and read an article about Drumming Up Hope!
Click HERE to listen to Shannon and Drumming Up Hope participants talk about the process
I offer 1 hour programs and extended programs to meet your organization’s needs. Drumming Up Hope is a unique interactive program founded on the recovery concepts of hope, mutuality, choice, support, and empowerment. Drumming Up Hope creates opportunities for communication, connection, teamwork, and recovery education through fun, life-affirming activities in which everyone can participate. for additional information, check out my mental health and wellness blog: www.drumminguphope.wordpress.com
Recovery is restoring and maintaining a satisfying quality of life. Recovery from mental health and substance use challenges is possible for everyone regardless of diagnosis or history.
What is a rhythm circle?
A rhythm circle is the hands-on entry level experience of playing music together in a group. No drumming experience is necessary – everyone has rhythm!
What Rhythm Circles can offer your Recovery Community:
Drumming in a group has proven to be an effective tool in recovery from mental health, substance use, and physical challenges. Group drumming can alleviate self-centeredness, isolation, and alienation, creating a sense of connectedness with self and others. In addition, drumming provides a secular approach to accessing a higher power and applying spiritual perspectives.
Rhythm circles can have a positive impact on your recovery community. Drumming Up Hope circles focus on activities that promote leadership, teamwork, communication, and creative expression. Drumming Up Hope rhythm games, meditations, and musical journeys are facilitated using the strengths-based peer support principles of mutuality, respect, validation, and choice.
Rhythm circles are lots of fun and represent possibilities for good-times, laughter, and dance. Rhythm circles can also reduce stress. Drumming Up Hope circles support social, emotional, spiritual, and physical wellness.
Drumming Up Hope programs include:
- breathing and stress reduction exercises to warm-up/relax
- group jams and improvisations
- drumming meditations
- rhythms and games that relate to recovery concepts
- drum making can be incorporated in to your community’s experience, and can be very empowering for those who find music and drumming to be a valuable tool in their wellness plan.
- Downtown Greensboro, NC, sponsors me to lead Junk Jams at their annual Fun Fourth Celebrations!
I use a combination of found items, homemade drums and percussion, and ready-made instruments from around the world. Would you like to collect and create percussion for your recovery community? I facilitate percussion and drum making workshops as well as found sound scavenger expeditions. Empower your community to create their own fun – the drumming can continue long after I’ve gone!
- One of my homemade drums!
What experience lead me to develop and facilitate a recovery drumming program?
Music and visual art have been my most powerful wellness tools, aiding me in the search for my own meaning and purpose and giving me the language I need to connect with others. I am a rhythm circle facilitator, Deep Listening instructor, and certified Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP) facilitator. I am a peer support specialist at Durham Wellness City, where I draw from my own lived experience to support and empower people recovering from mental health and substance use challenges. I am the founder of Durham’s Scene of the Crime Rovers rag-tag roving community band, and also direct Triangle Soundpainting Orchestra, a creative musical ensemble based in Durham, NC. I have received recognition in Durham for my work creating community based music experiences for musicians and non-musicians. In 2008, I received a Durham Arts Council Emerging Artist grant to create The Whirligig Music Project in Durham’s Central Park, and also received an Indy Arts Award for my many inclusive projects around the Triangle. In 2010, I received a second Emerging Artist’s award to facilitate monthly rhythm circles for the Threshold Clubhouse community. Click HERE to listen to the finished project!