#rhythmic patterns

In her scholarly article "The Symbolization Process of the Shamanic Drums Used by the Manchus and Other Peoples in North Asia," ethnomusicologist Lisha Li establishes a universal framework describing how the drum as a symbol transmits symbolic meanings among shamans, people and the spirit world. She provides an in-depth analysis of the symbolic functions of the drum from an ethnomusicological point of view. All elements of drum music such as timbre, rhythm, volume and tempo play an important role in Manchu shamanic ritual. By using different parts of the drumstick to play on different parts of the drum, different timbres can be produced for transmitting different meanings. Different rhythms transmit different meanings and enable the shaman to contact different beings in different realms of the cosmos. Volume and tempo arouse feelings in the listener and communicate symbolic meanings directly as aural sense experience. The drum is also a visual symbol loaded with symbolic meanings.

In Manchu shamanic drumming, rhythmic patterns with odd accents are frequently used, which are related to the cosmology of Manchu shamanism in which the cosmos has nine levels divided into three regions. As Lisha Li points out, "before healing a patient, the shaman beats his drum very hard three times, then chants and beats the drum repeatedly in three-fold rhythms. According to old Manchu shamans, "Three-accented Patterns" are for accessing the Celestial Realm, "Five-accented Patterns" are for conveying the intention of spirits to the people, "Seven-accented Patterns" are used to drive away malevolent spirits, and "Nine-accented Patterns" are for working with all living beings in different regions of the cosmos."

One of the paradoxes of rhythm is that it has both the capacity to move your awareness out of your body into realms beyond time and space, and to ground you firmly in the present moment. A steady, monotonous single beat, for example, will arouse and vitalize you. At a rapid pace of about 180 beats per minute, a steady, unvarying pattern stimulates an upward flow of energy within the body. It creates the sensation of inner movement, which if you allow it, will carry you along.

A two-beat rhythm, on the other hand, produces a different sonic experience. The soft, steady lub-dub, lub-dub of a heartbeat rhythm, at around 60 beats a minute, has a calming and centering affect. It reconnects us to the warmth and safety of the first sound we ever heard -- the nurturing pulse of our mother's heartbeat melding with our own. At a rapid tempo of 180 beats per minute, the heartbeat rhythm stimulates a downward flow of energy within the body. Every rhythm has its own quality and touches you in a unique way. These qualities, in fact, exist within each of us, longing to be activated.

It is this process of internalization that allows us to access the inaudible yet perceptible soul, so-to-speak, of a rhythm. Another paradox of rhythm is that the audible pattern is the inverse of the "inaudible matrix." Every rhythm has both an inaudible (unmanifest) and audible (manifest) aspect -- silence and sound. It is the inaudible intervals between audible beats, which allow us to hear the grouping of beats in a coherent cycle or pattern. We sense the interval as the "off-beat" or light element and the audible beat as the heavy element. The drummer establishes the audible beat, whereas the silent pulse quality unfolds by itself in any rhythmic pattern.

Master percussionist, Reinhard Flatischler, in his book The Forgotten Power of Rhythm, established that all people perceive the unmanifest essence of this silent pulse in the same way, regardless of how the drummer shapes the audible pattern itself. As Flatischler puts it, "As the inaudible part of a cycle, this pattern exists in a universal archetypal realm. The audible shaping of the cycle, on the other hand, exists in the realm of uniqueness and individuality. In rhythm, both sides unite and thereby allow the individual to make contact with the world of archetypes."