The Rhythmist's Tale by Ty Phelps

Small park bathed in summer, small park bathed in sound. Everywhere folks wandering, folks conversating, folks roaming and rambling and ambling. Midst it all sat the boy, the boy on the bench. The boy sat on the bench and he played his drum, played it with cracks and caresses, sharp strokes, soft strokes, all sorts of strokes and he created all sorts of sound and the sounds mingled with the bustle of the park. He played “brrapp ba bip doom doom ba bap” as the folks ambled. And he played “doom doom ba doom doom” as they chattered. And he played more than that too. He startled the starlings and he spooked the sparrows, made the rabbits run and the robins roll around and around, twirling down towards the ground. He made the leaves dance and the branches dance and the folks out roaming moved to the rhythm of the boy and they swayed a little in their steps, fixed into his rhythm, dancing themselves. It’s only natural. Movement movement movement, slow and fast and always. And the bench rattled and the people stirred. Movement begot sound, and if you throw in a little pattern, you got rhythm then too, begot of sound and begot of motion and combining them both, exquisite and loud.

The boy got all this, from somewhere, though he knew not where, and he played, cracked his hands, whipped and soothed the sounds from the drum, begging for it with eyes closed, mouth moving a little, feet tapping one, two, playing “kak kak ba doom kak.” When he opened his eyes, the park was deserted, all the people had ambled off, moving to the sounds of somewhere else, and under a tree across the park there was a ragged old man, with a twinkle in his solitary eye. He started strolling across the park, wind whipping his big black coat around. He was tall, had large dark hands, hands that looked like they were made of sandpaper and … He came across and sat down next to the boy, raggedy and twinkling and old, with a big black case in his hand.

Man said: “You seem t’know how to play boy. You got lots of technique; you got lots of rhythm, boy. You even got a little style, a nice feeling goin’ on here. Let’s see if you can play with an old man here.”

The man pulled out a drum, twice as long as its case, pulled it out with a whiz; a long wooden drum, like a five foot hollow log. On one side of the drum were some slits, shaped like V’s. They looked like crocodile mouths facing each other, each ready to converse with or devour the other. The drum sparkled in the fading sun, and there were designs on it, animals, crude and exquisite. And vague designs too, entropic and strange. Then he pulled out two skinny sticks, made of hard red wood.

Man said: “Follow along boy.” And he played, an ancient rhythm, pulsating slow and the boy played along to the rhythm of the man’s drum, which boomed like a gong and cracked like a whip. They played for some time, and then the man shifted the rhythm, made it sharper, less throbbing, changing up what he was playing. And the boy faltered.

“Again boy. Let’s play one more time.” And again he played, and again the boy played along to the rhythm of the man’s drum, which pattered like rain and rolled like thunder. The man shifted the pattern, and his drum hissed like a snake and bellowed like a bull, and this time the boy shifted with him. They traded time back and forth, and the boy began to confound the rhythm, working to create conflict in the music of the man. But the man kept shifting to the boy’s rhythms, effortlessly, endlessly reconciling the rhythm from conflict to harmony. They played so long that the boy’s hands tired, and again he faltered.

Man said: “I see you like tension, boy. You like challenge and contest. But did you feel what was going on there? Did you notice what happened? We unlocked some spirit. You know about the spirit of the drum? You know your tradition, boy?”

Boy said: “No, I don’t know no tradition, don’t know no magic. I only know now, and the playing, and the moment. I don’t need to know anything else.”

The man looked at him, looked at him straight and long, and the boy held his gaze, with a proud look, and challenging

The man bade him play one more time, this time by himself, and the boy played, and the designs on the wooden drum sparkled and moved, rearranged themselves to the rhythms made by the boy’s drum. But the boy’s eyes were closed, and he saw nothing of this. When he stopped, Man said: “Son, I would like for you to tell me your story. Tell me about your beginnings, and about rhythm. Make a pattern of it, make it flow like the music you make and after, I will tell you something too.”

Now the boy looked a little sideways at this request. He said: “Look here old man. I like to play with you, sitting here in the park. It’s fine. But I don’t see what stories got to do with it. I go my own way. There’s not much that you can give me.”

“Is that so, boy? Nothing to give in this old man here? Well, let’s just wait and see about that, and while we’re waiting, I want you to tell me a story.” The man picked up his sticks and struck the wooden drum “kakakak kak.” “Here, I’ll play a little for you. So go on, tell me a story.” And this is the story the boy told:

The Boy’s Tale:

“Before I was born, I was kickin’ in time, battering inside my mother. After I was born, I cried in a cycle, I rocked to the radio, and swayed to sounds of song. Folks thought I was possessed by demons, I would cry and kick and swirl and sway like crazy. Soon I tried creating them, with some claps, yelps and the help of some good old metal pots. Drove the parents nuts, but that didn’t much matter to me. All I wanted to do was participate, make some noise of my own, and arrange it into something that made sense, that was ordered and rhythmic, something that flowed, something that grooved, something that was mine. Later they got me some toys, a pad, some sticks, a book or two and I would sit and play, hidden in a closet, alone with my pad and sticks. I got serious, got me some louder toys, got me the feet involved. The world seemed so silent when I wasn’t playing. Like nothing was going on. I wound up on the drum set, with the backbeat always booming in my head. That deep groove with so much to build on.”

Here the man interrupted him. “That may be boy, but where did you learn what you were playin’ just now? That wasn’t any backbeat I ever heard. That was some straight up West African rhythm.”

Boy said: “When I first heard music like that it knocked around in my head like a juggernaut; it just wouldn’t leave. Complete chaos, it seemed, all these rhythms arguing with each other, fighting, raging against each other in my head, almost incompatible, but all related to this base rhythm. Once I figured out how they each related, I saw how they worked with and against each other, y’know. Like siblings, or lovers even, always dancing around each other in circles. It’s tough to solo over. Yet I can always hear the rhythm that wins out, that dominant rhythm that overshadows the others.”

Man said: “That’s interesting you should say something like that: that music ain’t about time the way me and you’re used to, you know. It doesn’t go in a straight line. It’s about cycles. Cycles are a big part of what I got to say. Let me tell you of our tradition, because you’re a part of it boy, whether you recognize it or not. Just about the oldest tradition mankind has got, the rhythmic tradition. You read the Bible boy? Think about the Christian God. Well, when God created, he created with the word. With sound, boy. And next he created with division, and with division he created rhythm, like the rhythm of day and night, like the rhythm of the seasons, the rhythm of history, my boy. He created pattern and variation, and cycles, boy. The Hindus believe in cycles, the rhythm of entire ages of history repeating itself, based on the posture of a God. Just like them cycles you been playing just now.”

Boy said: “Yeah, but I know about cycles, about the repetition of rhythm. I understand the cycles. What more are you saying?”

The man looked at him, twinkling, a bit of magic captured in his twinkle. “Yeah, you notice them. But do you know what they mean, boy? Do you notice how life conforms itself to how you play? That’s the spirit of music. You can create it, but it means nothing if you ain’t able to comprehend, y’ know. You gotta comprehend, else it don’t mean anything to you, and if it don’t mean anything to you, how’s it supposed to mean anything at all? You’re releasing magic boy, and that’s exciting, and dangerous. Recognize.”

The man tapped his wooden drum a bit. It boomed and cracked, like both sides of a hurricane, pattered and flooded the sense like a sonic typhoon. “Let me tell you a story now boy. It’s a real old story, told in a real old way, and it’s about this drum here. It tells why this is a power drum. Keep your eyes open, boy. You’ll see its allies move, see them help its sound to sail.” And this is the story he told the boy.

The Man’s Tale:

“When God created the wooden drum, he first gave it to a genie, told the genie to keep it safe, for the drum’s voice contained knowledge and power. But the genie was proud, and desired conflict, desired challenge. So he cleared the land of the trees and brush, leaving only the termite hill that was his home at the center of the clearing. In the clearing, the genie set the wooden drum, and next to it he set a pair of sticks. Then he retired behind the termite hill and waited.

By and by an orphan boy, who had wandered away from his brother came to the clearing and saw the drum, sitting there all alone with the sticks. The boy went up to the drum and started playing and then the genie came out. The genie had one leg, one arm and one eye; he stood straight up, each body part resting atop the other like a totem pole. The genie said: “since you have played the drum, you must continue, and I will dance. If I tire first, you can kill me and take the drum, but if you tire first, I will kill you and keep the drum.”

The boy had little choice, so he played the drum, and the genie danced. When the genie tired, he danced behind his termite hill and rested out of sight, occasionally throwing up an arm in time to the rhythm of the boy’s drumming, a slow cycle in a constant pattern. The genie continued to hide at times and rest until the boy tired and then the genie killed him.

Now this boy was an orphan, but his brother saw that he was missing. When the boy did not return to the village his brother went out and came upon the clearing with the termite hill, and he saw the wooden drum, saw the pair of sticks. He picked them up and he too started playing, and the genie came out from behind the termite hill and repeated the challenge he had given to the first boy.

So the brother started playing, and he played “kak ka kak kak kak ka ka kak kak” with one hand, and with the other he played against it, a steady pulse that worked against the first rhythm. And the genie danced, with his leg to one rhythm of the boy and with his arm to the other rhythm of the boy and his eye grew wide with fear. The rhythms of the boy called to nature. And the grass of the clearing began to grow fast enough to see. And the termites came streaming out of the hill. And all around conflict arose and then harmony arose out of the conflict. Over head birds flew in steady circles around the boy and the dancing genie. And when the genie tired, which happened quickly from his dancing to the combined rhythms, he went behind the termite hill. But he was seen by the birds, who were allies of the drum, and when the genie would hide, the birds would all scream as one, a long note covering the whole length of a cycle of the boys rhythm. And the boy saw the birds and he heard the birds. And he saw that he was awaking magic with his rhythm and he saw that something in the genie’s dance was amiss. Soon the boy began to follow him around the hill, and the genie was unable to rest at all. He eventually grew so tired that he collapsed, the solitary eye still open wide. The boy picked up the drum and returned to the village where it became an object of reverence. People learned from its sound, learned how the sounds they made affected the world around them. The drum showed them connection, between themselves and the everything else. And the drum was mixed up in that. It was the catalyst, boy. It sat between, in a limbo land, straddling the line between the known and unknown, present in both. Able to call on both. ”

The boy had been listening, seen the patterns on the wooden drum shift and move around to the flow of the old man’s story. He had a slightly dazed look in his young blue eyes.

Man said: “That’s a story about you, boy. Recognize. Now play with me.”

And the man played his wooden drum, which rattled like seeds in a dried up gourd, and he shook the leaves from the trees, swirled up the debris on the ground until everything around in the park was swirling and whirling to the rhythm. And the boy played along to the rhythm of the man’s drum. The boy closed his eyes, lost in the trance of the cycles and as he did he saw that the sound of his own drum had stopped. So the boy opened his eyes, saw the sticks in his hands, the wooden drum in front of him. His drum was gone, had disappeared. And the ragged man had twinkled away, twinkled away with the boy’s drum. The man had given him instead the wooden drum, which hummed quietly to itself.

The boy struck the wooden drum, but no sound came out. He struck it again and it remained silent.

Small park bathed in summer, small park bathed in silence. And on the bench sat the boy, a quiet boy now, eyes wide open, striking the wooden drum again and again, without a sound escaping other than the drum’s own serene hum; hissing like a serpent, like the wind through the desert, like a bee stumbling around in the air from too much nectar.

I am indebted to Drumming at the Edge of Magic by Mickey Hart, which provided the inspiration for this story and also the Dan creation myth, of which the Man’s tale is a variation.