Like many of us, I wake up every morning with music already in my body. Sometimes it’s a simple melody in my head, sometimes a blazing rhythm in my bones, but always something.
As the day goes on, more and more melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic patterns develop to create what can feel like a cacophony of musical phrases and ideas swimming around in my brain, as if bouncing off the walls of my skull. I feel very lucky that, as a professional musician, I have an outlet to release this cacophony. It really is a sobering force in my life, and helps me to understand many human and world perspectives that I wouldn’t see otherwise.
For me, that has everything to do with live performance. The opportunity to be in a room with so much human energy (and so many different human energies) is something that allows me to take these phrases and ideas out of my head and put them into an art form that expresses a collective human energy.
That, to me, is what music is all about. Having this collective experience that is both contingent on and emanates from the humanity in the room. You can learn so much if you listen closely. And you learn even more if you observe and internalize beyond that. Each individual member of the audience will tell you an aspect of their story if you watch closely enough.
Some people are overflowing with love, while others clearly need more in their life. Some people had a rough day and are more about decreasing sorrow, while others had a great day and are there to increase their happiness.
Being that rhythm is something that appeals to people on a very basic human level, drummers often have a significant role in defining the energy in the room. As such, I often think of this as a redistribution of the collective energy in the room. For example, those who have obvious love and joy are shining examples of keeping those emotions while allowing the music to help increase those emotions in others who may need the therapy that comes along with it. That said, as a reflection of life, music isn’t one-dimensional.
I also find it important to tap into the hearts of those who emanate pain, confusion, or struggle. It is important to me that the musical experience is as beautifully complex as the human experience. We are unified in this experience, and to fully unify is to gain an aspect of empathy for everyone involved. It’s humanizing.
This, without question, is what I miss most about my job. There has been an outpouring of support from friends, associates, and music-lovers all over the world in our COVID existence and that has been a heart-warming thing to see. We don’t have the opportunity (or perhaps what now feels more like a luxury) to experience things together, so we’ve been finding new ways to connect the dots in whatever ways we can. One of the ways that I have been doing so is a social media video series I call “Taking my Drumsticks for a Walk.” It started as a simple concept: there’s not much we can do during COVID, and while I’ve been taking extended walks around my neighborhood/city, why not bring my drumsticks with me?
Sometimes I would find a collection of random objects or usable trash on the ground and make it into a makeshift drum set to play a short beat on. Sometimes there’s a structure already in place for me to play on.
One of the many things that unify us is the world we live in and it has been so fun seeing people say “Hey, you’re in my neighborhood!” Or to share a story of an experience they had in New Orleans after viewing a video in the French Quarter or Frenchmen Street. It is a way to engage that collective human experience through something that is music, but is more than music.
Some people tell me that they love the way it feels like a virtual tour of New Orleans, others have mixed the beats I make into their own songs. Without that live performance aspect, I needed something that connected to humanity on an additional level and this has been filling a hole in my heart.
After a social media blackout (in the interest of allowing previously-neglected voices to have an arena to speak without muddling) I relocated to Alaska for a combination of fun, work, and walking with my drumsticks.
Early in the relocation of the “Taking my Drumsticks for a Walk” series in Alaska, it became clear that there was a different focus and attitude. There are nowhere near as many random objects/usable trash on the streets of Anchorage as there are in New Orleans, and certainly not on the trails of Alaskan National Parks.
As part of this reality I have embraced a focus on natural beauty, almost more like an exotic travel vlog and less of a city-centric neighborhood guide with rhythm. But what didn’t change is the fact that this series has motivated me to connect with the people and world around me in a time when I was desperately missing that human connection.
Thanks for reading and thanks for watching, I’ll try to keep it interesting.
Keep Groovin,
-Sam Shahin
Along with this blog I have included the first installment of the series from New Orleans as well as the first installment from Alaska in one combined video.
You can watch the “Taking my Drumsticks for a Walk” series on
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sam.shahin.58
Instagram: @ThisIsYourBrainOnDrums
New Orleans: April 14 - May 16 (future installments upon my return)
Alaska: July 18th - ongoing