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Benefits of EquiSync:
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 Drumming in Meditation
The drum is perhaps the oldest musical instrument in history. It was most likely invented when ancient men hit objects and liked the sound that this produced. If this was really the case, then first drums consisted of trunks, rocks, and sticks that were hit in order to produce different sounds.
Meditation has also been with humans since ancient times, although it’s hard to tell if it arrived first than drums. In any case, the techniques and goals of meditation and the sounds and simplicity of drumming made them extremely compatible, and drumming became a part of meditation practices in almost every ancient culture.
One of the main advantages of drumming is that it can be extremely easy for anyone to take up, yet capable of great complexity and beauty for both players and manufacturers, requiring years to master. It is also very open for letting players’ creativity indulge in new rhythms or ways of playing.
This mix of creativity, duality of easiness and complexity, and rhythm pacing are very useful when it comes to meditation.
One of the simplest, yet most important of functions of drumming is to keep the pace. By maintaining a steady pace, drumming makes sure that all the members of a group follow a certain activity at the same speed. Meditation groups that use drumming can achieve their common goals together and it allows the meditation guide or trainer to make everyone in a class start and end at the same time. This is the same reason why drummers were used in ancient ships (slaves rowed in a much more coordinated way).
Another use of drumming in meditation is to help the mind focus. In this way, the sound of the drum functions as some sort of sound mantra, with the mind of the practitioner concentrating in the sound of the drum to the exclusion of all other thoughts. This type of practice is normally used to make people train their minds for later and more complex practices.
Closely related to mind focusing is the use of drumming as a reminder of the goals of the meditation practice. This is very helpful for people who have minds that tend to get distracted very easily, as each beat of the drum reminds them that they are meditating and that they should keep their minds from wandering off.
Finally, drumming is very useful in some meditation practices that rely heavily on visualization. In this case, the beat or beats of the drum resemble the sound of an image that the meditation practitioner is visualizing. The most common example of this is rain or water drops. Other examples include thunder or the sound made by people marching. Certain types of drums can include different sounds, which add to the experience or allow the player to represent even more nature sounds.
Finally, there is one last advantage of drumming. It is both fun and a vehicle of expression. After the meditation session is over, players can take their drums and play them, create new rhythms, or even join other musicians in order to create a tune or a song. And after the playing is over, some types of drums, like the tabla drum, make excellent decorations.
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