The first sound heard by human ears is the drum… from inside the womb, the pa-pum pa-pum pa-pum of our mothers’ heart.

            “Everyone grew up listening to a drum for the first nine months of their lives,” says drum maker Don Schulz. “When you play a drum, your body gets involved on the molecular level. It’s part of our DNA.”

            While some may associate drums with Native American or Neo-Pagan traditions, or maybe a saucy Scottish pipe and drum marching band, the fact is that drums exist in every culture on every continent and in every epoch. The sound of the drum, the joy and satisfaction of creating rhythm with our own hands, is universal in humanity across cultures, across time. We may not speak the same languages, but we can all drum the same beat, together. 

            Schulz, discovered these basic drumming facts as he discovered drumming himself, almost accidentally. A former sound system salesman, he was invited to attend a book signing by Holly Blue Hawkins at Barnes & Noble, where his wife, Pam, worked at the time.

            “Holly had a mother drum, ‘Heart of Peace.’ She was traveling around the country doing festivals and protests, and she wrote about her experience of travels with the drum. At the book signing, she said, ‘Everybody grab a stick and gather round.'”

            After 45 minutes, which Schulz says whizzed by, he looked at Pam and said, “I need to make one of these.” Without any drum craftsman available to guide him, Schulz says that after some trial and error, “I just started listening to the voices in my head. I set out and found a lot of ways to do it badly.” Guided by instinct and intuition alone, he set out to make his own mother drum. He found the hoop and the hide, and on Summer Solstice made his first mother drum, “Thundering Moon.”

            “I knew what I was doing to a point,” he says, and introduced Thundering Moon to the world at a festival, planning only to play her. A friend in attendance was so impressed, he exclaimed, “Can you make me one? How much?”

            “And… lightbulb,” says Schulz.

            This was the birth of The Different Drum, Schulz’ drum making business, which he runs right out of his own garage in Citrus Heights, California. From there, he experiments with different hides and materials, new shapes and sizes, and then brings his creations to regional festivals, where he has become a fixture as a vendor. However, he doesn’t merely make drums and sell them. He holds workshops periodically throughout the year, where he masterfully guides anyone — regardless of craft-making talent or lack thereof — through the process of making a drum of their own. For about the same price as a finished drum, anyone can create the ultimate handcrafted magical tool.

            From 14-inch hand drums to massive powwow or mother drums, Schulz leads his students through the process, step by step, with an attentive eye on each one at the table, lest someone bring the lacing over when it should go under, or vice versa. Each student gets a “kit” to start: a round piece of sopping wet pre-soaked hide, a lace made from that hide, and a hoop. Although those of the animal rights activist or vegan persuasion may grimace at the idea of using animal skins, Schulz says, “Rawhide is the ultimate recycled material.” His hides are typically buffalo, elk and deer, and are procured from Native American hunters, who make their kills with respect and seek to use all parts of that animal, wasting nothing — even skulls and teeth.

            Schulz admits that in his early drum making days, he got some “blowback” from indigenous people entering his booths and says, “Me, being of Viking countenance, at first, it was really daunting.” However, he bolstered his newfound craft with the knowledge of the drum’s expansive presence across all of human history and culture and, he notes, drums connect us with the first humans.

            “Drums are part of the common subconscious. They are a 10-12,000 year old art form. We all have lineage going back to those drums. The drum is the instrument of preference for shamans and healers worldwide. It’s the original primal system. There were no gods and goddesses… everything was spirit and spirit was everything.”

            The only musical instrument older than a drum, he says, is the human voice, and even before there were physical objects on which to create rhythm, the human body itself served as a drum. Schulz gives “ham-boning” as an example, and notes that drumming can happen with “any two things you can bang together.”

            Because the drumbeat is where our lives begin, Schulz says people are innately drawn to it, and have “an innate understanding of the magic, because it’s always been there.” As he travels to various regional events, Schulz says even those who didn’t realize they wanted a drum discover that they do.

            “People will say, ‘I hadn’t planned on buying a drum today,’ and walk in, pick one up, and take it home.”

            Some are drawn to go one step further and make their own drum with their own energy and intention, and Schulz emphasizes that he does not simply lead a fun little workshop (although it is definitely enjoyable). As they build and create, participants “have a particular objective,” he notes.

            “It’s not an arts and craft session at Beverly’s,” he says.

The rhythm of creation

            All five elements are present in the process of creating a drum, says Schulz.

            “Earth: All the components comes from there. Water: The hides are soaked in water to make them pliable. Fire: Heat and evaporation take the water out of the hides and stiffen them. Air is sound the drum makes. Spirit: You can’t control perfectly what every drum will do. It is a wet medium that has to dry to get to a final point. You get it to the best you can and offer it to the spirits to finish it for you.”

            All these elements combine to make each drum unique because in addition to the human factor, the sound of a drum differs depending not only on the season in which it was made and but the season in which the animal was killed, because an animal’s fat content changes with the seasons. 

            “You can’t control all of that. You can only do it the best you can and let things take their course. By letting Spirit come in and put His/Her/Its thumbprint on it, you’re letting the magic simply happen. You give it the push, but the wagon ride is up to whatever’s going on.”

            All of these factors together means that no two handmade drums are alike. Each is quite literally “a different drum,” hence the name of his business.

            “There’s no way you can make every single drum the same. It’s a celebration of the randomness that is. I can’t control what the drum’s going to be — but why try? Doing it from ground level, imparting your quirks, tweaks, personality and viewpoints into the drum, you will make that piece uniquely yours. It will make a different conversation than the one you picked out (from his booth), but a conversation worth having nonetheless.”

            Embracing that randomness is part of the drum making experience, he says, transporting us back to “that primal point where we have no control over anything — wind, water, etc.” Although most of us believe we’re in control of our lives, earlier humans didn’t share in that illusion. 

            “Making drums takes you back to relinquishing control, and reveling in it and using it for good purpose,” which, “50,000 years ago, would be totally normal.”

            Watching Schulz make a drum is astonishing. At his workbench in his garage, he brings a pre-soaked hide, already cut in a circle, with hole pre-punched in precise places. He has a long pre-soaked lace cut from the same hide, and a wooden hoop. As he begins, his skillful hands quickly guide and glide the lace through the holes. The handle is created by looping the lace over and over through the center where the lacing crosses. He has made so many drums over his decade of craftsmanship that he can now make a basic drum in 10 minutes — which may intimidate the novice drum maker. He emphasizes that skill and speed aren’t the point — just do it. That’s the point. 

            “It doesn’t matter if you can or can’t do it. I’m there to walk you through it, and you will get a nice functional drum in the end that is in every way yours. If it’s funky, off center, skewed… it reflects the personality of the person who built it.

            “You can’t expect perfection every single time. We expect to be perfect at everything we do, so we stop trying to do a lot of things because we’re afraid we won’t be perfect at it — which is too bad.”

            Just let go and create, he advises.

            “You don’t know what’s going to happen. Rather than put your stamp on everything, let life put its stamp on you. It’s going to anyway, and drums are the ultimate example: build, put out there, Spirit makes the final look-over, and it’s going to be what it’s going to be. You can’t control it, and that’s where it gets pretty.”

Just beat it

            Besides those who are intimidated about drum making, there are others who are hesitant about drumming at all, labeling themselves rhythmically challenged and giving up before they even try. 

            “Those who say they can’t play — that’s my favorite person in the world,” he says, emphasizing that we all innately know how to drum, until we’re discouraged not to. 

            “Kids bang on things. If you hand a 4-year-old a drum, that that 4-year-old knows exactly what to do with it, and does a pretty good job with it. But kids get yelled at for banging on things — ‘stop it stop it stop it- — and that kid does just that for the rest of his life.”

            Bottom line he says, it’s all about connecting to rhythm, whether intuitively, from the heart, or as a percussionist, thinking rhythmically, from the head, and yes, there is even a small portion of the population that struggles to find a sense of rhythm. Schulz reframes those folks as having “an odd internal time signature that it’s almost impossible to create.” Should those people join one of his drum circles?

            “Absolutely,” he replies, and notes that they’re nothing to worry about. “If you get lost, find me, watch me. Just look for the big stick in the room.” That big stick is perfect for his huge mother drum, which he uses to begin a rhythm for leading his drum circles. Schulz’ students each make one of their own to go with their drums — 18-inches long, with a padded end, and tied with leather lacing.

A personal, magical tool

            Schulz points out that using a drum in ritual is different than using other types of tools that are placed on an altar.

            “The drum requires active participation. A crystal or a candle don’t — you set it up, it does something.”

            Schulz says his own magical development was guided by drumming.

            “I was a toddler stumbling along through the magical dark until I found drums. I went through my magical adolescence with drums — I was 40. I didn’t understand what magic was all about until I started playing drums.”

            Learning to make his own drums propelled his magical development even further.

            “The best magical tools are those you make yourself,” he notes, just as the maker’s own essence and signature are in a handmade wand or athame. “You are the energy behind the tool. You’ve put your blood, sweat, tears, DNA, and energy into the piece. As a result, it’s going to work best and react best with the maker. That’s the best tool of all. You build it to fit your hand, the right length of your arm, to make it work best for you. For you it’s the right tool.”

            A key component of putting that energy into a magical tool is being guided by one’s own intuition and feeling, he adds, and putting one’s own imprint on that tool.

            “That’s what it all comes down to; the common thread. It’s all about feeling. As the intellectualized modern western society, we overthink everything. We don’t take the time to just sit and feel. We’re always analyzing and thinking. With drums — especially these drums — we are on a DNA level. You can’t overanalyze it.

            “Feeling without understanding is a very primitive basic tenet. Feeling your way through things as opposed to analyzing your way through things should be the entryway into magic. It should be your starting point.”

            In his own magical life, Schulz says, “Everything centers around the drum. They are the central point of my cosmology. There’s a rhythm in every part of the drum making process — cutting, punching, stringing the lace — and even in the world at large. I see rhythm and vibration like Neo sees The Matrix. That’s my cosmology… the rhythm of the Divine.”

            Drums connect us to the Divine, and our ancestors too, he adds.

            “One of the things magical people talk about is connection to the ancestor. Nothing in the magical tool bag connects like the drum to ancestors you never even knew you had. Every one of our ancestors played a drum, and their ancestors played a drum, and their ancestors played a drum. It is magic on a molecular level — nothing else gets close. All they ask is that you play. Just play. Don’t take yourself so damn seriously.”

For more information, find The Different Drum on Facebook and Etsy, email drummaker@thedifferentdrum.net, call 916-835-1863, or visit The Different Drum online.

(This story first appeared in Witches & Pagans magazine, issue 36, 2018.)