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1 results

  • 18 - A Window into My Soul

  • from Part IV - Drumming Bodies, Meaning, and Identity
  • Edited by Matt Brennan, University of Glasgow, Joseph Michael Pignato, Daniel Akira Stadnicki, McGill University, Montréal
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Companion to the Drum Kit
    Published online:
    28 May 2021
    Print publication:
    17 June 2021, pp 248-258

  • Summary

    In this autoethnographic essay, the author – a drummer – describes how he derives meaning from playing the drum kit. He presents accounts of playing drums both alone and in the context of an original rock band. Drawing from existing scholarship on aesthetic experience and meaning in music making, the author argues that while he plays drums often in a state of flow, it may be unhelpful to construe this – as others have done – as music making for its own sake. Rather than positioning his drumming as autotelic or intrinsically worthwhile, the author explains how he plays for the fulfilment derived therefrom, as part of a life lived in search of eudaimonia – flourishing both individually and as part of a community. Drumming in these contexts is, the author argues, a locus of spirituality, understood through the lenses of embodiment, authenticity, and personal agency as a form of success. Playing drums – for this drummer – provides a connection to, and a window into, his soul.