What Actually Happened?

    On Thursday, May 24th and Tuesday May 29, we created a sound experiment on the Sun God Lawn of the University of California, San Diego. We knew that a social environment can be changed by the way something appears; introducing lawn chairs in a chair-less environment for example provides a recreational benefit to bystanders. However, the addition sound to a generally tranquil environment could have either good or bad consequences. Allow me to introduce you to some of the things that we discovered.

    First off, I began the experiment alone with six to seven plastic buckets and short lengths of PVC pipe. I sat for a long time hitting the buckets by myself, as I watched countless people walk past with no more than a glimpse at what I was doing. What I realized was that it was not that the activity was uninviting; the activity just did not look amusing with only one person performing. What was needed was a group percussive effort so that any prospective participants would not feel uncomfortable if they chose to participate.

    What was noticed after the first brave soul decided to take part in the event was that the overall feeling of awkwardness was washed away. The event had manifested into what it was supposed to be, and therefore it became inviting to everyone else. Those passing by began to ask if we do that every weekend, or they just became more interested in general.  So, as soon as more peole got involved, more people WANTED to get involved.  We soon found ourselves lacking drums and drum sticks.

    With regards to the drumming sequences, a lot can be said about the dynamics of our drum circle.  Once a sizeable amount of people were drumming with us, I noticed many patterns.  First off, someone always took the lead: setting the core beat for others to follow or play off of.  As soon as the main beat was established, the sound of the performance as a whole improved because the drumming was not jumbled and unorganized.  Also, as soon as a core number of people played for a sizeable amount of time, and everyone's specific beat styles meshed well, it was hard to compensate when anyone left.  Once a member of the group left, it was as if the rest of the group was forced to compensate for the loss.