Drums Of Illumination

A Frame Drum Roundtable With
Alessandra Belloni, Judy Piazza, And Miranda Rondeau

By Diane Gershuny Originally published in DRUM! Magazine’s March 2010 Issue

Shrouded in mystery, the frame drum can be traced back to the Paleolithic era, and has been historically used as an ancient technology to alter consciousness in spiritual ritual. Images of women playing the frame drum are pervasive in artifacts of goddess traditions from ancient civilizations in the Near East, India, Greece, Rome, and other parts of the world.

Last November, internationally renowned tambourine virtuoso, singer, dancer, actress, and author Alessandra Belloni brought together a group of kindred women frame drummers in a weekend workshop and evening concert at Remo’s Recreational Music Center in North Hollywood to honor the feminine and the healing power of the frame drum.

The group included devotional singer/frame drum artist and teacher Miranda Rondeau and Judy Piazza, a multi-instrumentalist, workshop facilitator, recording artist, and educator who teaches the Egyptian riq and has performed on many frame drums from various cultures.

We gathered together Belloni, Piazza, and Rondeau to talk about the history of the frame drum, and how they learned from — and broke with — tradition in their own work.

DRUM! What inspired you to bring together these specific women artists?
BELLONI I had been conceiving of this event for a long time and chose a unique ensemble of women artists who I believed were very different and all had the power to summon feminine power with frame drums, voice, and ritual dance from ancient healing and musical traditions around the world, including southern Italy, Brazil, Asia, and the Middle East. They were all my best students and they each took their own path musically and artistically. I think we created a fiery global percussive journey in honor of the feminine principle, for women and men alike. The workshop participants were taken by the different skills and knowledge each woman had to offer, and the audience really loved the concert as they all danced with us at the end.

DRUM! How did each of you take what you learned from Alessandra and apply that to your playing?
PIAZZA I met Alessandra early on in my drumming. I took her workshop in Vermont at a camp fair. I was in a transitional point in my life. I had been a musician of many other instruments, and still am, but the drums really shifted things in me. My first teacher and inspiration was Glen Velez, and then to see a woman who had taken this path and was so proficient and passionate about living her gift in the world, really inspired me.
BELLONI And that was great to see, too, because Glen Velez was my first student and he inspired me to continue this path.
RONDEAU I started playing the frame drum 15 years ago, after I first saw Layne Redmond perform. She gave a slide presentation of women playing the frame drum throughout history, and when I saw that my heart cried out. It was like a homecoming. There was something familiar in seeing women playing the drums. She was my first teacher, and then someone gave me an article that Alessandra had written. When I read it I was crying because I was resonating with what she was speaking about and I knew that I had to take her workshop. When she plays I feel the room fill up with the energy of women drummers from ancient times.

DRUM! What is the connection between women and frame drums?
BELLONI The instrument goes back to prehistoric times. They were used mainly by women to honor the goddesses and to heal the community, because they are highly spiritual, very feminine, and are connected to the Moon and the Earth. We believe it was mainly a matriarchal society. The Earth goddess, Cybele, was a very potent goddess from Anatolia [Turkey] who is also worshipped in ancient Greece and Rome. The legend is that she was made from a black meteorite that fell from the stars and is now worshipped as the “Black Madonna.” I was born in Rome where you can see still frescos of Cybele with a frame drum or women holding a round instrument, not necessarily like a tambourine, but with the skin and the frame. The tambourines were very popular in ancient Greece and the women would use them to induce trance in their rites. They are now still used in southern Italy ceremonies honoring the Black Madonna in the tammurriata. I’m really proud of the fact that I was born in southern Italy and the tradition has never died there.

DRUM! Each of you plays multiple instruments, but what drew you to the drum specifically?
PIAZZA I had a total insatiable curiosity about women and frame drums and how they were connected. The frame drum, in a broader sense, was so totally integral to healing, for men and for women, because of it bringing alive the feminine aspect of our human nature. It’s much more subtle — there’s a fluidity and motion with the drum unlike some of the larger drums. To use the healing aspect of rhythm to connect to the mother, to the Earth, to all the elementals, became very important to me, especially in my work as a music therapist.
RONDEAU I got into drum circle drumming at a [Grateful] Dead show, and I was magnetized. But I dance — I didn’t think to drum. It wasn’t until I read Mickey Hart’s book, Drumming At The Edge Of Magic. There’s a section where he talks about the technical side and the spiritual side, and in a way, that gave me permission to play the drum. Inside my head, there was conditioning that said drumming is for men. Later I saw Layne Redmond play, and I knew I was supposed to be playing this instrument. I realized, too, that I had a lot of other conditioned, collective thoughts about women — that they are inferior — and I carried that around. Healing began as I learned about the connection between the drum and the divine feminine. The sound echoes the mother’s heartbeat. Its archetypal shape represents wholeness, unity, and oneness. Like Judy was saying, the drum connects me to the Mother and the Earth and elements that sustain us. This gave me new thought patterns about women. Wendy Griffin, a women studies professor at Cal State Long Beach, created a group called Lipushiau, [who was] the first written, named drummer in history, a high priestess. And our first gig was a women’s conference at the university. All changed my life.

DRUM! How are you breaking boundaries in technique and approach?
BELLONI I’ve taken the Italian style into other rhythms. Traveling to Brazil was a big part of it. I realized that the technique that is very loud and strong was perfect for Brazilian rhythms, and could be heard over other instruments. I designed a Tam Brush for Pro-Mark that I use together with the tambourine, so it keeps the sound of the drum. In my case, working with Glen [Velez] and other great drummers, like Rick Allen from Def Leppard, I feel like I’m absorbing everything and using it in my music. But mainly my playing style is a Latin American art with Brazilian rhythms.
PIAZZA I’ve been a part of the Arab community in Michigan, after moving there 25 years ago before I came to California. I met a master Lebanese oud player and he asked me to play with him. I thought, What are you thinking to ask a white woman to play in a traditional Lebanese situation? He got flustered and said to me, “Music is not of the country, it’s of the heart.” This changed my life and took me another huge step in becoming at peace as a white woman who is insatiably obsessed with the drums. He gave me permission in a way, and had a lot to do with my own shifting and confidence in playing out, and in feeling that I could. I was making beautiful music and people were responding. I remember saying to Glen that I’d only been playing two years, and I had no business teaching. He told me to just share what you know. I play in various settings and styles now, including Andalusian/hip-hop fusion, yoga classes, kirtan or devotional music gatherings, women’s music festivals, solo concerts, retreats, and festivals in and out of the country.
RONDEAU I think what I add the most is the vocals. There are not many people that are drumming and singing. My vocal style transcends language, bypasses the intellect, and is devotional and invoking in nature. I like the melodic part of the drum, and because I sing, I like to experiment with where the different tones are in the drum. I’ve explored different ways to hit in two different places to get the tone that I want and from there is where the music is inspired. As far as playing situations, I open up for many consciousness-raising events as well as play for baby and bridal showers to birthday rituals to funerals and memorials. I also work a lot with different goddess communities, playing for their rituals to create a peaceful, meditative space as well as playing for dance and kundalini yoga classes, and working with kids. I like sharing the frame drum and getting people related to what it is. When I perform I try to make it participatory to initiate people to the possibility of playing.

BELLONI Sometimes it can be two things. Unfortunately, because of my style, which is so powerful, it can be inspiring to some and intimidating to others. I really want to turn that around and make it accessible.
PIAZZA Like Miranda, I work with children as well. I think all of us have this in common, as far as using the drum to connect and synergize, and with that synergy, we go deeper down the path of rhythm at every level in our being. Children often have never seen drums played in this way. It’s amazing what happens from that: Young people become inspired in their own modes of expression — a seed is planted. Recently I heard from a student that was into head-banging music when I knew him. He reached out to tell me how deeply he had been influenced by our time together in high school.

DRUM! Is there a definitive technique involved with playing the frame drum or is it very much individualistic?
BELLONI You have to start with the basics, whether it’s southern Italian, Brazilian, Irish, or South Indian, and then take that technique and make it your own.
PIAZZA And there has absolutely been a lot of fusing of cultural styles.
DRUM! How has the technique evolved through that fusing?
BELLONI Glen Velez was the one to make everyone look at that. He took technique from many other countries and made it his own. I think he deserves to be recognized because there’s a credible, feminine energy coming from him that is not macho at all. Even though he was my first student and we played together in a duo for many years, I learned a lot from him as far as technique. If it weren’t for Glen, a lot of people wouldn’t be doing this right now.

DRUM! Are there other players carrying on the tradition and breaking new ground?
PIAZZA There are more and more people frame drumming, whether they’re carrying on the tradition or making it their own.
BELLONI Like Layne Redmond — she was also inspired by Glen and is making it her own.
PIAZZA Rowan Storm.
BELLONI In Brazil, I know lots of them.
PIAZZA And that’s just it, for every one of us who have earned some recognition, there’s hundreds back in the culture that are fantastic and that we’ve been inspired by, that have not received any acknowledgment.