Beyond Borders: Exploring the Ancient Sounds | Episode 115 with Daniel Scruggs

(1) Beyond Borders: Exploring the Ancient Sounds | Episode 115 with Daniel Scruggs - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taoE0_44hp8

Transcript:
(00:04) War [Music] [Laughter] love that so it's not called the digy do what what did you say it's called yes so um so this is a really interesting backstory to this so this instrument has been used by Aboriginal people um for recreation for Ceremony um for sacred purposes for a really really long time people don't know how long um but we do know that that the culture um of many Aboriginal groups is at least Le 40,000 years old maybe over 60,000 years old so for reference that's you know 10 or 12 times as far back as the pyramids in
(01:08) Egypt um incredibly old culture and um the stories of the people and the culture were passed down orally and this particular instrument has over 20 different names depending on the region of Australia and the indigenous people the aboriginals that are are playing it and this particular one would be known as a yidaki because it's created by well it's created by Nature it's hollowed out by termites and this is a eucalyptus tree so it would have been growing in the ground and then the the Harvester
(01:44) who's a man called dppa ganar um he would be from an area that this would be termed yidaki so if I was to make one of these out of PVC pipe or bamboo or even if I was to go to Australia and make one out of um eucalyptus as this one is it would be known as a digu so now digu was a name that was never known to this instrument until Europeans started coming to Australia and it's not really understood why it was called digu some people think it's Anam manaia like the sound people were trying to describe it
(02:20) to people who never heard it so they would say it's like digo um and then I've also heard reference that there were there was maybe an ancient Irish instrument that had a similar name um and so for a time there was influx of Irish and so you know it's one of these things where it's it's really story you know and um U that that holds the the secret and the narratives to to these particular types of ancient instruments you know it's really had a winding path to be her into my hands and so I um I'm
(02:51) I'm often quick to point out to people that um yeah this is not a diger do it's a yidaki though uh the common name when you're in United States people know it does digy do even if they even know it when I first started playing one uh 30 30 something years ago uh 30 yeah 30s 30 years ago it was uh almost no one had seen one of these before so it's really funny now that it's become in in in the popular culture some they're both such great names I don't know Yaki totally totally uh can you explain
(03:24) a little bit of uh about what you do sure um yeah um man um yeah the the easy answer is uh is my mission is to share musical instruments and culture to educate and Inspire and unite so I have a business that's called peace culture music and I travel to different places with the collection of rare musical instruments and artifacts that I've collected for 25 years and I set up a little Museum in a space in a community space and and I teach interactive presentations so I'll demonstrate um a rare instrument like a
(04:07) Yaki and then I'll tell a little bit about the story behind it and then this instrument actually has an accompany instrument which are two sticks um people call them CLA sticks the traditional name one of them is bilma so I'll I'll get people to play maybe eight eight rhy eight notes like one two 3 four five six s eight one two something with an accent so that the group gets involved and then I'll demonstrate the instrument on top of the Rhythm behind it so um I might also talk about how to play this instrument requires a certain
(04:41) type of pranayama um a breath technique um called circular breath so you have to breathe in through your nose while you're blowing the air from your cheeks out of your mouth through the pipe to keep it going the whole time so there are all these stories um that are tied and everything is story uh for humans to to understand and symbols so a lot of my Fascination is learning about the traditional ways that people carried this knowledge and this wisdom forward into the times that we live in and I'm fascinated with the metaphor that
(05:17) instruments and sound um and culture are medicine they're forms of medicine that really belong to us all they're um they're our Birthright and these times that we live in I think it's so important to recognize that there is all this medicine that's accessible all over the world right now and um my hope is to play a little part in sharing the things that I've sought out and learned and also the the wisdom and teaching that's been invested Through Me by people that are traditional keepers of these um these
(05:53) practices and and these tools and this knowledge so it's a little long answer to your question uh I uh I love music and I love people and I love learning and um I love peace so what's your story for getting involved in this like can can you take us back to the the entry way the entry point um for you when when maybe you were hit with the medicine of music and then took the next steps to devote so much of your time to this sure man sure um yeah first of all thanks for making the time to to hang out together this
(06:34) morning it's an honor to share these things in uh in this very special place um so let's see um what comes up for me when you ask that is that I had a really miserable School experience um I had uh I'm disg graphic which means that um or I have disg graphia which is a form of a learning disability that makes um processing from thoughts into writing extremely challenging for me um I don't have as many of the textbook signs of it anymore because I've done a lot of working around it um such as teaching
(07:09) myself or being in typing class as a kid so I can type really fast um things like my handwriting are still extremely challenging to uh to have thoughts and then to write them clearly um and and organize things that are in charts and in graphs is very difficult for me so in school I I was marginalized in that sense that I had to be in special classes LD classes as they called them which at that time in the mid90s um it was really rough you know because um we quickly you know myself I can only speak for myself um I was put
(07:48) in these spaces with others who were labeled handicapped or um you know had a disability disabled you know and um you that's hard for a kid with when you get when you get pushed into a space because a lot of times we become what we're seen as and our intuitions are so strong even though my mom was saying oh you're brilliant she would use words like that you're very brilliant and you know you have all these gifts um with people and with story and with creating things and art but my reality was
(08:24) looking out and seeing you know like a lot of violence in these classes in these spaces you know because I was put in with children that had emotional disabilities disturbances um people that at that time we call them mentally AMR um learning disabled people and and then a lot of the underlying factor of this was there was a lot of um you know there was a lot of isolation in certain areas of these kids' lives they they had been neglected in certain ways there was probably a lot of underlying like physical sexual abuse
(09:00) happening as well that these children were starting to show these signs of um of being disturbed in certain ways and so I think that because I was so interested and curious and we lived uh in a place that we had a lot of woods I was able to start creating my imagination uh and developing my sense of wonder and curiosity and it was fed by a lot of love in my in my family unit um it was always a lot of encouragement for my interest and curiosity and um then at the same time uh my grandfather was a musician and he was really into
(09:45) jazz music and he was a military guy he was a veteran uh my granddad Jim so he started seeing these signs that I was Restless I was also labeled um add you know so I I had attention issues still probably do in certain ways but meditation helps with that yoga um so my my granddad um he would always encourage me to play patterns and what we call rud rudimental drumming on snare drum which is like the kind of drumming that people march to like drum cores and so from as long as I can remember I was always being taught different patterns right
(10:23) left right right left right left left or right right left left right right and then at age 10 because I'm from Williamsburg Virginia which is a 18th century living history museum where people there dress up as uh as costumed interpreters um from age 10 to 18 I was in this phenomenal organization called the Colonial Williamsburg fight and drum corp so I was a little Revolutionary War musician re and actor so I would uh would March down the street and um play drums with this group of 120 boys aged 10 to 18 so at that time it was the best
(11:03) of times and the worst of times because it was uh 120 boys and two adults and the older boys would teach the younger boys and um it was it was the the 80s and 90s so it was um very little oversight um characterized those those periods in time there wasn't cameras everywhere or there wasn't cell phones so we were really brutal to each other um in the in another sense and I think that um that's always played a role in my um in my growing my my self-image and self-worth because we were super critical of each other um very abusive
(11:41) um emotionally to each other because that's what we were taught we were taught that you be the only way to make this core uh organized and structured to the degree that it's like a machine um we were we were known as the best children's F and drum corp in the world we would mean I got paid to play drums from the time I was 10 so um we took it very seriously uh and and you're in it you know when you commit to F and drum you're in it so it's this closed Society in a way very fraternal um the year
(12:11) after I left they started admitting girls into the program so it it it softened up a lot and and they're as good as they've ever been if not better so um without digressing I think it's the um it was the love of of Music instilled in me by my granddad and um it was uh the troubling times in school and then I think it was my love for culture um being raised fortunately in a very uh integrated place um I always had friends that had different color skin um I I grew up in the place where the first enslaved Africans were taken in 1619 was
(12:53) three probably three miles from my house at Jamestown um and then Jamestown itself was the was the um you know the center of of the patan Confederacy so uh you know I always had this this Vibe you know as we say I I always felt like there were Angels around me because I did a lot of stupid um self-destructive things but I always felt like there was um there was something that was watching over me and and now I understand that as being the spirits of my ancestors and the ancient ones that that came before us and that
(13:30) um somehow guide what's going on in certain ways um and that was AFF firm to me going to indigenous places and and I've spent um pretty substantial time in Africa uh West Africa and East Africa and North Africa and especially in West Africa I've had people comment that I move very interestingly to them in that space because though I look like this they say you are African you are Afric man you like you fit in right here and and I've hardly ever felt so free as I do walk in that land of of the African
(14:08) of of the black man um there's something very sacred to that land uh and I think part of it is that those people were never they were never separated from God they they've they were never um they've always been connected to that space and I look forward to going to Australia as well to experience some of that energy um and I've had a lot of amazing teachers I've I've yearned to to experience um toage um I've been so curious and uh I've had a lot of encouragement from people that validated
(14:44) my interests um even through the tribulations of being in spaces where people um still have a lot of their own resentments and prejudices to work around you know um in this world uh where people are are radically racializing more and more um as if it's some crucial component to our existence is like the color of our skin or the way we talk or um so I've had a lot of um not a lot I've had some push back over the years of being somebody that that shares culture um but I think most of those people that um are critical they
(15:21) they're not really aware exactly of what I'm actually doing and I think again I think there's a lot of their own work there rather than um what I'm doing because I've never been um I've never been excluded by people in an actual authentic culture it's always people that are um you know say like in in the United States where there's a lot of um a lot of confusion here about what is culture and what is identity and and people being protective over these spaces and being um guards at the door
(15:55) of different cultural Traditions um so so yeah something that I'm that I'm constantly learning how to navigate this world of um having a childlike wonder about um just the the richness of of culture if you will music and people and tradition and story and um and lastly what I'll say is now my work is that I I get to travel around with this Museum of cool things and um I get to share with groups usually from 20 or 30 people uh maybe that's in a yoga studio or um doing sound Journeys with my teacher
(16:33) Tracy sahaja shout out to her she's a she's um she's a veteran of of this space Sacha danda and um I do drum and Rhythm Gatherings around the world with uh with different uh rhythms from different traditional cultures uh and uh I do that with veterans groups or retirement communities or children uh most what I do though is is really large Gatherings of young people in schools I'll teach 200 in a big group or I'll do four groups of 200 all during the day almost a thousand children I'll see all
(17:13) during a day and I'll um I'll do my interactive presentations with maybe 15 or 20 instruments and I like to say it's kind of like a fire work show where it's just nonstop engagement you know I'll show this instrument then I'll show this Rhythm and get the kids to clap along or I'll show the West African drum and I'll have this side play this Rhythm and this side play this poly rhythmic clap so it it and then I'll tell the story behind it and maybe I'll highlight a friend of
(17:41) mine that I met on the journey that embraced me and taught me this Rhythm or this fun little fact I found out like the yidaki is the only uh nonmedical intervention for sleep apnea doctors prescribe this instrument and learning how to Circular breathe to strength and the muscles around the nose and the face so there's all these little diddies um that that I find so engaging and and and that's what I light up with as you can see long answer to your question thank you how do you feel when you're in front
(18:14) of you know a large group 200 people or so and it's on you to guide this experience that so many people are happening are having like yeah yeah um that's something that is a real uh Alchemy a magical thing because I think because I'm so uniquely um organized at this point for that experience you know it's it's having the the command of the command is not the right word a fluency with these instruments um is one thing so I've been playing I'm 44 so I've been playing drums professionally or formally you
(19:01) could say for for 34 years so um I don't I don't like to use the word Mastery of anything because the more that I learn about things the more I realize I don't know so when I'm when I'm playing drums for instance um I know it so well I know it like a language so when I'm teaching a large group I'm not speaking in really technical highly intellectual academic terms I'm speaking very simple metaphorically so I'm teaching this group to be like ABC and this group to be like EFG and so to me I know it in
(19:43) and out so much and I teach I share these things with thousands of of people every year so at this point I've gotten very fluent in how it works with large crowds and so there's always outlying things you know there might be um I remember one time um I'm aware of your question I'll give you a funny story about um about outlier type things so 98% of the time um if it's a if it's a group of adults and I'm doing a a keynote speech that's interactive I'll be doing something like
(20:19) that tomorrow uh th Friday night day after tomorrow uh up in leeburg Virginia for a uh Association of public monor school teachers um maybe 120 people will be in the audience 120 180 and so um I will I have to read the dynamic of the crowd and see well are these people going to be some of them standing there like is sort of an Afterparty type thing so it's like well this certain thing might not work if half half these people have drinks in their hand and there's not someplace to put the the drink I'm
(20:57) not going to I'm not going to sandbag all the other people so that it makes it awkward you know it's like things where there are these different components um it's it's reading the crowd and then one of the things that comes up with with children is that you know I might I might work in a school that has um the the beautiful policies of integrating children who would be considered special needs so there might be some children that have certain emotional or intellectual challenges to where they um
(21:33) they might just have verbal outbursts or they might their body might start shaking when I'm in the middle of showing a crystal singing bowl so it's like the ability to transition where it's embracing the uniqueness of that child and using it as an opportunity for everybody to see that because they're looking at me for for validation to to normalize the situation even though it's an abnormal situation in a in a larger context it's a normal way of being with humans um a lot of times you know in this culture we
(22:10) marginalize those people so they're not integrated into the society so I love that nowadays people are being more as as someone that was marginalized um in my learning experiences um when when things like that happen that's when I really see a somewhat of a miracle happening because I'm being used first of all I'm I'm I'm being puppeteered by by the marionette master I mean that's that's the first thing is the more that I do these things I know that to be true I've I've woken up to that intermittently and
(22:51) when I'm on stage sharing with lots of people that's when I'm most present because it's working through me I don't have enough time Daniel is too much for Daniel usually like and yet when when I am being acted through to deliver what's coming through then I become fortified as the vessel to share these things and I'll tell you a a interesting story that I got to experience myself working was um they were all these children it was a sea of children and I was demonstrating um what's known as as cimba or imira it's a
(23:39) thumb piano U many people are maybe familiar with a thumb piano and I found that most people are not familiar with that it comes from actually comes from two different areas in Africa um one about um they think like 6 to 800 years old and then another place they were making them with uh with with reads and different kinds of wood and so they're may be over a thousand years old so in southern Africa the area we now call Zimbabwe um there are people called the Shona people so there's over 2,000 languages spoken in the continent of
(24:14) Africa and before Europeans came these weren't countries they were they were kingdoms of different of different regions there's over 7,000 languages spoken in the world I tell people and and each of those languages has a culture with stories and cosmologies behind it so the people who made this certain kind of thumb piano that's generally known now as cimba um they're the Shona people and for the Shona people the thumb piano the sound of it is a sacred sound that's used to connect with ancestors that have passed away
(24:49) before us so it's like a cell phone for for connecting with the ancestors and um I love that little tidbit about it um because it really um as a human that feels it it makes so much sense that that would be the sacred use of it and it's used recreationally and um you know it's used for used for for Gathering and fun and um ceremony and um I will demonstrate that instrument and I'll talk about different aspects of the Colima like the different resonators that make the sound expand um and I'll talk about
(25:24) the technique to playing it so one of the ways that I keep the children engaged is I say say can you pretend that you're using your thumbs to play the CA and so um this has been probably 6 seven years ago so I I wasn't as versed as I am now um at at at guiding large groups um so things like this that come up now I'm able to flow with a little better but I remember this was a Monumental one sitting there and I say I say um you the kids are all quiet they're they're they're in raptured with
(25:58) the with with the interaction and they're so ready to hear the sound cuz I've hyped it all up I say can you pretend that you're playing a cim with your thumbs and I hear uh I hear a little voice say Mr Daniel I don't have any thumbs and I'm thinking who is this little troublemaker back here cuz I think it's some kid messing around and I look and it's this sweet little boy and he holds up his hands and he's he he has a a deformity from birth he doesn't have any thumb he just has hands with no
(26:31) thbs and my stomach dropped inside of me because all the little children are looking at me and he's their pal you know he's one of the gang so so so you know the message I'm getting you know in real time is like man like what are you going to say to this kid how are you going to neutralize this and so I watch myself say just without skipping a beat I said oh that's okay buddy we don't we don't even need to use the thumbs we just we call it thumb piano but you can totally just do it by plucking with your
(27:01) fingers you know if you ever tried to play a piano so all the kids start doing it with their fingers like this and I feel this sense of relief you know because even as children they're so highly sensitive to to each other and to differences you know but they haven't had anybody judge the differences yet per se it's like they only pick up what we as adults or authority model for them so so I don't think I would have had the capacity you know I would have overthought that if somebody had given me that situation before I would have
(27:40) been like okay well I guess this is what I do and this is what I do and you know like oh gez you know and then after we might have to have a sensitivity talk and you know like I I'm not really necessarily like that but when I project how systems work these days there's a lot of that overthinking and analyzing to make people feel more included when in the moment you know the spirit moved through me to make really light out of it and make it hey no worries man you don't have thumbs whatever dude let's do
(28:11) it with our fingers and it was like the collective sense of relief that everybody felt by it not being a thing because obviously those kids knew he didn't have a thumbs and and I and it makes me sad to think a couple years older and he he probably would get mocked and ostra by some children because of that but they were still at an age they probably five six maybe so so it just became something where um you know the the for lack of a better way of putting it you know the spirit moves through us all and I love things that
(28:45) allow me to be encapsulated um with these things that I'm so intimately connected with because it's not only is it fulfilling um it serves a purpose and a function for others you know I I I think a lot about and I tell the I tell children all the time I've got a few main tenants that I that I drop on them and I say you know more and more in this world that I grew up in in the west the message that we get is is is like give me give me give me give me that what what what can I get and and to me that's
(29:22) never been fulfilling you know in a in spiritual circles and in um covery groups they say you know it's it's the god-sized hole or the the hole in the soul that's that's unfillable and the only thing I found to find that fulfillment is what is the gift that I can give to the world you know what is the giant package of gift that I can that I can give to bring Joy to the World and then I say you know have you enjoyed this time that we've shared together you know and generally fairly universally it's yeah because you
(29:58) know these instruments do the work for me in a lot of ways I've gotten very fluent at presenting them but this is the magic and the value of these things and I also ask people another one I ask older kids is how much is music worth to you and they look at me and then I say so for instance if I said if I gave you a million dollars today to never listen to music again for the rest of your life you can't hear music anymore and so to see their brains flip you know and a lot of them of course they compulsively say
(30:33) shoot give me a million dollar I I but then other ones you know it it stops them because it's one of those things like love you know what what is it actually worth to you you know what is it worth when it's not there you know what is the space that that holds and because it's not transactional in our world and because it's you know you can't really put a price on it though people try to vibration and instruments it's hard for us to quantify that because we've been raised in this place that's disconnected
(31:05) in u the true value of things perhaps it's fascinating to consider this question of the value of music yeah really and I I wonder about moderation in this regard for different things in life like uh sometimes things that that are really good um the automatic response is just gives me as much of it as possible but maybe that's not uh so wise I've had this thought it's kind of ridiculous some time ago but it was around animals is that even my daughter recently as a school trip we took her to the zoo and
(31:52) she got to see all these different animals and she's been exposed to animals I mean once you have a kid you real the connection between child and animals just animals animals animals yeah and I wonder if it's too much like if it would be wiser to you know as children grow to expose them to like and then there's this thing called leopard and then there's this thing called penguin you know like kind of like build it like one at a time and I wonder about this in regard to to music if if we're
(32:23) just born and we just we inundated with so much music um and also so many different instruments at one time and what I think you're doing maybe is is is giving the gift of of um isolating sound more medicine as as you called it um yeah anything to say about this is this and the importance of of kind of listening to One instrument at a time and appreciating that particular unique sound that's that's that's deep man um yeah what comes up as you say that is um yeah that's funny kind of we weaning
(33:07) children into animal exposure um yeah I think uh you know with with instruments and with life it's all vibration you know I remember somebody turning me on to how lasers are concentrated light and light is waves of energy so a laser can be used to cut somebody open and do a surgery and then when we go back in many forms it's the same vibration inherently that sound is and so I think that when we use instruments in a conscious way and music in a conscious way is different than using it as an in an unconscious way um and and
(34:08) what I mean by that is [Music] um a lot of these things are right on the cusp of allopathic Western medicine and Eastern medicine naturopathy and we get into a odd gray area because we live in a culture as well where um many people don't have a means of being validated in some way and so everything is kind of for the taking so if something like sound is really appealing and it's innately powerful because it can connect and it can reach there are people that will say oh I can I can I'm a sound healer like if you
(35:01) come to me I'll heal you I I can play these bowls and I can sing these ancient verses that I learned in my sound healing tribe online and it will heal your cousin of cancer I don't know about all that but I do know that traditionally music has had the capacity to put people in states where they have had experiences of being healed from disease and it seems to me that from my own experience when I'm under a great deal of stress I have physical manifestations of that stress through through illness um and then on
(35:48) the other hand for instance when I come to yogaville for you know a week or or when I was in the light program many moons ago now um as things started to settle uh even even better example when I did the vasana um the the 10day meditation uh which I had just been in Rio de Janeiro living for three months and then I came back to the US and 2 days later I went to vasana which is like 10 days of meditation for 10 hours a day and I was in my late 20s I didn't know what I was getting into I just thought it sounded cool so when I went
(36:30) there and the vibrations that had been accumulating and and shaking through me for my whole lifetime are you ably way way farther back even um all these things started to settle like ripples on the water and in that state I was able to have a completely different experience and interaction with the world that I was experiencing so where I'm going with this is that I believe that instruments have the ability to create those vibrations and then the space between those vibrations all all ancient music and music in general um
(37:13) rhythmically it has just as much unique space between the sound and when Rhythm happens there are all these phenomenons like entrainment is one of them like like I've experienced this so many times I I don't even remember anymore I can give 20 people drums to play and we can start playing doom doom doom doom and everybody starts playing together on the same note or the same phenomenon happens when children swing on swings or adults uh we start becoming entrained in that swinging or when women stay together in one place
(37:54) I've heard that their menstrual cycles start sinking up this is entrainment so there are these things that are happening that are are way beyond our conscious um will that are ingrained in us that are right on the cusp of what science is proving and what ancient people have always known and what I was digressing about in that middle is that it's really hard in the in the noise and confusion of this culture where traditionally this wisdom was passed on by lineages of people that often times worked in secret and they worked in
(38:34) isolation so that they were able to keep that grounded seclusion from noise that might be I say noise vibrations that might be in congruent to the harmony that was required for them to transfer these ancient things for instance the yidaki that I have here there are certain cultures in Australia that this instrument is only um sanctioned to be played by men who are Aboriginal and there were times that in my understanding that people that heard this instrument that were not of that secret society of men would be killed
(39:17) for even hearing this instrument so it played a sacred place I have a a water whistle from Peru that was used apparently shamanic so that if someone um heard it and they were sick it would have the ability to clear out any kind of negative vibrations if you will and create a state for that person to be healed so that's um you know that's what comes up for me as you mention the different sounds to me things can create and they can destroy and our words and our intentions have the ability to allow us to expand
(40:01) or contract and everybody's experienced most people have experience just like a a dog in a room um Can can sense when something's not right to somebody anybody spend a lot spend a lot of time around animals they they've seen that they can sense Vibes and you know I think that when we do that's what I meant by doing things within intention I don't know that in a lot of ways it can be scientifically validated at this point in time but I tell kids when you listen to music that talks about things like I
(40:46) love you or man you're really beautiful or you're doing really awesome keep keep doing it I got your back then I say it's very different than listening to something and I always be careful I never say this to them I'll say if something is you know if this is you and then somebody says hey I hate you you look terrible in those shoes and those clothes we feel that as humans I don't know that that can be registered on any kind of machine The Vibes of that but if somebody's continually hearing messages
(41:19) that are degrading and they're negative that affects people and people that already have trauma are often attracted Ed to that type of energy just as when people are in a state of balance and peace and upliftment people can be attracted to that and my thought is that well more and more I have become conscious to discipline myself that when I play this instrument I think things like the former like hey I really hope that what I'm sharing with you in my words today helps anybody that's curious about the direction to go in
(42:05) their life or I'm sending out a lot of love I mean that's the simplest one is is just imagining love and light you know a type of um you know loving kindness meta meditation if you will um you know these things are ways of choosing to be that people have considered and practiced for as long as time and it can get swallowed up by the noise of conflicting vibration but inherently instruments are playing different ranges of vibrations and just as one person likes a certain kind of song or a certain type of uh
(42:48) food it may be repulsive to another person sometimes when I share certain instruments people are really uncomfortable say around you know a lot of times people do these gong baths nowadays which is really beautiful and for a lot of people the gong is hitting a very low chakra and that's where a lot of trauma is stored for people so somebody that's just taken a weekend course on being a sound healer um you know bless their heart and and they're probably doing something to add to somebody's Journey but it's it's also
(43:23) playing with fire in a way because if somebody's not that's why a lot of these Traditions were kept through lineages of people same with yoga and pranayama um you don't want a child operating on a on somebody doing heart surgery and and that that can be a child you know physically or or spiritually when we open these things up it could be very dangerous and it can turn somebody away from the path of of what they're looking for in this lifetime if it's not given properly so um long answer to your
(43:56) question to that I think that instruments are one of the most beautiful gifts that God has given us and to come at them with an intention of of humbleness and with compassion uh and and again one of my hopes is with what I do the educational part is to dignify and humanize the people that created and kept these Traditions um I I've never claimed to be anything that I'm not in regards to these things um I'm not an indigenous Aboriginal person I I'm not a you know African person and yet in a way we're
(44:36) all these things you know this is I'll say one last thing you know I've got over 200 instruments uh from six continents and I've been to 24 countries some of them many times um mostly in what we would call the developing World um and some Native American reservations and all that are experiences that I was blessed with to be able to share and fortify this collection of rare things that I believe is everybody's collection if somebody comes in a room and says who owns these I say me but the truth is that I'm the one
(45:18) that gets to take care of these things I'm the one that gets to protect these right now because I'm a link in an infinite chain and one day if I do my job right God willing somebody else will take my place in sharing the wisdom of what these things hold so that's that's what I think you mentioned um like instruments are one of the greatest gifts from God yeah right and I wonder um you know it almost it almost seems like yes and our instruments also one of the greatest gifts that we've given to
(46:04) ourselves right because it takes a certain amount of creativity uh to okay carve out in a eucalyptus tree or whatever it is to think oh what how is what is going to happen when I do this right so I wonder if instruments are also maybe like um at the Pinnacle in a way of human creativity oh certainly bro there there if you look at it that way you know they're an expression of the human just as flowers are to plants or leaves are to a tree you know there are there are flowers you know there are representation of our human expression
(46:40) in that way and um one of the things I'm fascinated with is the the prehistorical roots of some types of instruments for instance this is um as I think I mentioned this instrument is fascinating because it was hollowed out it's a tree that was hollowed out by termites by little ants so the only human intervention on this instrument was cutting the top and the bottom off and then painting it so humans created that sound somehow organically they figured out that that that that could make that sound by buzzing one's lips well there
(47:16) are there's a h there's a small handful of A Fistful of instruments there's the voice uh there's the drums and there's the flute or whistle and then there is you know then there is the um what could be known as bull Roar are you familiar with that a foil it's a I almost brought that um it's a string that's connected to a piece of wood or a piece of bone or a piece of stone U that's shaped like a small fan blade and then it's spun it's it's it's spun here um and then it's and
(47:52) then it's swung around by a person and it goes w w w and so that instrument or again it's it's not only an instrument because in many cultures it's a sacred sound tool and it was found in six different continents the oldest one was radiocarbon dated I think to over 23,000 years old and it was found in a cave it was made out of animal bone and it was found in a cave in Ukraine now that instrument also was used in ancient Greece and dionan festivals um then it was used by Aboriginal Australian people
(48:31) for communication over long distances was also used in secret ceremonies again where anybody that was not sanctioned or initiated into that secret ceremony could be killed for hearing that sound um it was used by children um that were going west with their family across the plains in the 1800s to to Spook each other to make it sound like it was a ghost in the woods um it was used uh in many many African indigenous societies um and that's just to name a few um uh Polynesian society and um New Zealand have have a version of it so every
(49:11) culture in the world um well excuse me cultures in every continent of the world have had these these sound making tools and just as you said I mean they're they're an expression of us and and when it gets to that that space where it goes so far back and they're found in all these different places it's like they blossomed like flowers or they pollinated and there were people that were going around way way before we know I'm I'm a little bit of an armchair Anthropologist in the sense that I'm
(49:47) fascinated with human um migration and so there are many elements of instruments that have have traveled around for instance the the ubiquitous hand pan that people know as Hong instrument that looks like a spaceship um those were found for the first time around 2001 um some people in Switzerland made one well they had based that on the steel pans from Trinidad and Tobago which were um EXC guarded steel drums that people would carry things in over ships and then they'd throw them away well the people that would make
(50:25) those were the descendants of in slaved people from West Africa and those people were Geniuses and experts at instrument making and their own right and they had the history of of course they were brought over with nothing material but they had the wisdom of of the Ancients in them and these instrument making techniques and for instance they would take um tuned bamboo pieces so say you had like a 8 in long bamboo piece and then a 10-in long and a 12in long and when you hit them on the ground they make different pitches so they would
(51:03) pitch them perfectly and then they would use those to um to they learned how to pitch the steel pans by by banging them with a with a metal Hammer that was um softened on the top so it didn't didn't Dent it too hard and they would make the perfect pitches tuned off of these bamboo shoots so I consider the I tell children when I explain that um digression that this hand pan that we know is this beautiful you know um magical uh trippy instrument in in the US now that you go to festivals and see everywhere or or all over the world now
(51:43) it's it's somewhat of a an afro Caribbean European instrument you know so in just my lifetime uh you know it was first found around mid 1950s was when they were first finding these um steel drums made in in the Caribbean um so you know just in just in 50 years 60 years we've seen this this migration of this instrument through you know human Ingenuity and and culture you know cultural dispersion or or Alchemy if you will so it's all about perspective you know and everything is story you know it's like what we believe to be is is
(52:21) what we become and how we see the world you mentioned uh childlike wonder and maybe some some of the common experience that people have is losing that right like when we're children we all have this wonder and just curiosity about what is this and what is that and I got the sense that maintaining that is extremely important to you almost in a way like safeguarding your Wonder I'm wondering you know especially um in regard to different instruments right because you've learned how to play so many different instruments and there has
(53:07) to be that deep curiosity there of like whoa like how many times have you experience like whoa this is something new that I'm learning about for the first time how does it work what's the story behind it all of that you know yeah yeah um and do you feel like any pressure ever like like I guess what what prevents us from having this uh this wonder and curiosity and how can we maintain it as an Outlook as a way of life great question um yeah you made me think of that that phrase you know Love Is A Verb
(53:45) you know and and in that sense life life is a verb you know and I think one of the things that I learned experientially going to West Africa was that I was way too stuck up here and drumming in Africa made me have to come down into my heart and I think that that's an element of really a certain type of toxicity in this Western culture where we've been barraged our whole lives anybody under 50 has been raised on marketing campaigns to manipulate us to buy to be consumers and I'm you know I think that I think that for me I was really
(54:47) fortunate that I learned a degree of discipline at an early age and I think that having account ility structures is something that's very rare in this culture because generally people I don't think like responsibility unless they're unless they're modeled that like being on a farm you have to do all the farm chores and things people from my generation and I think I judge younger than me um and my judgment is is that that literally using the literal term of spoiled we we're spoiled because we
(55:29) haven't had to experience um you know and this is a generalized statement there are many people that have experienced varying degrees of trauma but compared to when I've traveled at the developing world where when I'm in Ghana there's no running water there's no toilets um you know there's no really no sanitation um so you know it's a different degree of um you know AB poverty there here we have a different kind of spiritual poverty you know but when when I look at my life I think up
(56:07) until like 10 years ago I started having some massive changes with my relationship with instruments because I had gotten to a sort of critical mass maybe where I had a certain fluency with with um the yidaki with jimbe drums and with drum kit so I had played with certain bands and I had started to get validation in myself because the evidence was mounting that wow I can have an interactive relationship with others with these and what that really is is a metaphor for I am able to give of this and regardless of the external
(56:53) validation I am having a reciprocal experience with my relationship with this tool and so once that started to occur then something clicked in me I think where it was it was like okay so I feel fulfilled when I'm able to share these things so how am I going to set that up because I knew that you know on the ego level again I'm a product of this culture I grew up in the same soil you know I was a early wer to be a influencer and part of that too was certain traumas that I had as a child um not only with school
(57:41) but but certain types of abuse where it really it really isolated me in my in my heart so I always used to Crave to have validation externally from others I wanted people to like me think I was special I wanted people to want me around because I have felt so so marginalized and pushed away little things like being a little pale redheaded kid with freckles um when I when I went to Catholic school for a couple years and you know my little group of friends they had had a a sleepover and and I was not invited you
(58:19) know something has seemingly little is that where it hurts so much and yet it was such a gift because out of that out of that you know that that wound I found the ointment through these through these tools and to come back to your question I think that the most important things that I do to keep that up are I create accountability and I belong to well I belong to an organization called whatever it takes which is a online accountability group where uh we come up with three different um we come up with three different objectives like one of
(59:06) mine for instance is I do yoga I do ASA um four times a week minimum 45 minutes and um that way I know I'm doing that I've been doing that for four years like without I do it more than that a lot but I never do it less than that and I have a group of people that I check in with every week that I'm going to do I Journal three times a week 10 minutes minimum um I do it more than that sometimes but I always do it minimum that um and then I write um this book I've been working on I've been working
(59:37) on two different books um and one is kind of the things we're talking about using instruments and culture for teachers and for educators um to you know to to create more uh more cohesion um so so having the accountability and having the discipline and then again looking at the world as what can I give rather than what can I get out of it because that's the that's the formula is that you know part of the problem with what's happening now in the west is we don't have a lineage of tutelage to
(1:00:13) anything there are people involved in religious groups and ideologies but it's very different than having something that is secular like Community where when I go to West Africa people just dance and drum in the evenings and everybody comes and expresses themselves people aren't drinking and getting high they're just coming together and enjoying being with the kids and the old people and singing the traditional songs since we don't necessarily have that people seek validation through Facebook
(1:00:44) posts or going to the club or you know you name it so to find things that we're able to give in a way I think hacks that because it's Crea the opportunity to have the Fulfillment through our reciprocity of giving but it's doing it in a way that is not sacaran it's not like um it's not we're not giving and losing we're we're getting because that's our that's our nature is is to be abundant and and and to be fulfilled um and full of of life you know and with no strings attached we
(1:01:24) don't need to pay for that we're not supposed to and so to create something like an ashram in ourself and where we go that's the objective but there's not a lot of there's not a human yet that that gives us these instructions on how to live like this so ideally I think it's to find our tribe and you know be be the be the the best friend work on being the friend that we want to attract you know the partner we want to attract and then it will attract more of that to us and if that's truly what we want then it
(1:02:06) starts to again have this kind of critical mass where these these things are attracted to us and then we're allowed to be vulnerable because we're fortified in our self enough that we can experience that childlike Wonder because even Masters that I've had my master in Brazil of capua CLA uh who is the the grandmas of shaki joro which we didn't even get into Capa but uh if people don't know it check that out um he's probably mid 70s now and I I tell people he is like a real master because he is um of a lineage of
(1:02:44) descended of African people so he's he's he's a deep dark skinned man and yet we call him the master and I'm the only non- Brazilian in this group our group goes back eight generations to an enslaved person so this is this tough guy that's a that's a legit fighter and yet he could hold a little baby and be just jolly and and and silly and he clowns around and he's the best Joker and yet if anybody came in the room trying to harm any of us he'd be the first one up to take that person out you
(1:03:20) know he's the he's the balance and by having that space and that confidence in oneself were able to be vulnerable and so that's my hope for people is that you know we Embrace that that light that we have innately and we also Embrace that that shadow that is there to teach us you know that that fear is good we have to be so careful we have to protect women and children and the vulnerable you know and the stranger you know and and these little simple things that that sound cliche in a way they're they're
(1:03:58) things that um there are Birthright and and they are choice and and each of us gets a choice to do that it's hard in the world there's a lot of noise and disharmony but I think by making little steps towards one own personal practice and discipline like diet and movement and and you know talking connecting with others finding people that will listen there's a lot of help available you know these are things that we have to treat ourselves like a child a lot of times cuz it's hard out there life's always
(1:04:29) been hard it's particularly hard right now in the world so um that was a long di tribe on that um but that's what comes up for me when you say that thank you for I love this I think I think of it as like um you know uh building a foundation that um once once once stable or more and more stable and secure then uh I'm not disregulated as easily yeah and that allows for that exploration exactly man which is so important exactly man yeah you're exactly right bro um I know you have an upcoming program yeah at uh here at yogaville
(1:05:09) yeah uh so can you share a little bit about this program and what you hope to do yeah sure man so um so it'll be a little bit of a mixup a little um mixups maybe not the right word mixup we use that in like re music um kind of a um a little mix of of a lot of different VI so I wanted people to have the experience um last time I came and did a a program um it was in the um it was in the Lotus um in the in the in the belly of it in the inside and it was more of a passive kind of extended shavasana I call them like a sacred sound Journey
(1:05:46) where I did a whole presentation of these rare instruments that are used in sacred purposes traditionally and in different cultures so I did um Segways between them and and continuously played uh sound the whole time and people seemed to really enjoy that there was a lot of um there was a lot of beautiful relaxation and um and at the same time um I have this gift of sharing drumming in ways that make it accessible and fun and inclusive for beginners all the way to Advanced uh stages of playing Rhythm and one of the ways I do that is I take
(1:06:30) traditional rhythms from different areas in the world that I've studied and I make them um I take the complexity out of the out of the foundation of playing them together so so we'll take um however many participants say we'll have 20 um I have uh gim Bay style drums West African jimbe drums and we'll each have a drum and then we'll start with this found ational um aspect of this traditional Rhythm and then as we play it and we get in the groove together I'll give cues of how to kind of jazz it up more and add more
(1:07:08) into that Rhythm so it gives people an opportunity to experience Rhythm making as a group so it's a it's a way to non-verbally communicate with each other um I always I always work on making it 100,000% fun and also challenging so that everybody can exper experience what it feels like to be a Child Learning something new again and that's something that's so special for me is that when we tiptoe our little toe into the water of learning new things it can be really scary at first and then the other side
(1:07:42) of that fear is that it invigorates us and makes us feel alive so the so the workshop is going to be um it's going to be I think 3 days I got to check it out um I I'll have been traveling from now until then when which is kind of wow for the next 3 months I'll be I'll be on the road going west and then and then to Hawaii and then I'll come back and I'll be right back here in yoga Ville when I get back so I really excited um God willing um get there and back protected and um so it'll be it'll be an
(1:08:13) exploration of some rare sacred instruments um some of which people can check out and hold um be probably 15 instruments I'd say most people have seen only half of them before in person and um so I'll get to tell a little bit about the stories of them and then we'll do a lot of interactive drumming as well there will be time for uh if people want to connect and I just you have a follow-up question about this or that um that's what I'm here for it's my passion and my love and um it's an honor to be
(1:08:43) here I I just um I wish there were more places like yogaville where people could come and and get away and also um come to uh you know have that space to to Really find that Harmony within themselves and connect with some other people on the on the like path so excited to see you then yeah for sure uh one more question I wanted to ask you know you've you've emphasized the importance for you on giving like focusing on not necessarily what what what can I take or what do I want to get yeah but the act of of giving yeah and I
(1:09:21) wonder if you feel that that has connected you more with your purpose instead shifting and looking at it like that like that like what what can I give to others if that feels like it's connected you with your purpose that's a that's a good question man um for sure it's it it's it goes It goes hand in hand um you know it's um it's it's a catalyst to to more fulfillment of that for and and you make me realize something that I I'll give a little a little offering on that is that I ask
(1:09:58) groups sometimes um or or I instruct them I say um if you were me up here looking out at all of you imagine that you were the person that was standing up here say that say that at the last minute I got into traffic and I couldn't be here and they need somebody to stand up for an hour and keep everybody's attention with something cool that they would be into what would you give if that was you and so depending on the age you know I know that a lot of them their world is not any bigger than you know 20t around the
(1:10:35) school you know if they're really young and as we get older our our perspective gets larger and larger so I say well well look at this so if nothing comes to you right now in 5 years what if you could do anything you wanted what would it be that you do that you stand up in front of this group and share with everybody what could you invest in so much that you get as excited as I do about all these things so it gives them those opportunities to say like what am I into you know and I always use examples looking out at the crowd I'll see you
(1:11:08) know a little girl with really cool braids so I say it might be Hair Braiding I'll see a kid that's got some shirt with a reference to something Minecraft or something that I have no idea about and I say it might be computer game designs and I'll see a few of them go yeah or you know or it might be basketball if I'm in a country area it might be farming you know and so I try to hit them with a few different things that are you know Sports you know so it's like well you can take that and then you can get so excited about it and
(1:11:38) know it in and out you know and I say to them I say music and instruments these are my thing that I'm interested in you might not be interested in all in this stuff but it's the same formula what can you find that gets you excited and I really believe that everybody has something some people are not even safe enough in their self to acknowledge what it is that they want so much and that's where those of us who do have something get the unique gift of holding the space that they can feel safe and vulnerable
(1:12:12) enough that they can even let that pass through their mind as a little seed because it might be years before they build the foundation that they can start expressing the want to move towards that you know so it's it's a constant Evolution man you know and I and I and I wonder you know it's like I found something that I'm so grateful for each day because I used to live in a shell I I for all intents and purposes felt like I was in a an emotional cage for a lot of my life and now I feel like somebody that got out of
(1:12:53) prison that is free and had a million dollars in a Ferrari I mean just metaphorically just like just like you know I'm the richest guy I know you know I tell kids that all the time I'm the richest guy I know they're like how much money you got I'm like that's not what I mean I don't have I used to say look at my car cuz I had an old car but now I pay payments on my van but it's like I'm the richest guy I know cuz I get to do what I love and I get to bring joy to others sometimes and and it's like it's
(1:13:22) not that difficult you know there's so much noise out there so much disharmony but but inside you know like we know we know this life is way more than then than the media would tell you you know then the the narratives out there would tell you that are trying to sell you something it's like we we got it man the truth is is that this experience is a gift yeah it's a miracle man that's the that's the TR a miracle you know so so that that's that's a little bit of of what I think man I'm I'm so grateful for
(1:13:54) for you making this time to to hang out and I'm I'm excited to know you man and continue our our friendship dude yeah me too if uh someone is interested in checking out your work what's the best way for them to do that yeah thanks man so um I have a pretty cool website it's uh peace culture music.
(1:14:13) com uh I also have a YouTube channel that is the the same one um Peace culture music or you can search my name Daniel Scruggs um and then if you're ever in Williamsburg Virginia and I'm there at the same time I have a a studio there which is it's a museum that's where I keep all the artifacts and um instruments and um if we can arrange it I give private tours of that um I'll travel anywhere I've traveled um sharing my programs all kinds of cool places and um really into helping other people to you know kind of
(1:14:48) navigate the world of finding instruments and finding one that resonates with you and I say uh you know if I don't know the answer one of my teachers probably does and if you think I'm cool wait till you see my teachers cuz uh you know all these things they're uh you know they're they're they're tools you know and I've been doing it so long that you know just like a magician it it makes it look easy but really all it is is like it's like learning a language or learning to write you know
(1:15:13) you put enough time into something and then it becomes you and you become it you know and yeah I'm really opening up to realizing that practice is pretty much the answer for that's it bro almost anything it's just simple it's like just showing up dude showing up man you know like you spend an hour every few days doing something man over time you know the relationship with everything you know if I start it's just like a language if I start Spanish right now which it's on my mind because that's
(1:15:43) what I'm working on you know in a year I'll have one relationship with it I'll be like wow I'm so much farther than a year ago or I might judge it as gosh I'm not getting much better but then in 3 years I'll look back and see how much far in 10 years so my relationship with drumming was you know after 10 years oh man I thought I was awesome I went to college my college professor was like whoa you're like really good at this one element of drumming but the other elements I was like a baby at like read
(1:16:11) music all this stuff and then 10 more years and I was like man I'm not really as good as I thought you know all these people around me can play this and that so much better and then 10 more years you know after 30 years it was like okay like I I'm pretty fluent at this but then it started Dawning on me like whoa like Indian music whoa you know I can't even grasp it African music whoa I can just begin to so yeah but you know often you know we say like oh I'm not good at that right but the truth is that we're
(1:16:47) not even qualified to make that statement because we haven't put the time in you put the hundreds of hours in and you still think that you're not good at it okay then could say that and good is so relevant man because it's like it it's the person having the most fun at the end of the day you know and it's and it's the ability you know I tell people sometimes people a lot of times they see videos of what I do and um sometimes people make sideways comments that sort of seem like I could do that like I
(1:17:17) could totally do that like your life is so cool you got very lucky like and I'm like I don't know man and like I've been working at it obsessively for a really long time and only in the past 5 years have I been able to do it full-time and and have a business where I'm not bankrupt like every year just a little bit making enough money that I can make payments on a van you know and a lot of that is like it's it's the parts that people don't see that are are are the the glue that that binds it you know it's like
(1:17:57) doing something so much it gets to the point where one is um it just it just it's not it becomes part of you you know it's not it's not like an accessory it becomes becomes us you know and then when it's looked at like that then it's like nothing else really it matters you know it's like it's like parachute jumping that you can study it all day and you can be all ible about it but unless you jumped out of a plane with a parachute you really don't know you know and I think that doing things like that
(1:18:34) yeah practicing and practicing next thing we know is it it becomes us something shifts and those who know don't say and those who say don't know you know and here I am saying cuz I don't know so yeah man that's uh that's all I know bro this has been uh really cool man yeah would you mind um closing us out bless us out with it yeah yeah so yeah grateful for this time grateful for my teachers my family and friends here we go sending us off with some love Vibes with the sacred yidaki of the Aboriginal people
(1:19:16) [Music] peace Brother awesome howy going thanks for listening if you've enjoyed this content and think others might as well please feel free to share and subscribe