Joining the Tom-Tom Club
A visitor to Toyota's training headquarters in Torrance, Calif., might have to suppress the urge to yell "Babaloo!" over the infectious beats thrumming through the walls. Taking a new tack on corporate team building, the University of Toyota in March 2001 opened a special drum room filled with 150 congas and hundreds of additional percussion instruments such as maracas and cowbells.
"Well, we thought, if we all look stupid playing drums, at least we're doing it together," says Renee Moses, a Toyota financial supervisor whose department signed up for a session. But soon enough, the pulse had seduced her. "You sit down and start beating those drums, and you can let out all the stress and be free, no inhibitions."
"At first, it sounds pretty terrible, with everyone competing to be the loudest or have everyone follow their beat," says Ron Johnson, associate development manager at the University of Toyota and the resident drum guru. But "within a span of not even three minutes," people--most of whom have never played drums before--come together, playing in rhythm. In Toyota's program, as many as 50 people get together in a circle. So far, about 3,300 employees have jammed to the beat.
Afterward, people usually want more, Johnson says. No one need look far: Drum circles thrive all over the country, at community centers, in churches and public parks, and in an increasing number of hospitals and wellness centers.
The appeal isn't hard to identify, says Christine Stevens, music therapist and director of Health Rhythms for Remo Drums. "We all have an innate sense of rhythm, and when you tap that, it makes people feel more alive, productive. It's like they get a voice and feel connections to one another. A lot happens when you don't use words." -Diane Cole
This story appears in the March 22, 2004 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.