TaKeTiNa Interview with Reinhard Flatischler
Colleen Caffrey and Amy Jackson are partners in Rhythm Synergy, an Atlanta-based
team of drum circle facilitators and West African drumming instructors. We are both
currently enrolled in the 4th U.S. TaKeTiNa teacher training and are very excited about
learning this unique form of group-rhythm work to add to our professional offerings. We
interviewed founder of TaKeTiNa, Austrian percussionist Reinhard Flatischler and asked
him to share a little about TaKeTiNa for DCM readers who may not be familiar with the
process. Reinhard spoke with us from ZIST, a retreat center south of Munich, where he
and his wife and co-facilitator, Cornelia Flatischler conduct their European trainings.
1) What is TaKeTiNa? Can you give us a brief description of the TaKeTiNa process?
One could say: TaKeTiNa is a very intense rhythm experience in which the body
is the musical instrument. With stepping, clapping, and with the voice participants
are guided into three different rhythms simultaneously. That is a very complex
task for the leader but a very simple procedure for all participants. It start simple
like a childrens game, but soon participants come into a very intense fluctuation
between falling out of rhythn and falling back into it. The stepping rhythm is
supported by a brazilian surdo bass drum. So there is a stimulus from outside. The
rhythmic voice of all participants is connected to the movemebts and this is a
stimulus that comes from inside. And while the group recites the rhythm sillables,
tha leader talks freely over it and introduces yet another clapping rhythm. It is a
multilayered experience from the very beginning and it opens senses and awarenes
of everyone involved.
While people experience, that they are never lost, even when they lose the
rhythm altogether, they gradually are led to a point, where they are able to feel a
very deep connection with the flow of rhythm. They find themselfes in complete
harmony with a complex multi layered rhythm, an they know: this is only
possible, because a deeper source of rhythmic knowledge has opened up.
Before participants fall into this state of awareness, they are withnessing,
how certain behaviour patterns, inner reactions and old believe systems can hinder
them to come into flow with rhythm, with themselfes and with the group. This
gives them a chance to be their own „teacher“, to use the rhythmprocess as a
mirror. At the climax of each journey participants fall into a state of timelessness,
fully merging with the rhythmic flow. After the journey is over, they are invited
into a deep rest in silence. Finally there is the opportunity to share experiences
verbally with the group and with the leader. This combination of nonverbal
experience of rhythm and the possibility of verbal integration provides a solid
foundation of a healing, even therapeutic process.
With TaKeTiNa people are able to regain their natural creativity, musicality
and their connectivity to musical rhythm. It is a very effective way of learning,
understanding and playing rhythm on any instrument. It entrains your body into
the fundamental rhythmic building blocks existing in all forms of music crossculturally. It connects people - through the falling in and falling out, through
working with chaos, through working with multi layered rhythms- into a direct
experience of groove and flow - one of the most fundamental skills for any
musician.
2) Can you talk to us a little bit of how TaKeTiNa was created?
TaKeTiNa grew out of my own life. As child I was suffering from several
psychosomatic diseases like asthma, heart arrythmia and panic attacs. At the same
time I started to play piano in a very young age. So instinctivly I knew, that music
contains a healing power that would help me stabilize my health and my psychy
and my life. However I did non know how to access it
3) Were you looking specifically to rhythm?
Intuitivly yes! It was obvious for me even as a teenager, that rhythm is all around
us and it is the foundation of all music. But I had no idea how to access the
„healing side“ of it. What I felt, was a stong calling to venture out to get to the
„roots of rhythm“ - to find a path, that would enable anyone to access this
fundamental lifeforce, and I knew: in order to do that I would have to study the
„phaenomenon rhythm“ in depth. So I traveled to Afghanistan and India, to Korea
and Japan, to Cuba and Brazil, to Middleeastern contries and Africa, where I took
time to study with masterdrummers of these cultures. The most important question
guiding me in these times was: why are musicians doing, what they are doing.
What do they approach rhythm in this very special way. And each culture had
different answers.
Soon I knew, that I needed to find the underlying rhyrthmic matrix that
connects each of these cultures musically. I discovered the existence of primal
rhythmic movements such as pulse, cycle, subdivision pulse and with this
knowledge and the help of thousands of people who came to my rhythmgroups in
the late Sixties, I was able to manifest a group process that brings peple back to
the ancestrial memory of rhythm. They encounter their rhythmic being and they
are able to discover, what behaviour patterns seperate them from the flow of
rhythm and the flow of life.
4) Why does TaKeTiNa use the body as the main instrument - not a drum?
In he process of developing TaKeTiNa we did use many different drums. But
through the specific combinaton of working methods in TaKeTiNa we needed to
go back to the most elementary but also most direct possibility - using the body
itself is the music instrument. There is nothing between you and rhythm anymore No techique, no sticks. In TaKeTiNa the leaders drum and play for you, mutually
stabalizing and challanging your bodymovements. On the one side, this makes the
rhythm experience very direct and intense. On the other side you can later transfer
all the body knowledge you gained in TaKeTiNa to and music instrument you like.
And experience has shown, that TaKeTiNa can be a great supplement for
drummers of any background.
With the body as the main instrument, all the elements of TaKeTiNa came
together pretty fast: using voice, stepping and clapping in three different rhythms
as a multilayerd experience; using rhythmic syllables to manifest rhythmic
movements - just as indian tablaplayers or korean tschanggo drummers do on their
drum; incorporating learning on the edge of chaos and order, unlitmately leading
to a deep state of self-organization and group synchronisation.
Many times people come to a workshop with a clear preconception: I dont
have rhythm, or I cannot sing! And every single time it is a moving story to
witness, how people discover their rhythmic source. This is why the first book I
wrote, has the title “The Forgotten Power of Rhythm“. The rhythm is still there,
but there was no guidance to discover that. This book will be re-released in 2011
through a Californian book company called LifeRhythm.
5) Where did the word “TaKeTiNa” actually came from?
The rhythmic voice is something we have forgotten over a long time. But it is so
fundamental in learning rhythm. It connects inside and outside, it build a bridge
between listening and moving. That is why so many cultures use the rhythmic
voice in drumming. In the process of developing TaKeTiNa I reseached rhythmic
voice in depth and with the help of the Indian Yogi Harish Johari I found through
meditation many different combinations of syllables, that are expressions of
quantities:
TaKi - stands for 2,
GaMaLa for 3,
TaKeTiNa or MuSanGaLa stand for 4 and so on.
No more counting! Our research shows, that people using those syllables activate
different parts in the brain, then people counting rhythm in numbers. It goes much
deeper and emties the busy mind. And these syllables are not coming from any
specific culture. They are merely a result of my investigation of what works, and
what does not work.
Although there are so many different combinations of syllables used in
TaKeTiNa, the participants in the early rhythmgroups obviously remembered the
TaKeTiNa syllables most prominenty. Because soon they started to ask: “When
will we do TaKeTiNa next time?” So one could say, the process
called itself
„TaKeTiNa“.
6) Can you tell us some of the benefits of TaKeTiNa?
TaKeTiNa povides benefits in different realms: it can serve as a spiritual path, it
can be used in therapy and it also can be focussed on intense musical learning.
Therefore we focus our work according to the group we work with and of course
also to the workshopthemes, trainings, and semiars we offer.
One of the most general effects of TaKeTiNa is, that people who dont trust
in their musical or rhytmic ability discover, that their are deeply rhythmical
beings. For many this is a sensational revelation and conincide with the
discovery of their overall sensuality. They might have lost confidence in the
beauty of their voice when they had to sing in school. But in the TaKeTiNa
process they are supported by the whole group and guided by the leader into
resonant sounding voice. Many of them regain their ability to sing and use their
voice in a creative way within one workshop.
Another very common effect is the experience of timelessness - a
state which is usually, quite difficult to access. It’s a state, in which one does not
care about past or future. It is a radical experience of Here-Now. And it is a state,
that is very liberating, because in it there are no worries, no hopes, no desires and
no fears. Just life, just being. That is, why many people experience TaKeTiNa as
an intense way on making holiday. One could say: TaKeTiNa ís one of the most
efficient ways of getting into the present moment.
7) So you’re touching on these two different types of learning in TaKeTiNa – part of it
rediscovering rhythmic knowledge and then there is all this other learning about
connectedness, communication, and being in the present moment. Can you say more
about that side – the ways in which rhythm and the TKTN rhythm process leads learning
larger life lessons?
One has the possibility to experience a great deal of freedom in TaKeTiNa
because you can create you own individual journey while at the same time being
part of a collectiv process that unfolds continuousely. You can lay down any time,
move freely, move in the rhythm with steps hands and voice or participate with
only one of these layers. That sounds amost impossible, that a complex
grouprhythm is able to unfold when everyone has the freedom to participate in his
or her individual was. And yet this is the very heart of TaKeTiNa: polarities lose
their either - or character. In TaKeTiNa polarities complement one another. The
message one gets in this enviroment is: everything will go on, even if I dont carry
on, and it will be there when I feel to participarte again. Such a field promotes
trust: trust in the power of rhythm, trust in you own capability, trust that you are
alright, whenever you lose the rhythm. Trust also that you will be exapted by
everyone, even if you make mistakes. And because you are not afraid anymore of
mistakes, you recognise them easy and detach form action in the right moment, so
you are not disturbing the greater flow of the group. Because of that, coming back
into rhythm becomes increasingly more and more easy. This learning naturally
also transfers to life. The understanding, that life always carries you, no matter
what happens in the moment comes in on a very deep level and this is how
learning music and learning for life comes together in TaKeTiNa big time.
Of course there would be so much more to tell, but finally just one more
benefit: with TaKeTiNa it is easy to learn how to deal with complex situations.
Our world, due to the enormous growth of the population and through our
connectivity becomes more complex by the day. So learning, how to live through
complex situation is not just a sparetime hobby for specialists, it is one of the
major skills we all will have to learn if we want to invite a liveable future.
In TaKeTiNa the simple and the complex realms are always close
together. If would participate only with stepping, you would likely find the
rhythm to be quite. If you include the claplayer of even the voice, both running on
a different meter you might find yourself out of rhythm long before you expect it.
The elementary and the complex are connected in TaKeTiNa and exist at the
same time. Therefore every participant can go back and forth between the two
realms in his or her own timing.
8) One of the main formats in which TaKeTiNa is presented is a 2 to 4-day workshop,
which in many places may occur once per year or less frequently than that. Do you think
a lot of the rhythm learning and the personal growth benefits can be experienced without
practicing TaKeTiNa on a regular basis?
Yes I have experienced that the last 40 years: TaKeTiNa does not need daily
practice. It works on its own, after someone has gone through the intense three or
four day process. A new network has been established between the motor and the
sensor system. The nervous system has learnd to relax on a very deep level. The
voice has found a deeper resonance and many times the voices of participantes
sound noticably different after a workshop. Participants have mastered to let go of
the fear of making mistakes or panicing while losing the rhythm. Naturally has a
resonation in daily life. The body has experienced primal rhythmic movements
and fundamental building blocks, such as Offbeats or archetypal rhythm figures.
Naturally this results in recognition of these building blocks when someone listens
to music after the workshop.
If you have entirely and with your whole body entered - lets say the Offbeat
Ma - which is a fundamental building block in any music, just a couple of minutes,
you will be able to recognize this movement in any music. Your body knows it,
and what your body knows determens, what you can play on a drum or an
istrument. The drum is the extension of your body.
9) I remember there were people who came to our second workshop in Atlanta who
remarked that they had not done any TaKeTiNa in the year between - but that they really
remembered - the rhythms came back to them much more easy.
That is one advantage of TaKeTiNa: whatever you have achieved in a journey
stays with you forever. Even more: after the workshop, the nervous system
continues to integrate all the information on a deep, unconscious level. That is one
reason, why doing TaKeTiNa workshop does not need weekly repetitions. The
cathartic process unfolds in you a deep and lasting rhythmic knowledge that can
be applied in and form of music.
10) Can you tell us about the research using TaKeTiNa in medicine and mental health?
When we successfully started to work with Painpatients we became very courious,
where the healing effects of TaKeTiNa come from. And the only realistic way to
find it our was to do serious research. And quite amazingly many different
physicians and scientist became very interested in the TaKeTiNa rhythm
research.
Although we started the first research sessions in the Eighties, the real
serious research manifested itself in the last couple of years, using two methods of
accessing informaion: Measurements of Heart Rate Variability and Brainwave
activity. Both are conducted before, during and after each TaKeTiNa
session.
Dr. Klaus-Felix Laczika, musician and physician at the Univerity
Hospital for Internal Medicine in Vienna, a leading member of our research team
explains the connection of heart rate variability and the nervous system in the
following way:
„A healthy heart does not beat uniformly – like a machine or a
metronome. The natural irregularity of heartbeat is the expression of its
harmonious, simultaneous adaptability to immediate situations as well as to
simultaneously occurring bodily processes. Ideally, the heart can adapt its
frequency to each individual breath.
The explanation for this is simple: every breath creates subpressure in the
chest. This suction ensures both that air is inhaled as well as that more blood flows
into the chest for a short time. To transport this increased blood volume into the
body, the heart beats minimally faster during inspiration, subsequently returning to
its slower pace during exspiration.
During a relaxing deep sleep phase there is a ratio of circa four faster and
slower heartbeats for each breathing cycle. Over a time period of four breaths, the
blood pressure varies in a slow wavelength phase to finally return to its starting
point. During four of these minimal blood pressure waves, the blood circulation in
peripheral tissue increases and decreases. The harmonious time-relationships
occurring in our autonomous nervous system are comparable to the overtone
spectrum. They are processes that occur unconsciously and that we cannot
influence. When multiplied, they lead to the cycles in which hormones are
released and point to the rhythmic harmony behind the concepts of all biological
processes. This synchronicity and harmony unfolds especially during a state of
regeneration – also called “vagotonus” by physicians.
Over the last ten years, fundamental medical research has provided
evidence at the molecular level that fatal cascades in diseases can only be
disrupted in the vagotonus state. In addition, all repair processes produced
naturally by the body take place only in the vagotonus state – a situation that has
been proven down to the molecular biological level. This scientific evidence
reflects thousands of years of knowledge about illness and recovery used by all
medical traditions over the ages.
At the same time, conventional medicine is aware of the fact that vagotonus
can be achieved only in very limited ways through medication. Access to the
autonomous nervous system, or more precisely: the path to synchronization of the
autonomous nervous system, can be reached by non-pharmaceutical methods such
as TaKeTiNa.“
During TaKeTiNa seminars in 2009, participants were monitored with
HRV devices by vegetative functions diagnostician Dr. Alfred Lohninger
(Autonomhealth, www.autonomhealth.com). Although we were excited when we
started the seminar and hoped to get medical evidence about the processes
occurring in the autonomous nervous system during a TaKeTiNa session, the data
exceeded expectations of everyone involved. In synchronicity with the phases of
the TaKeTiNa process the HRV images impressively mirrored the biorhythms
produced naturally in the body. After individual phases of spontaneous falling out
of rhythm, video documentation shows an unconscious re-entry into rhythm. This
rhythmic reintegration, which happens without any cognitive strain whatsoever,
runs parallel with a direct rhythmicization of the autonomous nervous system and
can be clearly seen in HRV images of participants.
With this data we had a first scientific evidence of the effects that
TaKeTiNa has on the nervous system. In the meantime we continued our research
with brainwave measurements and found very interesting high amplitude
synchronisations at a 42 Hertz frequency, that is also to be found in meditating
monks. We will soon release the exact data of this ongoing research.
11) People reading “Drum Circle Magazine” are people who love to play drums.
“That is wonderful - drums are my passion too! Many different drums
12) People reading “Drum Circle Magazine” are people who love to play drums.
I think sometimes people because they know TaKeTiNa is about rhythm, they go in
expecting to be playing drums.
That could well be the case. If you come to one of our „TaKeTiNa drum and
percussion trainings“ you will see a group of roughly 50 people with various
drums: congas and cajons, korean tschanggos and japanese taikos and also all the
percussion stuff from Shekere to Gongs. This course is focussed on developing
clear sounds on the drum, impovisation skills, group arrangement and ensemble
playing.
However, there are also courses and workshops, where people discover
their body as the primal rhythmic instrument and as I mentioned already, that too
has great advatages. There are many musical skills you can develope more easy
without an instrument, such as the independence of left and right hand, or
coordination of hand and feet movements. But also getting a clear sense of a
cycle, such as a fivebeat, sevenbeat, or ninebeat can be opened more easy without
a drum. Through the TaKeTiNa steps, which are becoming autonomous
movements over the time of the process and the constant rhythmic shifting of
bodyweight, that entraines in the equilibrium one can a get a very profound
rhythmic orientation even in more complex rhythms. It is also a prime training for
groove and flow and that is, what drumming needs most.
13) Many people who will read this magazine are drum circle facilitators -- people who
are working with groups of people in many different settings, from schools, hospitals,
retirement communities, etc using drums and percussion to create in-the-moment music.
Are there things that a drum circle facilitator might take away from attending a
TaKeTiNa workshop that they might apply to their work as a facilitator?
Yes, certainly. Basically, I do believe that the two worlds - drum circle
facilitation - as I know it from some of our students-and TaKeTiNa are very
complemental. A drum circle facilitator could learn new ways of leading a group:
how to deal with chaos phases, how to manifest self-organization for example.But
also gaining first hand knowledge of more complex rhythms, such as 7, 9, 11, 15
beat cycles or interesting polyrhythms. Finally: TaKeTiNa is a powerful tool for
improvisation, arrangement and composition and all this knowledge could be
implemented in drum circles.
14) If someone were interested in learning to facilitate TaKeTiNa themselves, when and
where will there be opportunities to learn that?
We are in the midst of the 4th U.S. teacher training now and have just begun a new
training in Europe. However we are planning to start the next training in the US in
fall of 2013. This training will enable participants to not only lead TaKeTiNa
circles but also apply the knowledge and skills they gained in facilitating drum
circles or other areas they might be working in.
15) When will you and Cornelia be back in the U.S. for workshops?
My wife Cornelia will come to Atlanta to lead a TaKeTiNa workshop in
September 2011together with Advanced Teacher Elaine Fong. Our next workshop
together will be in 2012. At the present moment we are a bit streched with
projects: concerts, working with percussionists, working with orchestras, working
in reseach and therapy, leading three teacher trainings worldwide, writing a new
book - all the takes time. But we will make sure, that we will offer at least one
TaKeTiNa workshop in the US per year.
16) Let’s say there is someone reading this article who is interested in doing TaKeTiNa
but they live in a place, where there are no TaKeTiNa facilitators nearby. What would be
a good way for them to get involved withTaKeTiNa?
TaKeTiNa does not need to be practiced on a regular base. A three days workshop
is a cathartic experice and the effects created by it last a long time. So you could
just plan to come to one three day workshop per year. But there are also now 40 or
50 TaKeTiNa teachers working in the U.S in different formats. And if you dont
want to travel, Invite one to your town. You can google and find TaKeTiNa
teachers in the US, and we are currently working on a platform that will present all
active teachers in the US. www.taketina.com is the website of the International
TaKeTiNa Institute.There you will links to all teachers worldwide.
17) Is there anything else you would like to add?
Yes, there’s another aspect: presence and inner stillness! TaKeTiNa leads people
into the experience of Here - Now in a very powerful way. Even poeple who have
on previous experience in mediation encounter inner stillness and their constant
thought activity subsides. You also could look at it like this: the evolve from
thinking and controlling into sensing, letting go and being. That creates inner
peace and I do believe that any peace with other people is based upon peace within
yourself..
18) One of the things people often celebrate about the drum circle world is that in a lot of
places where people are gathering together to be in rhythm and to experience that state of
personal peace while being in connection with others, they are forming really strong
communities. Do you see community building as one of the benefits of the TaKeTiNa
experience?
Building a community has different aspects. One of the mayor ones in my view is,
that people become curious on one another. There is a very siginficant
phenomenon happening in each TaKeTiNa workshop: although we dont talk much
in this work you see participants after one day sitting together in the breaks
between the sets sharing quite imtimate talks - just as you would do with someone,
you know for many years. People going through a TaKeTiNa process together
seem to bond on a deep level. Maybe because there is no hiding possible in what
they do, they get to know themselfes and the others in a quite special way, they
usually dont experience with people in their daily lives. So I would call this
„human connetcion“ that is being made in every TaKeTiNa journey a quite
powerful building block for communities. You keep your individuality but you
also connect to a synchronized, multilayerd rhythm with a collectiv.
Last thing. TaKeTiNa promotes diversity in synchronization. In TaKeTiNa
circles you see many different people: afro americans, asians, caucasians, latin
americans - people with different believe systems, people from different
backgrounds. People that usually would not do something together. In the
TaKeTiNa circle they experience something that they all share: rhythm. And
through rhythm their individuality connects to a bigger unity. If diversity come
together into a rhythm, intelligence arises - a message, that seems quite important
for the life we live in the todays world.
Thank you Reinhard so much for taking the time to talk with us.