Downtown Friday Night

Well, one of the very coolest things I've done in downtown Asheville is the weekly community drumming at Pritchard Park.  It happens every Friday night during the warm weather months, and is one of the most phenomenal experiences of community I have ever had.  So, having read that people start arriving as early as 5:00 to set up drums, I made an afternoon of it strolling around downtown in and out of art galleries and got to the park early to grab a seat on a boulder and wait for the magic to unfold.

Asheville has some incredible architecture.  I remember hearing about "why" on the tour I took a couple of years ago, but I forgot the details.  I plan to take the tour again next week to refresh my memory. :-)

Buskers are a big part of the downtown ambiance.  I particularly enjoyed this little group with their "baby busker".  I think she was basically playing Suzuki violin tunes (lots of folk tunes), and the older guys were enhancing her melody line with some very interesting embellishments.  They were really quite good.  And yes, I tipped.

This is what it looks like when the first drummers start arriving at the park.  It was neat to be there and see it all come together from nothing.

Throughout the drumming, the lady in the black striped top would invite children to come and drum beside her on one of her drums. She included toddlers to young adults in the invitation and would search them out in the crowd.  I was also touched that one of the drummers brought a drum over to an adult in a wheel chair and invited her to join the fun.  She grinned the whole time!

By about 7:00 p.m., the crowd had grown to fill the park and spill over onto the sidewalks.  Most of the people seated on the terraced step area brought some sort of percussion instrument with them. It was a very well-behaved, family friendly crowd, with only one exceptional person, which the police officer quickly and quietly escorted away.  The drumming was amazing with all sorts of instruments represented, and changes in dynamics and tempo evolving with no visible leadership.  Truly communal, amazing, and inspiring.  If I lived here, I would hope to go every Friday night, take my drum, and beat away the stresses of the week.  I can certainly see why it endures.