For many years now, I have been taking semi-regular conga lessons. The conga is a barrel-shaped drum from Cuba whose full potential unfolds most beautifully when played as part of a rhythm section or accompanying other musicians. I have worked with many teachers from different countries and backgrounds, participated in dozens of workshops and delved into the world of African and African American rhythms. Not only was this process lots of fun, it also led to several interesting learnings that inspire me as a coach and hold valuable information about leadership.
Drumming as a Language
For millennia, drumming has functioned as a form of communication. Complex rhythms or polyrhythms always develop in groups, often with different instruments that speak to one another, each in its own rhythm, using each other’s pauses to highlight individual tonalities and, together, producing an intricate tapestry of sound.
That’s why it’s so important to know and understand the language both of one’s own instrument and of the others. Players need to engage with one another and listen closely in order for the music to resonate as a whole – it is much more than the sum of its parts. In this sense, making percussion music in a group has a lot in common with dialogue: the focus is on the interplay and cooperation of different voices creating something new through conscious exchange.
Keeping the Rhythm
How hard could that be? Or so I thought. In fact, keeping a rhythm consistently and regularly over time is an art in itself. I was often admonished not to play too fast or “too far ahead.” Hitting the drum at the right time, a little slower but with more precision, did not come naturally to me. I was too worried about missing the right moment or falling behind the rhythm, so I thought: Better too early than too late. Either way – a near miss is still a miss when it comes to rhythm, and it needs to be corrected. Over time, I learned to get a feel for the right timing, which helped me play better alongside others and improve on my improvisational skills.
The right timing in the sense of a regular rhythm that others can follow is foundational to the solidity of an overarching structure, as this is how orientation and clarity develop. For leaders, it’s worth paying attention to rhythm and timing when interacting with teams. By holding regular meetings, for example, and sticking to appointments as scheduled. This gives the team a sense of stability when organizing everyone’s time and enables a more effective workflow for everyone.
Developing an Intuition for the Music
Every piece of music is different and requires a different form of accompaniment. At times a soft and supportive rhythm is best, at others it needs to be dramatized with a faster pace. Depending on the music, players either need to lean into the rhythm or add accents to its structure.
In the same way, every team and every group is different, and must prove itself in different situations. In leadership, it’s important to pay attention to when a more relaxed rhythm is required – for example, in annual check-ins with employees or in year-end reviews – and when a more energetic tempo is needed to get people moving, for example when a larger project is being launched.
Improvising Within Limitations
When we think of improvisation in the percussion context, our thoughts typically turn to a fiery drum solo. In fact, an accompanying improvisation requires far more finesse. Accentuating an interplay of voices, using pauses, developing a melody, supplementing the rhythm with some entertaining turbulence – adding in all these elements smoothly involves not only a basic level of technical skill, but also a feel for timing when playing together with others. When is it my turn? For how long? When is the time to let others “speak up”?
In every meeting, there’s a time for a clearly structured sequence of events and a time for improvisation – when an individual takes center stage with their instrument or issue. What’s most important here is for the improvisation to remain part of the overarching piece and take the rest of the group into consideration. This way, a sense of solidarity is felt all around, or – if the group already works well together – improvisation becomes part of the flow, with the others responding in kind.
Setting the Pace and Providing Structure
Even the simplest instrument matters in a rhythm ensemble, for at least one instrument needs to set the pace and hold it. And unlike our common ideas about the pacemaker as someone who stands up front and says “this way,” the pace of a rhythm ensemble is actually set from within and from behind – typically by a simple instrument like a woodblock. The entire group orients itself around this instrument, which maintains the music’s internal cohesion and a clear structure. If the pace isn’t right, the music falls apart, gets fuzzy and loses its dynamic flow.
A clear structure enables other players to move within the breadth of their voices, to engage with the entirety of the music fluidly and to improvise. As a leader, I can ask myself if I’m ready to set the pace from behind instead of always standing up front. Maybe there are other pacemakers on the team, too. Are they getting the appreciation they deserve for their stabilizing function?
Everyone Joins In
One of the best things about percussion is that everyone gets the chance to participate. One simple rhythm can be enough to make a valuable contribution to the whole – provided that the player in question can keep time! This way, percussionists at different levels can work together and create beautiful music.
In the same way, it’s worth finding appropriate tasks for newcomers or “non-experts” in the group who nevertheless make tangible contributions to the collective’s wellbeing. The music as a whole ultimately stems from the diversity of the instruments, which almost always include at least one that someone less experienced can play to enrich the group. In this case, leadership is about distributing tasks according to the abilities of the team members without demanding too much of them or boring the others. If everyone knows the contribution of a single voice to the final result, it leads to mutual appreciation and joyful collaboration.
Not Getting In Each Other’s Way
“The most important thing is not to get in each other’s way.” That’s what a lifelong musician said when I asked what makes a band great. This involves knowing exactly when it’s your turn and when to take a step back in order to give someone else room to make their contribution.
So there are at least two elements to the art of percussion. On the one hand, you have to be able to play your instrument and keep up your own rhythm. You also need to cultivate the skill of listening closely – to each individual voice and to the overarching musical structure. At the end of the day, you don’t always have to stand up front and impress the masses with a solo to have an impact. Sometimes it’s enough to keep time so that others can focus on doing “their thing” as part of the whole, and the music can come together in harmony.
