Let It Rain

A metal artist is selling the last of her rain drums before she retires. Margaret Hayes tunes her drums, but she’s clear that the sound is a co-creation: “The rain drum is the one piece I do not finish—the sky finishes it.” 

While working on a piece that didn’t catch the wind the way she wanted, Margaret left it out on a tree stump. Months later in a rainstorm, she heard an unexpected song. Each raindrop hit and produced a note on one of five metal “tongues.” The rain played on a pentatonic scale!

Unbeknownst to me, rain drums are quite popular. A handmade drum has a different vibration than mass produced; however, this short gives you a taste of the sound: 

Margaret’s story reminded me how much I love the rain. Breathing in its scent that hydrates body and soul. Hearing its rhythms on rooftops, cartops, or pavements. As kids we watched thunderstorms from my grandparents’ front porch as rain poured down in sheets moving down the street like a marching band. 

My sister and I would put on bathing suits and wash our hair in the rain, rinsing out shampoo under a gurgling cascade from the gutter. Joyful, refreshing, musical.

Somehow over time, rain became inconvenient—driving on slick roads or struggling to cross vast street-corner puddles with hundreds of New Yorkers hustling from subway to work. Wet wash-outs ruined plans for a picnic in Bryant Park.

What happened to the music?

What if music comes from what we create with our hands or hearts and leave out in the rain? An unexpected song can take shape from our gifts combined with elements in our environment. Poetically (and practically, too!) this creative gift of art, livelihood, or parenthood rings forth. 

Even one drop at a time, a simple melody can come from the best within us and around us.

Maybe that is living as music. 

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P.S. If you now want to buy a rain drum, like a couple of my friends did, here’s a fun short to show you different sizes and sounds.