Finding the beat with Stream Ohrstrom

BY MITCHELL TROPIN

Friday night in Takoma Park. Stroll along Carroll Avenue in Old Town, and you might notice a faint strain of drum beats. If you follow the rhythmic sound, up the side stairs of the House of Musical Traditions, you’ll discover a roomful of people in a celebration of percussion.

For 15 years, as regular as a drum beat, people have been gathering above HMT to participate in Beat Jam, a drumming circle led by Stream Tomas Ohrstrom.

As participants enter the candlelit room, they are offered drums and other percussive instruments of endless shapes and sizes, of metal or wood, of conical design or circular. Ohrstrom, the group’s founder, an artisan, a Swedish native, and a longtime Takoma Park resident, addresses the newcomers.

"If you want to find the beat, you’ve got to feel it with your stomach," he says.

Beat Jam is the only "every week, any weather" drum circle in the Washington area, Ohrstrom says. The informal gathering offers an opportunity for rhythm players of all levels, ages, and backgrounds to jam as one–a lady wearing pearls sits across from a man with a wide-brim hat and suspenders.

Without a word, Ohrstrom gets everyone into motion. Using his drum like a conductor’s baton, Ohrstrom changes the tempo and timbre of his own drumming to direct the 15 or so drummers. He keeps the playing lively, changing the pace and mood by switching to other drums and a variety of flutes.

Throughout the evening, Ohrstrom tells stories of life in Washington, dedicating a song to the much-missed DC gathering spot, Food for Thought. He talks about Buddhism, telling how he once repaired a lama’s prayer drum. Refusing payment from the holy man, Ohrstrom requested a copy of the mantra that was inside the drum.

Each Beat Jam drummer’s playing is distinctive, yet the different sounds mesh together. There is an unexpected sensory treat: if you hold your drum without playing, the vibrations from the fellow drummers pass through the drum to your hands. As the final round of sound fades, every drummer’s hands are swollen and sore from the exuberance of the evening.

The appeal of drumming in a group environment seems obvious to Ohrstrom. "Drumming is a ritual so simple, so self-explanatory, that you can do it with children or with someone in a nursing home. It’s truly universal," he says. "Drumming produces marvelous communications that transcends age. It’s non-verbal, so it also is a great leveler."

A longtime fixture at the House of Musical Traditions, Ohrstrom does most of the store’s drum repairs and makes his own brand of bamboo flutes, Blue Dragon. He began making flutes without formal training. His confidence in taking on the task stems from his philosophy of "making do," which has helped him time and again.

"Making do, to me, means that I maintain an outlook of creative engagement with my surroundings. Will this old pot lid sing if I tap it? Does the rusty knife come in handy as a dandelion up-rooter in the garden? Can the cracked flute still sing if I apply some glue and tape? Do not the petals of the wilted rose still possess beauty and fragrance for me to enjoy?"

For Ohrstrom, making flutes is more than modifying a piece of bamboo. He believes that making any useful object is a collaboration with the life force and a sharing of personal energy, and that flutes or drums are especially powerful in conducting that energy.

"Musical instruments are a special case, because they allow others to continue the process of creativity. Think of Stradivarius, whose violins made 300 years ago radiate their beautiful sound, undiminished, and continue to inspire great artists," he says.

Ohrstrom also has a philosophical approach to repairing instruments.

"When you repair a thing that was useful but now is flawed, you bring it back to life. It is restored to immediate relevance in the creative dance of potentiality, as it were–for a time, at least," he says. "We value longevity and restorative surgery in humans for the same reason, only with more emotional investment."

Born in a small town in Sweden, Ohrstrom took up the flute in his early teens. After dropping out of college and making a "disastrous" attempt as a painter, Ohrstrom moved to Stockholm and began a more successful foray into the arts. He became a film editor for Swedish television, and found almost instant satisfaction.

"I always felt like an outsider in my home town, but I always seemed accepted when working as an editor," he says.

Ohrstrom specialized in cultural events for television, and recalls with fondness how, as an editor, he would interact with other artists such as conductors or choreographers. He found the collective nature of the process appealing.

Ohrstrom’s girlfriend at the time was a New Yorker who could not take the severe Swedish winters and the reserved nature of Swedes. "She was used to New Yorkers who would say, ‘How do you do? Why don’t you come over for a party?’ That does not happen in Sweden. They might say, ‘Pleased to meet you. I hope to see you again sometime,’" he says.

So the couple agreed to move to New York’s Lower East Side, living only a few blocks from the first House of Musical Traditions in the pre-David Eisner days. Finding industry work was frustrating in the city’s competitive market, but Ohrstrom felt welcomed by other aspects of New York life. He lived close to the legendary Fillmore East, where he would go frequently. After feeling like an outsider in Sweden, music provided him a community, and he was taken by the entire scene and his new sense of belonging.

"It was a huge transition for me," Ohrstrom says."Music was my membership to this vibrant community."

Ohrstrom became part of a "strange and wonderful" guerrilla theatre group in the summer of 1969, performing in Central Park, Tompkins Square Park, Union Square, and on street corners. He enjoyed it–to a point.

"It was not a lifestyle you could keep up for long. It was amazing, though, with some brilliant people," he says.

New York took its toll on Ohrstrom’s relationship with his girlfriend. When they broke up, he decided to get away, picking an unlikely location: Pittsburgh. He accepted a job with an opinion research center, working as a quality control supervisor with a staff. Although he moved into the "9-to-5" world, the former film editor/street performer had not changed completely.

"I was weirder than anyone else in the office, but I was sanctioned by New York, so I was accepted," he says.

It was at that juncture in his life that Ohrstrom started making flutes. Hanging out with local flute makers, he discovered how they carried out their craft.

"I learned that you would travel to New York and then drive down to Hoboken to buy imported bamboo. For a hundred dollars you could get this massive supply of quality bamboo," he says.

Ohrstrom started selling his own flutes, learning the trade by trial and error. Flute making became a full-time job after he was laid off by the opinion research company. The transition to artisan was a natural one for Ohrstrom, who grew up watching his father make family Christmas presents and repair shoes in the workshop he built in the basement of their apartment building.

"He was an inspiration for me, and a big influence on my attitudes," he says.

From his dad, Ohrstrom developed the "make do" philosophy that gives him the confidence to take on challenges, such as making flutes without prior experience.

"You can experiment and figure things out, using simple methods and simple materials," Ohrstrom says.

Continuing to work out of Pittsburgh, Ohrstrom one day received a letter from Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. It came from David Eisner at the House of Musical Traditions, which had relocated from Greenwich Village. A business relationship was struck up, and HMT began carrying Ohrstrom’s flutes. Shortly thereafter, Ohrstrom accepted an invitation from Eisner to move into a small apartment that was part of Eisner’s large Victorian home in Berkeley Springs.

In the late 1970s, Ohrstrom was doing gangbuster business with his flutes. In one year 1978, he sold 3,000 flutes.

"That’s a lot of bamboo," he says.

After arriving in West Virginia, Ohrstrom noticed the surge in interest in Irish music. He suggested to Eisner that he get into the business of making Irish drums, known as bodhrans. The Irish single-headed frame drums use cross braces and are played with a double-headed symmetrical wooden beater called a tipper.

Finding the drums was difficult. Others tried unsuccessfully at creating the drums, quitting because the drums can easily fall apart when there are changes in humidity or temperature. Undeterred by his lack of experience, bolstered by his "make do" philosophy, Ohrstrom knew he could make bodhrans and began in earnest. After a couple of years, he was steadily selling drums, and started up Blue Dragon. That was more than 30 years ago. Today he is well respected for making Irish drums. He also makes instruments from the Middle East and North Africa.

Ohrstrom says that the company’s name comes from his longtime interest in Eastern philosophy and the positive associations of blue. He says it’s the color of the flute-playing Hindu god, Hari Krishna, and he learned recently that the blue dragon is the Chinese symbol for spring. He also says that the Vikings used dragon motifs on their long boats.

When HMT closed the West Virginia store and consolidated its operations in Takoma Park, Ohrstrom did not initially join Eisner and company. A new romance delayed his move. But he and his new love did like the idea of living in a small community that offered a sense of belonging, so eventually they left West Virginia for Maryland.

"Takoma Park seemed like the perfect place," he says.

After settling in, he began teaching hand-drumming. The teaching is an extension of his philosophy that one should be more creative and adventurous in life. In his lessons, he draws on a wide-ranging knowledge of music, physics, art, metaphysics, and cultural history.

In 1988, Ohrstrom’s students started asking where they could perform, but he did not have a satisfactory answer. The only place he could suggest was Malcolm X Park next to Beekman Place in Northwest Washington. However, it was not the safest venue for drumming.

Others started telling him that he should establish a place where drummers could get together. So he invited a percussionist friend, rented a hall, and advertised his first drumming session. A sizeable group showed up, ready to drum, but the percussionist did not. Ohrstrom took charge and has been leading his weekly drumming events ever since.

While Ohrstrom has been playing and making drums and flutes for decades, his name, "Stream," is relatively new. Turning 50 in 1990, Ohrstrom decided he needed to make a break with his past and move to a new direction in his life. On New Year’s Eve, he changed his name from Tomas to Stream. The change reflected his desire "to be more fluid," he says.

In recent years, Ohrstrom has been leading his own world music group, Stream and the Blue Dragon Band. There also is a smaller version of the group, the Pocket Dragons. Ohrstrom also hosts every other Saturday afternoon a world music jam at Sangha, which has recently moved to a new location, 7014 Westmoreland Ave, Takoma Park. He also leads monthly drum classes at Arlington Unitarian Church and at Paint Branch Unitarian Church.

Even after 15 years, Ohrstrom is still amazed at how satisfying the weekly drumming events have been. The former outsider values how drumming is truly inclusive.

"It’s part of my spiritual practice," he says. "It creates community while encouraging creativity."

For more information on Stream Ohrstrom, check out his web site, www.thebluedragons.com.