The Percussions of American Life

By Daniel Rigney

Every culture has its percussions, its seasonal beats, its national rhythms. Consider the percussion cycle of a typical year in American culture.

The year starts with a bang in Times Square with the dropping of the ball, the clinking of glasses, and the drinking of the alcohol, followed later by the steady drumbeat of college bowl games and NFL playoffs, and culminating in the crashing symbol of our national culture, the Super  Bowl.

Spring rises to the crescendo of the college basketball playoffs and the dribble of rubber on wood. 

In summer Americans observe the Fourth of July percussionally, with explosives that burst their syncopated rhythms into the night sky to the sounds of Sousa and the crashing booms of the 1812 Overture.

Throughout the summer we hear the crack of the bat and the pop of fastballs into catchers’ gloves.

In fall, football kicks off again, and thousands of high school and college bands and their drum lines beat out the crisp rhythms of autumn.

Then there are the harvest celebrations, including Thanksgiving, a season of drumsticks  and the thumping of pumpkins.

In winter, Salvation Army kettles ring out reminders that the holidays are not entirely about the snares of consumerism, the jing-jing-jingling of cash registers, and the making of dough.

And that brings us back to New Year and the clinking of glasses, where our annual cycle of sounds begins again.

Other societies around the world have their own distinctive seasonal rhythms, but these are a few of our own.  And the beats go on.