Music as medicine (Zoeann Murphy/The Washington Post) By Tara Bahrampour June 19, 2013 Standing in a room full of lined faces, Alan Yellowitz held up an orange drum shaped like a wineglass. “This one’s called a djembe,” he said. “It’s from Ghana.” The 30 or so people watching him had, combined, amassed hundreds of years of living, although their recollection of those years was fading. Many stared off blankly, perhaps unable to remember what Ghana is. But one 85-year-old woman started tapping her hand on her thigh. “Give it a try,” Yellowitz said, quickly placing a three-foot-high drum beside her and handing her a mallet. Yellowitz and his business partner, Adam Mason, are the guys behind The Beat Goes On, a Fairfax County-based organization that brings drum circles — more commonly associated with college campuses and hippie gatherings — to seniors. On a recent day, they unpacked about 60 percussion instruments in an activities r...