The Drums

I really love the feeling of playing percussion instruments more than anything I have tried, although sax is great fun too but you have to think and feel - drums is all feel. Making drums doesn't give much financial reward though so I end up keeping a few.

I have made quite a few drums and often reskin and repair them for people as well. I find that when the drum shell rims are round, flat, smooth inside and evenly rounded at the edge you get marked improvement in tone, tunability and volume and this is also a good time to feed the wood some linseed oil to preserve it. Matching the shell to the right skin is also crucial as is the first tightening down before drying (which can take months); making sure it is even tension and the rings level. Here is a little rooskin one I skinned up and did sell for $225;

I skinned the following recently; a batan, which has skins on both ends and is tied round the waist, and a kiga, a shorter squatter bugarabu, and  which both sounded great with a very thick cow skin. These originate from the Ivory Coast and are made from Euroka wood.

I made seven of these little djembes which sounded surprisingly big and full and sold them for around $170 and swapped this one with the other shown here (which I found broken at a garage sale and restored) for the 32 inch Premier I will use for the next Double-bass- banjo with the lovely folks at Billy Hydes Drumcraft. 

I have started making some bendy bass bongos from a Boer war snare and a 44 gallon drum cut 1/3 of the way along and with Weber barbecue lids welded on the bottom which will be fitted with pedals operating hinged valves to alter the resonant frequency for a timpani like effect, something like when you shove your fist up the end of a darbukka and the bass tone drops. I plan to mount my bass roto-toms on it too

 

so with a couple of big fluffy beaters throne and pedals mounted onto the frame too I can play percussion basslines. I might even make some bass marimbas too. I reckon I'll have a ball

   I restored these nice bongo's after finding the rims nine years ago and broken shells recently, then made the adjusters from bolts but I can't bring myself to part with them.

I had a good selection of vinyl skinned drums my friend Gabe skinned up for sale on my market stall and in the happy high herbs shop in Nimbin which are very loud and extremely durable, they never need tuning and still play when you stab them with a knife, great option for a subtropical climate where temperature and humidity changes are radical and very hard on the skins. These can be left in a hot car, played in the rain and don't lose their tuning at all. I have one left which has been to festivals, markets, parties for more than two years and I have never tuned it. There were various shells to chose from starting at $150 and these sold for $450. The one I have left is still as good as new but slightly marked $375 for a large master shell from Guinea in Africa.  It's full power.

A great investment as a re-skin is around $100 and would normally be needed every two years at best, whereas these I have never even tuned up and should last indefinitely if you don't abuse them.

This is a recycled oil can and vinnies cloth covered vinyl headed dundun Gabe made which were beautiful, very light, sounded great were tough, cheap and cheerful and great fun to play slung round your waist while you dance and whack it with sticks.

 

This was a broken shell, cracked and warped on top and cracked on the bottom badly so I truncated and carved it into a little one which came out nice.

 

I put feral goat skin on a bunch of these little Ghanaian djembe shells and they were amazing, only one left of the four $275.

I made a drum cranking stand up to ease the back strain and generally make the job easier with some help from eco drums and from george peel who incidently makes awesome drums on his handmade lathe and stocks loads of skins, he can be contacted for orders via me if you like. He gets feral goat skins from north queensland, and some cow rawhides too with the fur on or off and all evenly thicknessed to the thousandth of an inch and of all thicknesses and colors and I love to find reasons to go visit and have a chat and learn the art while I pick through the piles for the right skin for the drum. Getting that good match makes the biggest difference.

 

I charge from 100 to skin a djembe if there is no new rope, rim or ring trouble, fixing or repairs to deal with, and take the opportunity to linseed the inside while it is apart and get it nicely tuned too. I find it takes a long time to dry right out and settle in which has to happen before you can crank it right up, so often local people bring them back periodically for an extra crank until it stops stretching before we start doing the circular windings.

If you would like to learn how to crank a drum and do the knots I am happy to teach anyone and have made cranking bars for people in the past too and supplied rope.

I would love to hear these suckers; the drums that don't need microphones by Staccato.