Drums For One and All - Tutorial page

TIP #1: Taming A Ringing Drum Head
A properly built and tuned drum head should generally have a fairly dry, tight sound. While some drums are meant to sound ringy, most African style drums sound best when they don't ring.

The head's shape, size and material has a lot to do with this, so some variables are out of your control, but if you have a drum that can be tuned, ringing can often be damped out simply by increasing the tension in the head. Many professional African drums are cranked up as tight as they can go to eradicate any hint of ringing. Synthetic heads tend to ring more than natural skin heads, which is why many drum purists often insist on playing on goat skin or calf skin.

If you have a drum that rings objectionably and it can't be tamed by tuning, then your alternative is to apply some form of damping to the head. This usually involves a small amount of material that can be stuck to the head surface so that it absorbs some of the high frequency vibrations that are responsible for the ringing.

What you use for the damping material and where you put it on the head can have a major impact on the resulting sound quality. The commercially available product called Moongel made by RTOM is available from several on-line music supply websites. This gummy type of transluscent rubber is tacky enough to stick to most surfaces, yet easy to remove without leaving any residue or stain. It can even be washed and reused many times. It comes in rectangles roughly 2cm by 4 cm and can be cut to any size or shape.

While Moongel isn't terribly expensive, there is an even cheaper alternative that can be bought in most department stores. Look for "Gel Window Stick-Ons" (or something like that). The material is almost exactly the same as Moongel, but it will be pre-formed into colorful designs than look like stained glass when stuck to a window pane. Pick a design that has lots of bigger shapes that can be trimmed down to smaller squares or rectangles that will fit well on a drum head (it's easy to cut this stuff with scissors).

To find the optimal damping location, try putting a piece of Moongel right on the edge of the rim and play a slap tone on the drum to get a sense of the altered sound. Then move the gel one inch in from the rim and try it again. Repeat this in one inch steps until you get to the center of the drum. Now that you've heard the range of possible sounds, reverse the process and work your way out to the rim, but stop at the place where the ringing is minimized or at least sounds best. Note the location so that you can take the gel off and put it back at the "sweet spot" later on. (It's generally not a good idea to leave the moongel on the drum head when you're not using it).

If you get tired of putting on and taking off the moongel, you can do something a little more permanent. Go to you local hardware store and pick up a roll of adhesive-backed foam weather stripping. Find the head's sweet spot and put a piece of moongel on the outside of the head. Then cut off a piece of weather stripping and attach it to the inside of the head, directly under where the moongel is. Take off the moongel and try playing some slap tones to check the sound. Since the foam is less dense than the moongel, you may find that you need to add more pieces beside the first one to get the same amount of damping.

(Copyright David Curry 2007) Return to top of page

TIP #2: How To Tune A Bolt-Tuned Drum
Drum tuning is a whole subject unto itself, but here's a trick to make your bolt-tuned drum sound its best.

while the sound of the head is the most important thing, a general rule of thumb is that if you can press your thumbs into the center of the head and the head deflects by more than an 1/8th of an inch, it's probably too loose. A 1/4 inch of deflection is definitely too much and will sound flabby or dead. Overtightening a drum will choke the bass sound and will put the head at risk of tearing, but for some African-style drums, it's the only way to get a decent slap sound with less ringing.

However, if the tension from the bolts is not even across the head, the tone will suffer significantly. How can you tell if the tension is even? Using the metal tuning wrench, tap lightly on the head, near the rim, close to one of the bolts. Pay attention to the pitch. Then move to the next bolt and tap on the head while listening closely to the pitch. Once you've done this for all of the bolts, you may notice that some of the regions are slightly higher pitched or lower pitched than others. Starting with the lowest pitched bolt, bring that one up slightly, then tap/listen to all the bolts again. Keep doing this until all the bolts have reached the same pitch. The overall tone of the drum should be more pleasing as a result.

Note, that the pitch variations from bolt to bolt will be very subtle. Not everyone has a good ear for pitch so this may be a challenge for some people. If so, ask someone who has a good musical ear to help you out.

(Copyright David Curry 2010) Return to top of page

TIP #3: Improved Tuning Of A Rope-Tuned Drum
Again, I won't go into detail about how to tune a rope-tuned drum, other than to say that you use a process called "pulling diamonds" to create what is called the Mali Weave. This is very different - and physically much harder to do - than tuning a bolt-tuned drum. But if you read Tip #2, you'll see that you have a lot of control over the head's tension. With a rope-tuned drum, the tension is applied progressively around the rim of the head, each time a diamond is pulled. By it's very nature, rope tuning tends to put uneven tension on the head, unless you always pull diamonds on every pair of vertical ropes, all the way around the drum. If you only need to pull a few diamonds, then there will be more tension where you just made the new knots. To help even this out, I've seen some drummers turn the drum sideways, hold the rim a few inches from the floor and then drop it. The impact jars the head and causes minor slippage that helps to even out the tension around the head. Personally, I find this a bit extreme, so instead I use a wooden or hard-rubber mallet to tap firmly all the way around the perimeter of the drum hoops to get the same effect in a more controlled way. You may hear cracks or snaps when you do this, but don't be alarmed; it's the sound of the head shifting slightly.

(Copyright David Curry 2011) Return to top of page