DRUMS FOR ONE & ALL
HAND DRUM TIPS AND TRICKS
A collection of handy drum info from David Curry
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 a more pieces beside the first one to get the same amount of damping.
