Good wood

[johnc]

no expert but I think also spelt gonee/goone etc, which is also known as Hare wood.

My Malian is hare/gonee. attempt to match the wood colours and contours to drums up the page.

cheers for the circumcision tip


john

[Rhythm House Drums]

I like Iroko shells. And ...just my preference, Ash sounds awesome. I got the idea knowing that ash is used to make most baseball bats and it's a tough heavy hardwood. I like the sound of the crack a bat makes, and likewise I like the slaps I get from an ash djembe. I've experimented with a lot of different hardwoods and just my personal opinion but I think the size and shape of the drum affects the sound more than wood. In order of importance to sound.. and this is just my opinion...
Skin tension and tuning
Skin thickness
Size/shape of the shell
shell thickness
and finally the type of wood.

How about other people that have experimented with different woods??
I keep cow skin on my Ivory Coast djembe and a thin skin on my ash djembe. I play the ash more when I go out.. but love the sound of the Ivory Coast drum inside (especially in a room with the door shut) the cow skin gives super bright slaps... I use conga slaps on it.. and the tones are perfect. It's so tight the bass sort of dissapates.. but this is made up for by excellent tones/slaps.

[Dugafola]

I've experimented with a lot of different hardwoods and just my personal opinion but I think the size and shape of the drum affects the sound more than wood. In order of importance to sound.. and this is just my opinion...
Skin tension and tuning
Skin thickness
Size/shape of the shell
shell thickness
and finally the type of wood.

so if I had a Hare/khadi wood djembe and a white melina wood djembe both being the same size with exact dimensions and skinned the same way and tuned similarly, you would say that they sound the same?

i think this topic has been discussed ad nauseum on this forum already.

[Rhythm House Drums]

I've experimented with a lot of different hardwoods and just my personal opinion but I think the size and shape of the drum affects the sound more than wood. In order of importance to sound.. and this is just my opinion...
Skin tension and tuning
Skin thickness
Size/shape of the shell
shell thickness
and finally the type of wood.

so if I had a Hare/khadi wood djembe and a white melina wood djembe both being the same size with exact dimensions and skinned the same way and tuned similarly, you would say that they sound the same?

i think this topic has been discussed ad nauseum on this forum already.

I'm new to the forum so I'm not sure yet whats been discussed "ad nauseum". I was just giving my opinion... and no, it would be ignorant to say that Hare and Melina djembes would sound the same... BUT.. given the inner carvings are exactly same, shell dimensions are exactly the same, head is exactly the same, tuning/tension is exactly the same... yeah.. I think they will sound pretty similar (more so than if the tension was different, or the shape of the drum was different). I didn't say wood is not important to the sound... I said I think the above mentioned attributes to the overall sound of the drum more than the wood... (I also see I've left out the shape of the bearing edge.. which I've noticed will affect the sustain, and ...in my opinion... affects the sound more than the wood)

People were talking about wood... so I gave my opinion (the purpose of this forum is it not?)

I'm not blindly and without some knowledge/experience posting. I'm posting here to learn from others and give my two cents. Have I said something to irritate a few people on this forum that keep replying to my posts with the tone as the reply above? I'm not traditional, haven't studied African music in the traditional since.. I do what works for me and post on the experiences I've had.

[Dugafola]

whoa buddy...simmer down.

i was just posing a question since you build and sell and import drums. what do you sell more of - your african drums or your staved ones?

and no, it would be ignorant to say that Hare and Melina djembes would sound the same... BUT.. given the inner carvings are exactly same, shell dimensions are exactly the same, head is exactly the same, tuning/tension is exactly the same... yeah.. I think they will sound pretty similar

that seems like a contradiction. you're changing one variable and assuming the rest are uniform.

will you get a defined bass tone and slap? sure. but I don't think they'd sound the same or similar at all. hare has shorter tones and more metallic and resonant slaps and will play fast. white wood is overall a fairly warm sound. now, if you compare identical shells made of lenke and djalla, i would agree with what you're posted before no problem.

softer woods like melina and most american native woods sound inferior to your typical african hard woods like djalla, hare, lenke, dugura, iroko, gele, and dimba because of the hardness and density and any other gri gri you want to think of coming out of west africa. there's good reason to why professional players and hardcore students prefer the sound of these woods over others even with the deforestation issues in African and the current financial plight of many westerners. people want that sound.

also, you'll find that most posters on this site are somewhat "traditionalists"(read: pompous djembe a-holes ) with the exception of Bops...he loves the drumcircles . i'll apologize for my bias ahead of time.

[bubudi]

welcome to the forum, rhd! i don't think you should read too much into 'tones' in a pure text medium like this. if you are referring to me as the other poster, there was definitely no harsh tone intended. as i recall i asked you to post some links to audio files, the reason being, that i posted my opinions on non-traditionally carved drums long before you entered this forum, and i try to keep an open mind.

duga was referring to other messages posted in this topic thread (all 3 pages) as well as on this thread and this thread. it's somewhat understandable that people don't like to have to repeat what has already been said. by the same token, i think that people on this forum should not expect someone relatively new to have read another thread on the subject (which may not be easy to find), and a link to the other thread is probably the most constructive response.

your coming from a more western-oriented approach to carving/constructing drums and playing is not unwelcome because it's representative of the approach of the majority of people who are interested in west african percussion. in my experience, somewhere along the way when people learn to appreciate more of the subtleties and more traditional aspects of playing (often as a result of coming into close contact with master teachers or going to west africa), they adjust their approach. thus you can say, with some technical authority, that two very similar drums in terms of dimensions, construction and tuning, would not differ much if carved from a different wood. you may even be able to qualify it scientifically. there is another world to hearing and appreciating music which i did not discover before getting deeply into west african music. during a ceremony, a djeli moussa (female griot) puts her megaphone right up to the djembe soloist's drum. the sound is so loud that the sound coming out is completely distorted, there is even that characteristic megaphone squeek and everyone in the audience is digging it, cheering, the atmosphere so charged that two women simultaneously run up to the dance space. in a western audience this kind of distortion would be met with a lot of cringing. this example is just the beginning...

[Rhythm House Drums]

I appreciate your responses. I guess I took some of the posts as a personal attack and maybe harder than I should have. I also appreciate your explanation dugafola, that's more of the sort of response I'm looking for I guess.. something with substance. As far as selling drums, I get some comments on how nice the staved djembes I build look, and at drum circles (Yeah, I do those too) I get complements on sound as well. However the Ivory Coast drums are the ones that really sell.

I've only been into African drumming (or hand drumming for that matter) for about 5 years now. The first few of which were "hippy drum circles" until I started getting more interested in African rhythms and music. The only experience I've had with African drummers is when I attended a 2 hour class with Bolokada, and another 2 hour class with Abou (balafon). Bolokada really inspired me to learn more and play more.

So that's my background with drumming.... I"m at a point now where I'm trying to absorb all the info I can and I know there is lots out there.

[bops]

also, you'll find that most posters on this site are somewhat "traditionalists"(read: pompous djembe a-holes ) with the exception of Bops...he loves the drumcircles . i'll apologize for my bias ahead of time.

Very funny Duga... don't make me come down there.

Hey Kevin, welcome to the forum. I felt that I had to call you out on the comment about staved drums being comparable to solid drums, and I'll explain why in a minute. A jembe has a voice, it sings. A drum made from slats of wood glued together does not. The glue doesn't resonate the way wood does. There is a lot of variety between different woods and the quality (or qualities) of sound they produce, and also the way they feel. This becomes apparent as you play drums made of different types of wood. Finally, no two drums are the same when they are carved from a solid piece of wood, because they are unique and individual. The same cannot be said of mass produced or staved drums.

My reason for occasionally stating forcefully my opinions is that this forum is a resource for a lot of people. On the web, and in drum shops around the world, there is a lot of misinformation being passed out like scripture. (Believe me, I know; years ago I used to work for this guy.) I'm not exactly a traditionalist - I'm a white guy from Chicago who happens to love jembe. But I feel that it's very important to respect and honor the tradition and culture. While we outsiders will never belong to that tradition, nor should we strive to, we should do it some justice. And that means layin down the law sometimes. That especially applies to people making a buck selling jembes or jembe-style drums.

[bubudi]

kevin, i edited my last post to add the links to previous threads on this topic, so you might want to check them out.

i'm not against using modern technology to improve on the traditional drums. steel rings, for instance, are a relatively modern improvement on rope rings. other modern improvements include rubber mallets for on-the-fly tuning, pedal lever pulling stands with clam cleats, high tensile prestretched climbing rope, knots that cross several verticals (the mali weave only crosses two verticals), indian bells on ksekse, rubberised bottoms, ivory coast style ledges for the bottom ring, and 3 top rings. you see these new features quite a lot these days.

i wonder how this drum would sound like. it uses rope on the rings so quite possibly avoids the ringiness that other key-tuned drums have. otherwise i think it's a west african hardwood drum so should sound fairly good. i'm not a fan of the look though - i prefer to keep it raw and natural.
[edit: the link doesn't show the picture. you can see a thumbnail of the image here: here