by Onetreedrums on Thu Apr 19, 2007 5:03 pm
Greetings James,
It takes a lot of and regular playing to really break-in new cow skins on dununs. I recommend taking them to dance classes and just playing them as often as you can. One note that may be obvious, but I have seen this happen before and it may be worth mentioning ... be sure to pay close attention when playing the dununs to strike them in the middle of the skin, especially when they are new and not broken in yet. I have seen people put sticks right through even a fairly thick (but more often a thinner cow skin) if played outside of the "sweet spot" closer to the bearing edge of the dunun. Once the hair has disappeared from the center of the skin from a good deal of playing, Abdoul Doumbia recommends applying some shea butter (karite) sometimes mixed with a little bit of honey to the skin to remoisturize the skin and improve the skins longevity and sound. Regarding tuning the dununs, I like to get the new skins fairly taught to begin with and then play them down and break them in over time. Once they are sufficiently broken-in and develop a nice warm tone, then I tune them up a little bit if they loose their responsiveness.
Peace,
Nate
