| Tuning and Caring for Fixed Head Drums |
|
 |
Changing the pitch of a
Fixed Head Drum
"Fixed Head" refers to a wide variety of drums out there, and simply means that the skin is fixed to the drum permanently (stapled, tacked, glued, etc.. ) with no manual means of tuning. Traditional Bodhrans, Laced Pow-Wow Drums, and many entry level hand drums are some examples of drums with fixed heads.
|
This Viking Drum
has a fixed head.
|
Even when a drum is technically called "non-tuneable", if it has a natural skin you
still have plenty of control over the pitch. Unfortunately, Mother Nature also has
control over the pitch of these drums so I'll give you a few pointers on how to keep
these drums sounding good.
Basically, if it is humid, you're drum will become
"flat", and if it is dry, it will become "sharp". Neither one of these in the extreme
are desirable, so you essentially change the moisture content of the skin yourself.
If your drum seems sharp, try moistening the skin with a damp cloth and let it sit
for a couple minutes. You will notice a huge drop in pitch, depending on how much water
was used. I prefer the cloth method because it puts an even, controllable amount of moisture
uniformly on the skin.
The thicker the skin, the longer it takes for your changes to
take effect. On a goat skin or deer skin, you're looking at a couple minutes, but for a drum
with a super thick cow skin on it (like the Viking Drum pictured above) It will take an hour + .
The nice thing about thicker skinned drums is they don't change pitch as easily.
I can play a large community drum for hours outdoors on a cool and damp fall evening
without it changing pitch enough to bother me.
If your drum sounds flat, you
need to apply heat to the skin to reduce it's moisture content. This had to be
done with caution and care, because an overheated fixed head will strech and never
come back to it's original tone. Some folks use a hair dryer on low setting, this
being the fastest but least recommended method. A hair dryer gets too hot too fast.
It's a mild heat we're looking for, 10 minutes in a sunny window on a nice day, or a few minutes near (but not on) a heat vent or even a 100 watt light bulb. The ultimate, of course, is to gently warm your drum a few feet from a crackling campfire periodically as you drum the night away....
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
