about 400-800 years old

In fact, a hand drum like a djembe can easily fulfill all the needs of a drummer, and more. The djembe is easy to learn, no matter the musical skill or ability of the person it sits before. Starting out with djembe drumming is as simple as beating out the rhythm to a favorite song.

Sounds of the djembe There are three main sounds that can be played on a djembe: bass, tone and slap. The bass sound (low-pitched) is achieved by striking the drum in the middle of the skin with a heavy hand.

To keep your Djembe looking and sounding its best, you can rub a small amount of olive oil into its skin, especially if the skin is excessively dry. The oil will help keep the skin supple and also help improve the tone and increase the life of the skin. Never use chemical cleaners to clean your goat skin drum head.

The natural animal skins used on hand drums have the potential to crack, split or be otherwise broken through normal wear and tear. Many drummers have found it easy to repair small cracks and splits in the drum heads by applying small amounts of glue to the surface of the drum head, and letting it dry.

Short attack time of a limiter will tame the transients (loud kicks will take the biggest loss) long release value will leave it triggered for longer times, making everything flat.

If the skin is tight the drum makes a high note, if it is slack it makes a low note. The more air in a drum, the lower the note. The less air in a drum, the higher the note.

Don’t rush to tighten everything up with a drum key. From finger‑tight, use the key in quarter‑turns. Working your way clockwise around most modern drums should be fine. As with the other drums, the heads of each tom‑tom should be well seated before you start tuning.

What pitch should the tom drum be tuned to? There can be a lot of variety in how the toms are tuned. Small toms (8-10 inches) are usually tuned somewhere between E3 and B3. Medium toms (12-14 inches) are tuned lower, and large toms (16-18 inches) are tuned even lower.

For ‘normal’ tuning ranges, there should be no danger to the drum, rim or head in tightening; nothing will bust. If it does, there is a serious quality problem, or the drum has previously been damaged. Have no fear in tightening/loosening, you’ll almost certainly hear and ‘feel’ if you’re going too far.

“The TR-808’s kick drum sound is made using a resonating trigger pulse, similar in behaviour to the way that a drum head vibrates when hit. When a drum head is hit multiple times in succession, even using the same force, the way the sound resonates will change depending on the state of vibration from the drum head.