The Complete Handbook of Hand Drums

Chapter 1: Understanding Hand Drums

A hand drum is any drum that is played primarily with the bare hands, rather than with sticks or mallets. That definition seems simple, but it has practical consequences. Because your hands are the striking implement, the drum's response—its rebound, its feel, and its dynamic range—is as important as its basic pitch. A drum that sounds powerful from across a room can be frustrating to play if it doesn't respond well to a palm strike or a finger slap.

To understand hand drums, you need to understand how they produce sound. All drums work on the same principle: a struck membrane (the head) vibrates, and that vibration is amplified by the drum's body, or shell. What distinguishes a good hand drum from a bad one is how efficiently that transfer of energy happens. When you strike a djembe, for example, your hand imparts energy to the head. The head moves down and displaces the air inside the shell. That column of air vibrates, resonant frequencies are shaped by the shell's shape and material, and the sound radiates outward. A drum that is well built will have a clear fundamental pitch with strong overtones. A poorly built drum will sound dull or "boxy" because the shell absorbs energy instead of reflecting it.

The most immediate and noticeable characteristic of a hand drum is the material of the shell. For centuries, the vast majority of hand drums were carved from a single log. A djembe is traditionally