Free Sample
The Complete Handbook of Hand Percussion Stands & Mounts
A practical reference for working musicians, studios, touring rigs, and repair shops on selecting, installing, maintaining, and monetizing stands and mounts for congas, bongos, djembe, and other hand percussion.
by Alumigogo Books
Chapter 1: Understanding Hand Percussion Stands & Mounts
The first thing you will learn when you put a set of congas on a stage is that the drums are not the whole instrument. The stand that holds them is responsible for the instrument's height, its angle, its stability under a hard-playing hand, and the path that every vibration takes from the drum's shell into the floor. A poorly chosen or poorly set-up stand will muffle your tone, cause the drum to creep away from you mid-song, and add a low-frequency rattle that is nearly impossible to remove in the mix. A good one will disappear into the performance. This chapter is about making the stand disappear.
Hand percussion stands and mounts are the mechanical interfaces between the instrument and the world. They are the tripod base under a conga, the cradle that holds a djembe, the multi-arm table that positions bongos at the correct angle, and the clamp that attaches any of these to a bigger kit. They range from a simple $40 single-drum stand to a custom-built touring rack that costs more than the drums it holds. In all cases, the product category is defined by the same set of physical concerns: height, angle, rigidity, vibration transfer, weight portability, and how securely it grips what you attach to it.
To understand how these devices work, you need to look at what they actually support. A conga drum, for example, is a hollow wooden cylinder with a tensioned skin on