Another Stan Wood video

Here's another video of Stan Wood:

Stan Wood and his rubber band trumpet

Here's an awesome video with Stan Wood, playing a piece of rubber band, and sounding just like a jazz trumpet.

Show me your homemade instruments

I discovered this excellent video and responses on You Tube. The best videos are found in the video responses to this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAFkkPKgpJI

Cool music apps for your iPhone

Check out this preview of several music creation apps for your iPhone. There are a whole host of apps available to help you capture the beat or create music when you're away from your studio, on the go.

Link: http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/iphone-gems-the-best-music-creation-apps/

Help Save Pandora Music

If you enjoy Pandora Music (www.pandora.com) as much I do, then your help is needed to help save internet radio. I recieved the following message from Tim Westergreen, founder of Pandora:

"Hi, it's Tim from Pandora;
Today, thanks to the extraordinary support of many Pandora listeners, we took a giant step forward when the House of Representatives supported Pandora and Internet radio and passed the Webcaster Settlement Act of 2008. Now we need your help so that the Senate will pass it also - and quickly... The finish line is in sight!
After a yearlong negotiation, Pandora, SoundExchange and the RIAA are finally optimistic about reaching an agreement on royalties that would save Pandora and Internet radio. The legislation would give us the extra time we need to finalize the deal.
Please call your Senators Monday morning starting at 9:00 (Eastern) and ask them to support the Webcaster Settlement Act of 2008.
The person who answers the phone in your Senator's office may ask for the bill number - it's H.R. 7084 (if they ask for a Senate bill number, you can assure them that in this unusual case, the Senate is actually voting on the House bill number).

If the phone is busy, please try again until you get through. These calls really do make a difference.
Thanks so much for you ongoing support.
Tim

Moyo Drum - Hank Drums by Rick Dunlop

My good friend, Rick Dunlop, has started producing some wonderfully crafted Hank Drums. Rick is a talented musician and metal worker who has combined these two passions into a wonderful fusion of metal and music. I'll be lucky enough to join Rick Dunlop and Steven DeRuby on stage for the opening act of the upcoming Yosemite Flute Festival. Where Rick will be jamming on the Moyo Drum and Steven and I will be on compatible keyed Native American Flutes.

Rick calls his drums "Moyo Drums". Moyo is a Swahili word for “heart”. His innovation is the inclusion of attachable legs which support the drum at a comfortable height for playing.

For more info, check out his website: http://www.moyodrum.com

Joe Craven

I ran into Joe Craven at the World Music Festival in Grass Valley this weekend. We had a really fun conversation about obscure/interesting musical instruments, lot's of talented people and the joy of music festivals. If you get the chance at any event in the future, be sure to check out Joe's performance, you won't be disappointed.

If you didn't catch the World Fest this year, I hope to see you there next year!

Hank Drums from alternative tanks

Here's a great documentary video on a issues and concerns with building a Hank Drum from alternative tanks with Hank builder Forsyte Stahlen. Forsyte explores some of his recent experiments in building Hank Drums.

Hicks Sticks Didgeridoos now back in business!

Ben Hicks is back at it, making beautiful didgeridoos out of Aspen and other hardwoods. Ben took a break from the business for a year or so to regroup, and it looks like he's came back with renewed passion and building some beautiful instruments. I was fortunate to purchase a Hick Stick Didigeridoo in D (it's almost as tall as I am) a few years back, and I love it. I was sad to see Ben stop making 'em, but I am glad to see that he's back at it.

I was walking through a grove of Aspen, near Tahoe, over the fourth of July weekend, and I couldn't help but see where Ben gets his inspiration from the very shape of the trees themselves. Aspen has a wonderful, natural rugged quality to them.

Check out his website for complete inventory of what's currently in inventory, the few that are pictured have some wonderful inlay in them : http://www.hickssticks.com/didgeridoos-aspen-hardwood.html

Oh, yeah and tell him that you heard about it from FoundMusic!

Play the Hang Electronically!

Can't afford to buy a Hang? Well our friends over at the Hangfan.co.uk have put together a really fun, virtual Hang that you can play right now, from your desktop. They call it the "e-hang" and it uses sampled tones from an hang combined with an online interface to your keyboard to enable you to play the virtual Hang with your keyboard. The sound samples are pretty good, and the keyboard mapping is intuitive. The only thing that takes a little getting used to is the slight delay with you hit a keyboard. I have a pretty fast internet connection, so I don't know if slower connections will impact the interface

Check it out: http://www.hangfan.co.uk/ehang.html

Hank Drum Magnetic Tuning by Milltone

Larry, drum maker at Milltone Drums has demonstrated a new design using magnets to achieve a tunable Hank Drum. This is a very cool concept. He's finished his first drum and I believe that it'll be for sale on ebay soon. Here's a YouTube Video of his creation:

Mother of all Frame Drums

I need some help from the blog readers out there. I purchased what I am calling "the mother of all frame drums" (MOAFD) a few months ago. (See the picture to the right).

MOAFD started its life as a display unit at the local Guitar Center. Its dimensions are: 36" wide x 6" deep. The sound is OK with the current head (a plastic, single ply) but the graphic leaves a lot to be desired. Here's where I need your help...

I'd like to purchase and put a new head on it, but I am unsure which head material to select. First of all there isn't a lot of selection for a 36" orchestral size bass drum, but I do have some choices. I've never played bass drum nor drum kit before, so I don't have an appreciation for the subtleties of the different drum head choices. I am hoping that one of you has the experience to guide me in making my selection for a new drum head:

• Ambassador
• Fiberskyn
• Renaissance
• Other??

I want to play this drum with my hands, like a frame drum. So the question is which of these head material choices will provide the best sound, with the most overtones? I plan to tighten it pretty tight. I am thinking that timpani head would be good, but they don't make 'em this large.

Hank Drum Design Mistake

Don't Try This at Home!

I come before you humbled in this posting. I thought that I had a great idea to advance the design of the Hank Drum by accomplishing two goals:

1. Speed the cutting time for new drums.

2. Reduce the pain in @$$ cutting of the small curves in the tongues, and save blades lost when they break cutting the small curves.

So I sat down with Visio and designed a new tongue design which (on paper) seemed like a great idea. I borrowed the concept from woooden tongue drums which I have played in the past. In the picture to the left you can see the basic design, a large hole cut from the center and then the tongue cut back from there...

Well, the result was not what I expected at all...

From the picture on the right, you see the completed drum. BUT it doesn't sound great at all. After the initial removal of the hole in the center (5" in diameter) the drum sounded like a Tibetan Bowl!

Even after I cut the first tongue (the lowest D note) the drum sounded great. The low D note rang for a long time. But as soon as I cut the second tongue, the whole drum design went south... the addition of a second tongue confounded the first note and neither note sounds good. To complete the experiment I finished cutting the whole thing out. I did achieve one goal - the total cutting time was less than an hour!

My advice: don't waste $30 in this design direction. But I am going to salvage the tank by cutting out the tongues and getting back to that awesome sounding large Tibetan Bowl!

Check out the Hank Drum Collective: http://hankdrum.collectivex.com

Mytunes MP3 Amp

This is the coolest external portable speaker device that I've seen. Runs with any type of MP3 player. Runs on batteries or USB power from your computer.

Looks like it's backordered until the end of June.

Link: http://www.red5.co.uk/MP3-Amp-pr-511.html

How to build a Hank Drum: Removing the Valve

I took a few photos during my last build. During this build I prepped 5 tanks, so I learned a bit about setting up a rig to help make value removal easier. Without the rig, I actually damaged the handle on the tank, because I put too much pressure on the wrench to attempt the removal. Here's a photo of a damaged tank, the arrow shows the warped area of the handle. I was able to remove the valve on this tank, once I experimented with, and created the rig. Remember to only attempt this with a new, never been filled tank.

What I engineered was a rig, using my Black and Decker portable workbench. I also used a tie-down strap with a tightening ratchet to hold the tank body in place. Final, I used a 12 inch adjustable wrench and a 1.25 inch diameter by 3 foot pipe extension for leverage on the wrench. This made the process a piece of cake. Note that I used a steel crow bar, secured in the workbench, to keep the tank from rotating.

I used the same rig to remove the metal bracket on the bottom of the tank. This part of the tank becomes the playing area.


Here's a view of the tools needed to remove the tank valve:

Milltone Hank Drum Youtube Video

Here's a great video from Larry over at Milltone Drums, as he tours some of the design features on his new drum.

Hank Magic Video

Here's a short Hank Drum Video:

The Hank Drum Collective Group site

I created a new online community called: The Hank Drum Collective

This online community is designed to enable discussion of all aspects of the Hank Drum. It includes online discussion groups, a calendar and file storage area to enable communication between members.

Membership is free, and you can browse the information without being a member.

Link: http://hankdrum.collectivex.com/main/summary

Hank Drum tuning concerns

I am not sure if other Hank Drum builders are having similar issues, but I've noticed that the first Hank Drum that I built 2 months ago has gone out of tune. I was rechecking the tuning this weekend before painting it, and I noticed that all of the notes are about 10-15 cents flat.
When I built this drum, each note was dead on in tune. Now it appears that all of the notes have gone flat. It still plays well and sounds good, but I am concerned that it's out of tune and won't play well with my Native American Flutes.

Has anyone else experienced this?

A couple of thoughts that I have:

1. The drum has been unpainted since I built it. There has been some minor rust formed along the edges of the tongues and the area where the welds were removed.
2. The drum has spent a good part of it's life outside on my (covered) deck. It's get's played often.
3. I play primarity with super ball mallets rather than my hands.

Traditional Nigerian Udu Drum workshop with Frank Giorgini

TRADITIONAL NIGERIAN POTTERY WORKSHOP UDU DRUM
by Frank Giorgini

Three-Day Workshop
WHEN: July 12, 13 and 19, 2008
COST: $325.00 includes Tuition and Materials ($50.00 deposit required)

GIORGINI STUDIO
4425 County Route 67, Freehold, NY 12431
Tel: 518-634-2559 (or 1-800-UDU DRUM) Fax: 518-634-2559
www.udu.com or frank@udu.com

Link for more info: http://udu.com/Udu_html/uduworkshop.html