congaplace.com

My mother recently picked up this drum for me at an auction.

It measures 48" tall and has a 12" head.

It is glued stave construction.

It appears to have a newer exterior finish on it.

In my opinion it is crudely built, with simple and somewhat ill fitting hardware.

Is this an old drum that has been refinished?...or is it a tourist trade souvineer?...or an interior design decoration from a furnature store?

I took it apart, inspected it, cleaned it up, reassembled and adjusted the head.

Its sound quality does not make it a cantidate to tour with Santanas band, but its not terrible either.

Personally its too tall for me to play comfortably for long periods while standing....and its rather tippy.

So, what do i do with it? What is it? Is it built for giants? ...or meant to be played in some way im not familiar with?

Opinions?..Guesses, Comments?

I took a picture of it standing next to a typical 11" Matador which is 30" tall.

That is a pretty sweet looking drum there!

My guess is that it is a "non-traditional traditional" hand drum. By this I mean that it is modeled after a traditional hand drum (I'm guessing atesimevu or ngoma or atabaque) but the use of modern hardware makes it an anomaly in traditional circles.

I have a Ghanaian atesimevu shell that was mounted with steel hardware which has a very similar shape to your drum but it is hand-carved from a solid piece of tweneboa wood. It's not an atesmevu anymore but it sure ain't a conga either! It is unusual and it's also a really nice sounding drum that projects sound really well (yeah... loud!).

If you were to try to match this to a particular type of percussion ensemble you could try Brazialian capoeria. Just by looking at it, with the right kind of stand that you would probably have to make yourself, it could stand in as an atabaque. Although the dimensions don't really match the atabaque's http://www.gope.net/UK_Produtos_Atabaque.htm . The ones that I have seen have all been rope tuned but that shouldn't stop you from playing the rhythms if you are interested in learning them!

Hello Chupacabra,

Thank you for your information. I have never heard of a couple of the drums you mention. I googled atesimevu and found a picture of a tall drum on a stand.

http://home.comcast.net/~dzinyaladzekpo/Atsimevu.html

I wonder if this is how the 48" tall drum that i own is meant to be played??

The atesimevu is usually played with a stick and hand technique with the drum on an angle to let the sound out. If you want to learn that style you would make a stand that would hold it on an angle like that and get yourself a thin branch of tough flexible wood that would stand up to the punishment of being whipped against the skin on the drum and also getting whacked on the side of the drum too. This drum typically uses antelope skin because it has a bouncy quality to it.

If you are more interested in the atabaque style of playing, it's all hand playing and the stand looks like the one in the pictures on that link in my previous post. It kind of looks like the stabilizers on a missile and it will need to hold the drum vertical as it's being played.If you don't use a stand the drum will be very unstable and will tip over and you will have a coffee table that looks like mine . I don't know what type of skin is used for the atabaque's heads.

If you play it as the the Congolese play the ngoma (which simply means "drum") you would get a strap similar to a djembe strap that wraps around your waist and ties onto the top of the drum and is then tipped on an angle and played with just the hands. I believe they use goat skin for the heads on this type of drum but I'm not sure.

I wonder if that drum was owned by Kareem Abdul Jabber(who also plays a bit of congas)..it's the right height for a guy 7 ft 2...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r72RjP4WFao