congaplace.com

Just received today my new drum and thought I would share it with you even if it is not necessarily your cup of tea.
It looks and sounds awesome. The big one is the rum which does all the soloing/improvising/dialog with the dancer (orixa) and pretty much control the ceremony while channeling the axé.
The black drum is a Bauer tumba looking so small next to it.
You can imagine the sound that comes out of this monster.
I got it from my man Jao in Bahia, a friend of mine delivered it today in Rio, I couldn't stop playing it...
The other two are lȇ and rumpi with goat skins, they sound great too.

peace

PS : maybe someone can tell me why the pictures appear sideways. They are upright on their own as JPGs. How can I flip them?

yo, bro,
it is my cup of tea.
i make and play atabaques. from your post, your main use may be candomble, i use them for capoeira, and i also make all the other capoeira instruments (berimbau, pandeiro, reccu-reccu, caxixi) and make them well, except for the steel agogo. I have has some sucess with the coconut agogos. those are beautiful atabaques.
i see you have a steel cuica there, by next project is a wooden one, you look to have a 8 incher, im looking to make a 10 incher, on the larger end, most ive seen are 8, but it will be tuned in a mali weave like your djembe, which also looks fantastic. the only instrument in your pictures i dont understand is your tamborim on the large chest, ive never understood the playing of it with the stick and all.

your rum-pi makes me want to start mixing woods, that purpleheart in there is beutifully deep. i wonder how a purple heart/massaranduba mix would look , bend, and sound!!

Looks great tone .Being trying to get my hands on a set for while , they are just so expensive to get sent over to Europe You rum looks great ...

I love Brasil~

Hi Dende,

it is funny tat you picked up on the other instruments lying about, there are a few other dozens lying about in a mess. I will post some pictures later so you can have a poke. That Djembe is a beauty from Mali and it sounds very very good. I just had it reskinned and roped by those guys here in Rio who really know what they are doing.
Good luck with the cuica. What a fun instrument to play. The brazilian play it very high pitched and I think it has to be metal to achieve this kind of tension. But of course there are wooden ones in Africa and I beleieve the secret drum drum from the Abakua ceremony which is played in a hidden tent or room is indeed a cuica. I had a friend who was walking in the street in Cuba practicing cuica when some guy came up to hi saying he 'd better stop doing that or he was going to get in serious trouble with the abakua people. And everybody knows this very bad news in Cuba!
As for the tambourim do you mean, do you mean the flexible stick to play the virada in the samba school or the straight stick to play clave in the roda da samba?
The virada is an art in itself and requires a lot of practise, I have seen some guys taking solos at the mangueira and salgueiro they do amazing things with it! I am really bad at it...

Hey Nial, believe or not, it is also incredibly hard to find good atabaques in Brazil. It is a dying art. There are plenty of crap ones around, especially in Rio. It seems now that the only decent ones are form Jao in Salvador, he was introduced to me by the Alabé ( master drummer) of The Gantois Tereiro one of the oldest and most respected candomblé houses in Brazil. I payed about 330 euros for my set of 3. But although he is a very reliable guy, he works out of a dodgy favela and has no organisation to ship, no email, no web site,...
You will have to go pick them in Salvador!

CongaMyk, do do I!

Hi tone ,

Thats sounds like a plan . A month in Bahia , then home with some nice atabaques

you would have to visit me in Rio though

Na festa de rua, no samba de roda
Na noite de lua, no canto do mar

Eu vim da Bahia
Mas eu volto pra lá
Eu vim da Bahia
Mas algum dia eu volto pra lá

volta sempre!