The tone of a skin drum is, just like a stringed instrument, effected by three factors which are part of the laws of physics.
The first factor is the width of the skin. To use the example of a guitar, if a guitarist plays a note high up on the neck his fingers press the string down on a fret which makes the string in effect shorter. The shorter the string - the higher the note. This is just the same with drums. A wider drum is like having a longer string - it makes a deeper sound.
The second factor is the thickness of the drum skin. Again, to use the example of a guitar, the high notes are played on the thinnest string and the low notes are played on the thickest string. A guitars six strings vary in thickness, each being thicker than the last (from high notes to low notes) across the neck of the instrument.
The last factor is the tension of the drum skin. Again to use the example of a guitar, the instrument is tuned by making the strings tighter or slacker by the cogs called 'machine heads' at the top of the guitar's neck. The player will turn the cog to wind in or wind out the string making it tighter (a higher note) or slacker (a lower note) until it is the correct note.
If the string is too slack it will flap about when it is plucked and make no note at all.
This is the same with drum skins, the slacker the skin, the deeper the drum's note, until they get to a point where the skin is so slack that the drum sounds more like a cardboard box than a drum when you hit it.
Some drums are able to have their skins tightened like guitars. Timpani, the 'kettle drum' of an orchestra is a good example of one tunable drum.
Traditional shamanic drums do not have a tuning ability however, the skin on these drums is fixed.
But skin - a natural material - moves about a little as it breaths. It takes in dampness from the air and the more damp rawhide is, the bigger it becomes. This is why a drum is made with wet rawhide, as it dries it shrinks and tightens up.
Drums skins are just - as the name suggests - 'raw' hide, this is the skin from an animal that has had the hair removed and the flesh cleaned off. they are clean and generally white or cream coloured. they have been used for thousands of years as parchment to write on. Drum skins are NOT leather. Leather has been chemically changed (tanned) to make it soft so it can be made into shoes or clothes etc. You can not make a drum from leather.
Some types of drum skin move about a great deal, and are very susceptible to damp in the air. Generally this happens more with thinner rawhide such as the skins of goat or fish. Reindeer skin which Nicholas uses on his drums is more stable, but even that can sound dead and dull in very damp conditions.
To solve problem this the drum needs to be warmed up, this dries out the skin. Drums can be warmed by putting them in a warm place or left in the sun to dry. A place that is too hot can make the skin dry out too much sometimes resulting in it splitting or even the hoop imploding, but this is rare.
Photo: Southern Siberian Shaman's drum drying in the sun on the roof of a yurt before a ceremony
Gentle drying will not damage the drum skin in anyway, it is a natural part of the relationship you will have with your drum, and if treated with love and good attention there is no reason why your drum should not out live you... a drum is for life!
Nicholas has been making shamanic drums for over 25 years, and offers a range of single sided deerskin shamanic frame drums.
He first started out making Native American style drums, but over the years his interest in shamanism has moved from the North American 'medicine teachings,' to the shamanism of Central Asia and Siberia. With this gradual change of interest, his knowledge of ritual objects and drums has also therefore grown and shifted.
Nick is not currently making Native American style drums, but is now concentrating on making Siberian style shamanic frame drums - he is one of the only people in the West doing so.
In Siberian shamanism, the drum is perhaps the most important object a shaman can own. Siberia and Mongolia are considered to be the original home of shamanism, and recent DNA tests have proved that Native Americans come from the Altai mountains in Northern Mongolia - which the shamans of the area have always said is the mountain home of all shamanism on earth.
Siberia is where the word shaman itself comes from. It is from the shamans of this area that the shamanic journey, now popular in the West, originates.
Siberian drums are generally made especially for the shaman, and are often decorated with bells, cloth ribbons and other objects.
The drums are made by stitching the skin to the wooden frame. This is a slow process - taking upto six times longer than making a simple Native American style drum - which are generally made with a rawhide lace which forms the cross-shaped handle on the back of the drum.
This stitched construction makes Siberian style drums much more stable in different atmospheric conditions, and they tend to get less 'flat' in damp and cold weather.
Once the drum is skinned, some form of handle is added so it can be held and played. In Siberia these handles vary from simple rawhide straps to beautifully carved wooden handles or even complicated blacksmith made iron handles depending on the local tribal traditions and the vision of the shaman.
For more information on Siberian style drums, please read the .pdf article written by Nicholas on the subject here
Nick offers two sorts of drums - an 'off the peg' undecorated drum and a 'bespoke' decorated drum. Both sorts of drums are made with reindeer skin and a solid beech wood frame. The natural beechwood frames of these drums are roughly round and give a nice traditional handmade 'old time' look to the drums - tribal shamans' drums are never round.
Undecorated Siberian drums are beautifully made and based on those drums used by Buryat and Mongolian shamans.
The skin is stitched onto the frame, and then a woven reindeer skin cross is constructed across the back of the drum to serve as a handle. This cross is bound in soft buckskin in it's centre to make a comfortable grip. The drums are light in weight - an 18 inch drum (46cm approx) has a weight of only around 670 grams (1 lb 7 oz).
The drums are not decorated, enabling you to paint them and add bells and ribbons etc yourself if you wish.
These drums come complete with a simple buckskin covered beater, but a traditional Siberian style 'drum paddle' is available seperately if you wish one.
Available in the following sizes (all sizes approx):
13 in (33cm) € 15 in (38cm) € 18 in (45cm) € 20 in (50cm) € 24 in (61cm)
For these drums, Nick generally undertakes a shamanic journey to find out the nature of the drum he has been asked to make, as well as how it should be decorated and 'dressed' in ritual objects. He also encourages the person commissioning the drum to do the same. Between them, an idea of the style, size and decoration of the drum is worked out and then the drum making begins.
These drums may have a painted design on them, or just a wash of a single colour. This painting process can take a long time as the paints Nick uses are high quality ones with a slow drying time. Sometimes the inside of the skin at the back of the drum is also painted.
The handles on these drums maybe be simple or may be very complex involving Nick making beaten copper spirit faces and other items, as well as sourcing bells, metal jingle cones and other metal items from Mongolia or Central Asia. The drums are then hung with cloth - often old cloth from Mongolia - and often blue Mongolian shamanic offering scarfs called khadag.
Nick always suggests to people that they add further things to their drum as a way of working and bonding with them.
Prices for these drums vary from between £450 to £895, as they take far longer to make and have higher material costs. Nick discusses your budget with you at the start. There is normally a fairly long waiting list for these drums and once started they can take several months to complete if complex painting is required.
Each drum comes with a traditional Siberian style 'drum paddle' beater.
Drums are vailable in the following sizes (all sizes approx):
15 in (38cm) € 18 in (45cm) € 20 in (50cm) € 24 in (61cm)
If you would like to talk to Nick about the possibility of him making you a drum in this style please email him.
Although each of Nick's drums come with a beater or a 'drum paddle,' from time to time these get lost or broken and you may require a new one.
Nick makes simple drum beaters which are suitable for native American as well as Siberian style drums.
He also makes traditional 'drum paddles' - the sort of beater used in traditional Siberian drums.
Shamans' 'drum paddles' - often known as orba (their name in the Tuvan language of Sothern Siberia) - are wooden sticks with one end covered in fur (generally reindeer or deer).
They often have a series of metal rings attached to them too, which rattle as the drum is beatern. Siberian shamans do not use rattles, but the orba does the same task.
They are important shamanic objects in thier own right, used for blessings, as shamans whips and for divination (they are tossed in the air and the way they fall is read).
They are used by themselves as well as with drums. In some Siberian shamanic traditions orba are given to a new shaman a longtime before they are allowed to have a drum.
Nick makes orba with a fur covering for playing drums with and with metal rings, and with bells, khadags and other cloth streamers as decoration.
The soft fur of an orba drum paddle makes them ideal to get a deep tone from a reindeer skin drum.
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