Making my first tongue drum

Materials: Wenge, baltic birch plywood, maple plywood, water based varnish

Size: 58 x 19,5 x 19,5 cm (the model I followed is 60 x 20 x 18 cm according to their

Tuning: 10 pitches, f - g - a - c' - d' - f' - g' - a' - c'' - d'' (or if you prefer: F2, G2, A2, C3,
D3, F3, A3, C4, D4)

Making a tongue drum is something that had been in my list for quite a while and I even
started a small version more than one year before that I never finished.

I knew it was probably going to be quite a challenge, so I decided to eliminate as much

I begun researching intensively for a week or so, watched all the videos I could find of
people making these drums, watched videos of drums that are out there for sale,
searched about woods, joinery, designs, all that stuff.

Eventually what I decided to make was sort of a copy of the Schlagwerk 60101 Log
Drum. https://www.schlagwerk.com/en/products/tuned-percussion/log-drum/log-
drum-60101/

I sticked to wood I had available and wanted to use some a wenge piece, so that’s mostly
why I chose this model over the padauk top ones. Although I could probably get to the
same tuning with the padauk, but yeah, again, tried to reduce the margin for error and go
after something that existed already.

I could easily find what notes belonged to each keys and the overall dimensions because
they have them displayed on their website but I could never find a photograph or digital
drawing of the top template. So, what I did was to watch their official demonstration video
a thousand times and trying to mimic the shapes in Adobe Illustrator from a photo on the
website.

Knowing the dimensions of the top, I don’t think the size of the keys ended up much
different from the original model.

It took me a while to go further on each step because the last thing I wanted was to end
up with a crazy sounding instrument and called it a failure or remaking parts of the
process. So I tried to be cautious and think a hundred times before going cutting into
actual material and so on.

If you do a bit of research you will find out that most tongue/log/slit drums have padauk
or wenge tops and that’s because these woods are more “musical” than others. There are
a few more, of course, and you can find more wood species on other percussion
instruments or even guitars and basses. I don’t know much about this, but all I can say is
that they vibrate and reverberate in specific ways that allow for better, fuller and easier to
achieve notes. Probably due to their density and hardness but that’s not only that.

By the way, The Wood Database is a great dictionary of wood species and I use it all the
time. http://www.wood-database.com/

So, I started by preparing the wenge and after a close observation on the Schlagwerk
drum I noticed that the top is not a single piece. It’s made out of four strips, so that’s what
I did. Also did it because my timber was a bit twisted and this way I could obtain a flat
board without as much wood removal (my board wasn’t that thick).

It smells quite weird actually, it reminds me of smashed olives right when they are going
into the olive oil production machine and a little bit of…manure. :D

For the the box sides I used 3/4” baltic birch plywood. You will want to use high quality
materials and not cheap plywood as it may affect the sound in the end. For the bottom I
used 1/2” maple plywood - just what I had on hand and these boards actually came from
the Inventables store in Chicago, IL, so that’s why they are in inches and not millimetres
(just in case you are wondering why the heck a Portuguese girl might be talking in inches).

There are many ways for cutting the keys but since I made the template on the computer,
I sent the file over to the X-Carve and had it carving the lines with a 1/6” straight bit.

You can also use a jig saw or a scroll saw and create other shapes for the keys.

After gluing up the top piece, I wasn’t getting good sound results. I sit back and did more
and more research and I found a video from KRTwood (https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=zV7yQlSvVmU) explaining his process to tuning his drum and how adding more mass
to the box sides would bring the keys to a better tone and vibration. So I found some
hard maple scraps and glue them super tight into both sides.

Always make sure that your glue ups turn out perfect because a bad glue joint will mess
with the final sound.

I should have made the walls thicker from the beginning and that way I could start fresh
on the tuning. So If I’m going to make this another time, I will start with thick side faces
and preferably the whole box will be made out of solid wood. Maple is a great wood for
the box as well as cedar. Oak might work well as well. What seems important to me is to
find pieces of wood with the LEAST amount of figure. If you’re planing making a fancy
drum with lots of weird grains, that might end up sound bad because the sound waves
cannot travel continuously and will always be “bumping” against knots and what not! So
if you want to make an actual instrument meant to be played and not to be ornamenting
your living room, chose straight grain wood and rift sawn or quarter sawn. At least for the
top. If you chose plain/flat sawn material for the top, there’s a bigger chance it will warp
and lose its shape over the years.

To tune the tongues, I hit the keys in front of the computer with the tuner from Garage
Band open (I tried phone tuning apps and they were always confused and annoying to
read) and wrote down which note I was getting or which note was closer. Then I wrote
which note I was supposed to have for the F scale I was going for. Went back and forth
removing material until the wished note was achieved.

You can change about two tones so let’s say you are getting a C and you want to go up
to an E, it should work, but if you’re getting a C and want to go up to a G, it’s going to be
super hard or even impossible. That’s why the size of the keys also matter and a bigger
tongue is never going up to match a super small tongue. So obviously a small tongue will
have a higher note per si and you can never turn it into 4 or 5 tones lower. (You might
want to search about tones and how to count them - easiest way is by looking at a
piano’s keyboard).

To tune it up, you have to remove material on the tip of the tongue and if you want to go
down, you remove material on the back of the tongue, where it meets the rest of the
board. What I have noticed is that removing material on a perpendicular line is much more
effective than drilling larger holes.

Just be careful to not drill all the way through or even make that part of the tongue too
thin and fragile.

Keep your ears sharp and tune it the best you can.

To close the box, I used a bunch of small screws but commercially made drums are
glued. From my researched I heard it doesn’t really make a difference in terms of sound,
so I believe they do that so that no one can open and look inside.

As far as I get it, it’s sort of a mystery how beautifully tuned tongue drums are achieved
so maybe closing the bottom takes part on the mystery. Right when I was going nuts with
tuning (before I added the thick pieces of hard maple to the sides), I even considered
ordering a well made drum and cut the bottom just to look at the underside of the
tongues! Or I also imagined I could get a tiny camera and insert it with a wire and light on
a groove on the top, like the cameras the doctors throw down our throats and stuff! Aha

I hope you found some useful tips in this document and let me know if you have any
specific questions that are not answered here aaaand if you make a drum yourself let me
know! I would love to see and hear it! You can tag me on social media or send a photo/
video by email.

Enjoy your build!

Cristiana Felgueiras

July, 6th, 2018