Tune Your Djembe Drum

This is the way I tune djembe drums to make them sound fantastic. It is quick and easy and should not take you more than 20 minutes for your first drum.

It is by no means the only way, but when I was in Ghana this is the way my drum maker told me how to do it.

So here we go...

Start by finding the tuning rope on the drum, this is the rope wrapped around drum. If there is no tuning rope then unravel the handle and use that. In the example below, I have unravelled the handle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Every rope tuned djembe and sets of vertical ropes in pairs. These are called the verticals! Get your excess rope and go under the first pair or verticals to your right, then pull the rope down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then, go back over the right vertical and under the left vertical

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grab the rope and pull outwards at a 90 degree angle from the drum. The verticals will twist. See below.

 

Then you repeat this action with each set of verticals on the drum. So you go under the next pair, back over the right vertical under the left and pull away from the drum.

 

What this action does is pull down the ring a little each time. The ring has the skin attatched to it and this will slowly increase the tension over the skin.

This can be quite hard on your hands so I always wear a glove on the hand that pulls the rope.

Once you have gone all the way round the drum and back to to where you started, try the drum out and if it sounds good then stop there, congratulations...you have just tuned your djembe drum!

HOWEVER...if you think the sound is still a little flat and needs further tuning then please read on. 

You are now going to do something called "Mali Weaving". This creates pretty little triangles in the rope and really tightens the drum skin.

To do this, continue with the same rope you were using for your earlier twisitng....go under the first two sets of twisted verticals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Then go over the left vertical of the next set and under the right. See below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then go back under the right vertical of the previous pair.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Put your foot on the top ring of the drum and pull away from the drum (maybe even with both hands) at 90 degree angle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see from the arrow, a very small triangle has been created. The triangle is small but the more of these we create the bigger and more uniform they become.

You then go under the vertical to the right of the triangle and over the left vetical of the next pair and under the right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then back over the right vertical of the previous pair...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...and once again put your foot on the drum and pull away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This will give you an bigger triangle than last time. Repeat the excerise until you think the drum sounds good.

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When you've done 4 or 5 triangles, try out the sound. If you're happy stop there, otherwise keep going round. If you run out of rope attatch some to the exisiting rope before it is finished and keep going round.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good luck - and remember to wear that glove!