I have made many rawhide heads for drums, beginning about 1984. I
was introduced to the craft by a Kenyan man named Wakesa. He showed
me how to make a drum using rawhide lacing to attach cow skin heads
to a copper cylinder. I was fascinated by how the heads and laces shrank
to constrict around the shell as they dried. That drum is still in service
today at a Montessori school.
First of all, I'd better define what rawhide is. Rawhide is the skin
and protective layer of an animal. It is distinct from leather which
has been cured to soften it. Rawhide is hard and more brittle. Its usefulness
is in its remarkable ability to expand and contract, its strength, and
its abrasion resistance.
One of the main reasons to use rawhide for drumheads is that it sounds
really beautiful. Makers of synthetic heads, like Remo, have been trying
for years to duplicate it. Another reason is that the biodegradable
hide is waste material from animals butchered for meat. It's good to
make their deaths more meaningful, if possible. The trade-off is that
rawhide is more inconsistent, more unpredictable, and more weather-reactive
than synthetic.
Choosing a Good Hide
Whether you buy from a shop or a website, you will want to be choosy
about your purchase. These are some considerations before handing the
cashier your credit card.
Size
Rawhide is sold in entire skins, consisting of the whole back, both
shoulders and flanks, the rump, the belly and front and rear legs. There
are also in half hides, cut along the backbone to yield one flank, one
shoulder, half the rump and belly, and two legs. A half hide is good
for a single-headed drum, but a whole hide is much better for a double-headed
drum. Pay the extra amount if you really want a quality drum. I'll say
more about this in "Where to Cut the Pieces".
You can also find precut pieces of hide for your drum. They are cut
in disks, ready to use. They are usually good pieces with consistent
thickness.
You have two main factors in selecting material for your drumheads: the
thickness and the type of animal.
Choosing a Thickness
Before choosing the hide for your drum, you must decide how you will
play the drum. Will you play it hard and fast or softly? Will you mount
it on a stand or wear it? Will you play it with sticks, soft mallets
or your hands? All of these should decide how tough your heads must
be. As a general rule, softer heads arguably sound better than tough
ones. So, it is a trade-off.
Thickness is the overriding factor, regardless of which animal you
choose. All other factors being equal, thicker heads are stronger than
thin ones. But, if that were your only concern, selecting heads would
not be such an art. Thick hide is surprisingly strong. I have played
large taiko drums using stout oak sticks. I could hit them with all
my weight and power and they would just shrug it off.
Thin hide, on the other hand, has a nice, resonant sound, more sustain,
and, at the right tension, excellent decay (the sound dropping off after
a hit). Thick hide has a harder sound, sometimes too hard. I've had
thick hides that sound like fiberglass.
Thick hides have a strong "attack", which means you can readily
hear the sound of the stick hitting the surface of the head. Thin hides
have a softer sound, sometimes to the point of a thick bass guitar note.
Choosing an Animal
Your other choice is which animal. As with anything in the natural world,
there is a lot of inconsistency, and you will have to take everything
I say as tendencies, not strict facts.
Cattle
The most popular hide used for drums is probably the skin of cattle,
known as cowhide or calfskin. Cowhide is the skin of an adult steer
(male) or cow (female). Calfskin is from a young animal. Steer is usually
tougher than cow, and calf is the thinnest and weakest—though
it sounds very nice.
Adult hide is used for hard, tight heads, like for congas or bongos.
It is also used for many bass drums, like Japanese taiko and West African
dun-duns.
Calfskin is used for natural heads for Brazilian drums, some frame
drums, and many bass drums around the world. It was also the material
used for Western drum sets before being largely replaced with plastic.
Goat
Also very popular, goat is used throughout the world for a softer sound
with more character. When pulled very tight, it can produce a sound
unbelievably high-pitched. It is more delicate than cowhide, but the
thicker male goat is often used on drums that take a lot of punishment.
Elk
Elk is a favorite for Amerindian drum makers. It is tough, like cowhide,
but has a softer sound, somewhere between cow and goat. Unfortunately,
it can be as much as double the cost of cowhide.
Horse
Horse has a sharp attack and is quite strong for a given thickness,
though not quite as tough as cow. It is not good for a soft sound. Unbleached
horsehide has a dark color.
Deer
Deer is soft, like goat, but a little thicker and stronger. Of all the
hides, I think it consistently has the most beautiful, mellow sound.
It is a little more expensive than goat.
Buffalo
Buffalo (actually bison) is the thickest and toughest of the hides available
in North America. It is used on large Amerindian drums. I've heard complaints
that, in some applications, it doesn't sound good. I think it was a
discussion about African bass drums. I have hit a large drum made with
Buffalo and it sounded good to me. Buffalo is very expensive.
Bleaching
For esthetic purposes, hides are often bleached. They can be recognized
by their pale color. Most natural hides are a shade of deep tan or brown.
Goat and deer can be naturally quite light. Bleaching can weaken hide,
to what degree no one seems to agree on. I usually choose darker hides
and I have never bleached them myself.
Recently, I put some beautiful nearly-white cow skin on four drums.
It had a soft texture and excellent sound. Unfortunately, one ended
up getting a tear after a rehearsal and another tore while I was tightening
it during drum construction. One possible cause I have considered is
that their fibers had been weakened by bleaching.
Hair
Another choice is whether to keep the hair on the head. Many drums,
most notably bass drums from Africa, have heads that still have the
fur on them. The main reason for this is that it greatly reduces the
attack. The sounded is more muted and overtones reduced. Another reason
is appearance. Batimbo's drums have fur of a variety of colors, from
mottled black and white to solid red.
The hair eventually wears off the center, but continues to dampen the
head on the rest of the surface.
Inspecting the Hide
When you purchase a hide, there are some things to look for.
Consistency
Most hides have a large variation between the thinnest portions, usually
the flanks and belly, and the thickest, usually the shoulders and back.
Make sure you can cut the disks out in an area that is consistent. I
have been lucky and found hides that had almost the same thickness all
over. This is ideal. I was able to cut six bass drumhead disks for that
single hide.
One of my horsehides went from paper-thin to heavy. I used the thin
portions for a tenor drum and the thicker parts for a medium-sized Japanese
festival drum.
Damage
Also check for damage and weaknesses. Damage includes holes. Some of
the non-domestic animals were hunted and shot with a gun or bow, leaving
a hole somewhere. Also, fat is removed from the inner surface of the
hide with knives. A careless worker often slices into the hide itself,
making slashes that weaken the material.
Scars are not a problem. In fact, I have heard that they may be stronger
than the surrounding tissue.
Preparing your Hide
Now that you have found your hide, it's time to get it ready for mounting.
Mostly, you're going to soak and cut.
Soaking
I have heard wildly-differing recommendations for how long to soak hide
before stretching it onto a drum shell. The main factors are thickness
and the animal type.
Goat, horse, and some cowhide soften quickly. Thin elk also gets pliable
after only three hours of immersion. But longer periods don't hurt,
so I would soak any hide at least six hours. I normally put mine in
water before I go to bed at night.
Most cowhide requires a long soak to get truly pliable and elastic.
I soak thick cowhide at least 24 hours, and sometimes 36. Many instructions
for making Amerindian drums recommend 24 hours. I would also do this
for thick elk and horse.
I have heard some higher numbers. One website recommends a minimum
of one week of soaking. The longest I've heard is one taiko maker who
leaves their hides immersed in a river for three years!
The temperature of the water should never be hot. Some say warm: I
just use the ambient temperature.
Selecting your Cuts
Back near the introduction, I mentioned buying whole hides versus half
hides. If you are making a two-headed drum, there's a very good reason
to pay the extra amount for the entire skin.
Animal hides are generally symmetrical. The backbone runs down the
center, and on either side is one flank, a shoulder, half of the belly,
and a front and back leg. If you want your heads as equal as possible,
you will want to cut the two disks from the same portions of the hide
on each side. For instance, if you want very strong, thick heads, cut
a disk from the right shoulder and another from the left. Try to make
them as consistent in thickness as possible. For thinner heads, cut
one from the right flank and the other from the left flank. Medium heads
can be cut from each side of the rump.
Grain vs. Flesh Side
When you are putting your drumheads on the shell, you will have the
choice of which side of the hide you want facing out and you will hit.
The grain side is the surface that was exposed on the animal and held
the fur. The flesh side is the inner surface that held the fat and lay
against the muscles.
The grain side is normally smoother and has a texture with wrinkles
and pores, like a pigskin wallet or American football. The flesh side
has a "hairier" texture. It is the surface that is buffed
to make suede. It is not always easy to distinguish the grain from the
flesh side.
Most drum makers put the grain on the outside. For one drum, I decided
to use the flesh side out. I was trying to get a rougher texture to
reduce the attack. The sound is good; so, maybe I was successful.
Special Considerations for Rawhide Heads
Rawhide heads have special qualities that both give them their usefulness,
but also make dealing with them a hobby in itself.
Weather Effects
One of the most challenging things about natural heads is that they
react to weather. Lower temperatures contract the drum shell and high
humidity expands the drumheads, which both lower the pitch of the drum.
Humidity affects the sound more than temperature. For this reason, I
make my heads a little tighter than the ideal tension for sound. This
allows a bit of expansion without the heads going completely dead.
There's a lot of variation between the animal species and the amount
of reaction to the weather conditions. It seems that goat reacts the
most. My elk heads react only a little.
Rope or Laces?
In one regard, I am still learning about the dynamics of rawhide-headed
drums. One question I'm still trying to answer is whether it's better
the rope a non-tunable drum with low-stretch synthetic rope or rawhide
laces.
On the surface, rawhide seems best. The heads can be very tight because
both the heads and the laces contract as they dry after construction.
On the other hand, the laces may expand when the humidity rises, which
would amplify the weather's effects on the drum tuning. A drum with
synthetic rope, on the other hand, may not be initially as tight, but
may have less response to humidity changes.
Approach
I think the best approach to making rawhide-headed drums is to do your
best to make a tough, nice-sounding drum, but accept whatever result
your get. Don’t have strict expectations of what sound it should
make. The drum will have its own, unique sound, determined by the animal,
the shell, the playing method, the drummer, and the weather conditions.
It is truly a product of its surrounding world.
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