Almost everyone who orders a drum from me wants the same thing: a deep, clean, low, long-lasting sound. A powerful bass from a single strike that resonates and fills the space.
Today, this is exactly the kind of sound many people associate with a good shamanic drum.
But if we look at the drums used by shamans in the past, there is an interesting contradiction: not all of them could sound like that.
The old drums were not built for a clean bass
Traditional shamanic drums were often covered with bells, metal pendants, ongons, amulets, and other objects. When the drum was struck, the membrane wasn’t the only thing making sound. All of these elements rang, rattled, knocked against each other, and created an entire layer of additional noise around the main rhythm.
And that wasn’t a flaw.
A shaman didn’t necessarily need a perfectly clean bass tone. The rhythm of the drum, together with the ringing, rattling, and movement of all these elements, created the soundscape in which the shaman worked and entered an altered state of consciousness.
Some drums also had fur left on the membrane. And here simple physics comes into play: fur dampens the vibrations of the membrane. A drum like this simply cannot produce the same clean, long-lasting bass as a well-tensioned bare skin membrane.
The other factor is the technology
Today, we can make an almost perfectly even wooden frame, join it precisely, select the skin, control its position, and tension it evenly. We have tools and technologies that a drum maker a hundred or more years ago simply didn’t have.
And if the frame had imperfections, the joint wasn’t precise, the skin varied in thickness, and the tension wasn’t even, it would be strange to expect a perfectly clean, deep, sustained tone from that instrument.
None of this means that ancient shamanic drums were bad instruments.
It simply means that a clean, deep bass was not necessarily the main goal when they were made.
So what counts as a real shamanic drum today?
People occasionally appear in my comments telling me that what I make is “not authentic,” “not real,” or “not shamanic.” So I have a question.
What should we consider a real shamanic drum today?
An exact reproduction of an old instrument, with all the characteristics of its construction and sound?
Or a drum that preserves the basic principles of this ancient instrument but is made by a 21st-century craftsman — using modern tools, accumulated experience, and an understanding of how to get the most out of wood and skin acoustically?
I choose the second.
On authenticity — one detail
Of all the joints and connections in my drums, modern glue is used in only one place: where the two ends of the wooden frame are joined.
Everything else — the lacing of the membrane and the attachment of the wooden handle — is done exclusively with rawhide lacing cut from the same skin used for the drum membrane.
No bolts, no nuts, no metal fasteners, not even thread.
Only wood and skin.
Authentic enough?
The connection to where this instrument came from is important to me. But I see no reason to deliberately reject modern possibilities where they allow me to make the instrument more reliable and its sound deeper, cleaner, and longer-lasting.
Especially because today many people use the drum not only in shamanic practices. They use it for meditation, sound practices, or simply for the state created by a deep, repetitive rhythm.
And in this context, the quality of the sound really does matter.
What actually creates the sound
But a good frame and good skin alone won’t create that sound.
One of the most important factors is the tension of the membrane.
You can take the same skin and identical frames, tension them differently — and end up with two completely different instruments.
And how I do it is exactly what I show in detail in my masterclass. Step by step: from preparation and marking to the actual process of tensioning the membrane.
If you want to make your own drum and achieve a deep, clean, long-lasting sound — the drum-making masterclass is here.
What matters more to you in a shamanic drum — authenticity in the way it is made, or the quality and depth of its sound?