Whale drum (from Emil Richards Collection)

A steel tongue drum, tank drum, or hank drum is a round steel slit/tongue drum in the

Idiophone An idiophone is any musical instrument that creates sound primarily by the vibration of the instrument itself, without the use of air flow (as with aerophones), strings (chordophones), membranes (membranophones) or electricity ( electrophones) ...

family originally fashioned from a propane cylinder.

Description

A steel tongue drum can be made from an empty (often 20lb) propane tank. The tank is flipped over, the base cut/knocked off; and seven to ten tongues are cut radially into the bottom of the tank, forming the top of the instrument. Steel tongue drum can also be made from new unused tank heads. The tongues can be tuned by the maker by varying the length of the cuts, or by adding weights, often

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to the tongues. The steel tongue drum is often tuned to

pentatonic scales A pentatonic scale is a musical scale with five notes per octave, in contrast to the heptatonic scale, which has seven notes per octave (such as the major scale and minor scale). Pentatonic scales were developed independently by many ancien ...

but can be tuned to the

diatonic scale In music theory, a diatonic scale is any heptatonic scale that includes five whole steps (whole tones) and two half steps (semitones) in each octave, in which the two half steps are separated from each other by either two or three whole steps, ...

, the

chromatic scale The chromatic scale (or twelve-tone scale) is a set of twelve pitches (more completely, pitch classes) used in tonal music, with notes separated by the interval of a semitone. Chromatic instruments, such as the piano, are made to produce the ...

, or any set of notes the maker chooses. The instrument is played with the fingers or with mallets. It boasts a pleasant, bell-like tone.

History

The steel tongue drum is based on the wooden

slit drum A slit drum or slit gong is a hollow percussion instrument. In spite of the name, it is not a true drum but an idiophone, usually carved or constructed from bamboo or wood into a box with one or more slits in the top. Most slit drums have one slit ...

. The slit drum is known to have been developed independently by multiple ancient civilizations including Africans,

Aztecs The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those g ...

, and

Indonesians Indonesians (Indonesian: ''orang Indonesia'') are citizens or people originally from Indonesia, regardless of their ethnic or religious background. There are more than 1,300 ethnicities in Indonesia, making it a multicultural archipelagic coun ...

. They were used for both ritual and entertainment in these ancient civilizations. The steel tongue drum today had several predecessors, most notably the Whale Drum in 1990 by Jim Doble and the Tambiro by Felle Vega. In February 2007 Dennis Havlena, inspired by the physical properties of the Tambiro and the tone layout of the

Hang Hang or Hanging may refer to: People * Choe Hang (disambiguation), various people * Luciano Hang (born 1962/1963), Brazilian billionaire businessman * Ren Hang (disambiguation), various people Law * Hanging, a form of capital punishment Arts, e ...

, created a steel tongue drum with a circular cross pattern layout from an empty 20-pound

propane Propane () is a three-carbon alkane with the molecular formula . It is a gas at standard temperature and pressure, but compressible to a transportable liquid. A by-product of natural gas processing and petroleum refining, it is commonly used a ...

tank. The name 'Hank Drum' came from a combination of "Hang" and "tank".YouTube video: The Original Propane Tank "Hank Drum" - by Dennis Havlena
/ref> Dennis Havlena's instrument, in turn, has inspired other steel tongue drum inventions. Today there are a lot of vendors of commercial versions of the steel tongue drum worldwide. file:Gombadrum frontup5.jpg, Hank drum file:Steel tongue drum pentatonic F 432.jpg, A steel tongue drum tuned in a pentatonic F scale with A 432 hz

Construction

Slit drum A slit drum or slit gong is a hollow percussion instrument. In spite of the name, it is not a true drum but an idiophone, usually carved or constructed from bamboo or wood into a box with one or more slits in the top. Most slit drums have one slit ...

s were originally built out of hollowed out logs or bamboo, but the steel tank drum is made from steel and often built from 20 gallon propane tanks. The construction is usually enclosed, unlike other open-bottom

drum The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a she ...

s, so the sound produced resonates through the steel and vibrating air escaped from the slits. When built from a steel propane tank, the paint is usually ground off and properly sized slits are cut and tuned by means of filing or adding material through

soldering Soldering (; ) is a process in which two or more items are joined by melting and putting a filler metal (solder) into the joint, the filler metal having a lower melting point than the adjoining metal. Unlike welding, soldering does not involv ...

welding Welding is a fabrication (metal), fabrication process that joins materials, usually metals or thermoplastics, by using high heat to melt the parts together and allowing them to cool, causing Fusion welding, fusion. Welding is distinct from lower ...

References

External links

Dennis Havlena's Website
* ttps://www.tongue-drum.net Tongue Drum Guidebr>How to Build a Hank Drum
{{DEFAULTSORT:Steel tongue drum Percussion vessels Slit drums 21st-century percussion instruments Pitched percussion instruments