Drum question

[sylke]

For any of you bodhran players out there... Is it normal to have to moisten my drum head between each song? My drum isn't tunable, and in the cool, air conditioned house I live in, it stays very, very tight. I'm getting a little tempted to actually put a drop of oil on it. I know you're not supposed to oil drum heads, and late at night at Pennsic the air was so humid (and I imagine there was dew, too) that it was *too* moist and the drum was too floppy to play, so it's not like it's too tight all the time, but I don't want to dry it out by constantly leaching out any natural oil by sprinkling it with water every 10 minutes. Any ideas or thoughts?

Comments

[fiannaharpar.livejournal.com]

No water no oil. Step away from the drum until I can communicate with my husband :-)

[inkyblue2.livejournal.com]

i've been told that [some] hand lotion can do the trick. i use it. it seems to do nothing one way or the other. i'm interested to hear what fiammaharpar has to say.

[inkyblue2.livejournal.com]

uh, wow, that's pretty funny and stupid.

[trappedinabay.livejournal.com]

hand lotion can do the trick

Heehee.

[lorencillo.livejournal.com]

Are you wetting down the front or the back? I've been playing a non-tuneable for about eight years, and generally what I do is before I start playing, I turn on the faucet, run my hand through it, and then rub my hand across the inside of the head (the non-playing face), concentrating on the skin close to the rim. I repeat this various times depending on how tight it was to begin with. Then I leave it to soak in for maybe ten minutes, and I usually don't have to mess with it again for at least thirty minutes or more.

What I've found is that, even if the wetting down is "leaching out natural oil," which I'm not at all sure is true, the sweat and skin oil from my hand on the non-playing surface more than makes up for it. In fact I think there's been a net increase in oil content over the years from all the skin contact. At any rate, the tone of the drum is better than it was when I got it, so I seem to be doing the right thing.

For that matter, I knew a guy in a group out of CA called the Wicked Tinkers who had a drum with a very thick head, and he used to soak rags in water and wring them out over the playing surface, and he sounded fine, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

[ivhon.livejournal.com]

When I was playing with Eddie in Kansas City on a bi-weekly basis, there was no time to actually tune the drums mid-performance. The other bodhran player and I would keep a pot of water between us and a couple dishrags inside of it and generally wet the drum down after every 2nd or 3rd song.

I don't think you need to worry about leeching the natural oils out of the drumhead. Even if the oil is being moved around a bit on the head, it's not actually going anywhere.. don't forget, it doesn't desolve in water ;) And as lorencillo said above, your drum does, in fact, gain lots of grease from your hands.

As far as the "what else can I do" stuff.. Well, I've conditioned one of my bodhrans with lanolin and used baby oil for the other one. When you do this, you're basically just softening the skin. Basically, it makes the drum a bit more resistant to the elements.. which, if you don't have a tuning ring, is a good thing.

La.

[sylke.livejournal.com]

Well, I did rub a little mineral oil into it, and it's been so much happier ever since. I'm not sure how well it'll do now in more humid atmospheres, but if this means I can practice it at home more easily, I'm not sorry I conditioned it. :) Thanks for the advice, I needed a voice I trusted on bodhrans to say it was okay to add just a wee bit of oil.

[birdofparadox.livejournal.com]

Roundstone Bodhran folks say to use a sort of treatment wax.

(I bought mine there, and love it, even though my CTS doesn't let me really roll a tipper well.)

[sylke.livejournal.com]

I did end up treating it, but with mineral oil instead. It's still tight, but in a, "wet it down before playing it and it'll be fine," kind of way, not a "I'm going to stretch myself into oblivion and you'll never be able to play me properly again, muahahaha," kind of way.