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.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2005-08-24 11:57 am (UTC)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.