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Bongos make noise in the night

Started by Mel Driller, December 06, 2014, 08:17 AM

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Mel Driller

I gave a set of LP bongo drums to a friend who is storing them on a shelf in her living room. She said that in the middle of the night she hears loud snapping or slapping sounds that must be coming from the drums. I loosened them somewhat, but she says it's still happening, though less. I told her to loosen them more. She's afraid it will scare the soon to arrive baby.  Anyone have experience with this?

Bart Elliott

You need to loosen the heads all the way so that there is no tension on the skin (ie. head). The humidity and temperature changes in the house will cause the head to "pop" as it re-seats itself to the bearing edge. I have some ethnic drums in my house that are just for display; they "pop" like this because there is no way for me to change the tension on the head.

The hand drums I actually use are always stored with the tension completely removed from the skin. This is a practice that you should do with EVERY hand drum you own ... that is, the drums with a real skin head. Not only will this preserve the head, giving it longer life, but will keep the skin from splitting should it get too tight in dry/arid conditions. Drums that are normally under high tension, like djembes, can be difficult (and a major pain) to loosen like this ... but if you are not using the drum, and it's being stored, you should loosen all tension on the head. If you can't do this, or don't want to do this, you need to keep the drum in a warm (room temperature) climate with 50-70% humidity.

I've had the macho head (small drum) on my LP bongos split on me years ago because I didn't loosen the tension. I've also had a Egyptian riq split its head for the exact same reason.

FYI ... I highly doubt any popping from the bongos is going to scare a baby, sleeping, awake or still in the womb ... but you can't tell an expectant mother that.

Mel Driller

Thanks very much for your response. I passed it on to my friend and she will follow your suggestion. She has not yet commented on it, but I appreciate your positive FYI.