Baara

Rhythm House Drums is starting a blog to keep our customers in touch with what we are doing, and where we are at with custom projects.  I understand that I have a wonderful website without a whole lot of stock, and the stock I do have seems to sit idle sometimes.  Rest assured, we are busy… we just have a lot of custom orders.    Hopefully this blog will help my customers gain trust in me and my company as well as engage drummers and drum builders alike.  I hope to be posting such things as how-to’s on reheading a djembe or ashiko and repairing minor defects in drum shells, my experiences with different woods and how density, thickness, and hardness all effect the sound, and with custom projects that I’m working on and/or find particularly challenging.

I want to post info for other drum builders to share what I’ve learned along the way from tool/machine reviews and set ups to construction techniques, working with wood, best practices and everything in-between.  I love building drums and am always looking to improve on what I know.  I get upset when I see poor quality drums being sold all over the net.. could it be just for the all mighty dollar, or do these builders just not know!  I hope to clear the air about what makes a drum, that you can’t just through some skin on a piece of wood and say it’s a drum.  A custom drum should never be a mystery or “unique” until it is headed and tuned.  The shape of the drum, the wood used, the thickness of the skin and the skin type used all contribute to the sound.  A good drum smith as we are sometimes called should be able to explain how these things change the sound of the drum, and be able to adjust this to build a drum to your specifications.  Not many builders around can offer this, which is perhaps why we have such a reputation for quality custom work.  My purpose isn’t to make money, its to make a living doing what I love and to give respect to those before me that took on the challenge of building drums.  We’ve never been a rich group, often times poor.  Especially in today’s economy with large corporations cutting prices by having products manufactured overseas not for quality of a product, but for the sole purpose of making money… This is huge problem in the drum building world, and many are not educated enough to recognize the difference.  Well, I see this blog as a little bit of a chance for me to educate, and get people going on the right direction.

I’ll plan to have continuous posts (once a month or so) on specific rhythms including history, notation, and sound samples and perhaps video example if I can find a suitable one on youtube or within my archives of collected videos.  As an extension of this I want to highlight influential artists with maybe some background history and where to find their materials for further study.  I will also offer technique advice, exercises for building proper technique and speed, and work some on arrangements of rhythms, and perhaps a drum buying guide… what to look for, and what to avoid.

As you can see, I’ve got big plans for this blog.  Hopefully something drummers and drum builders will find valuable and interesting.

I love comments, especially from customers… so feel free to share your thoughts!