Caring for your Djembe

Think of your djembe, ashiko, or any hand drum as an investment; whether you paid $200 or $600 or more. Your drum is more than just log, a lump of wood with a skin on it. It's more than just an instrument to a lot of us as well. For sake of clarity, I'm going to use the term djembe to represent all hand drums, ashikos, ngoma, djuns, frame drums etc. Your djembe gives back to you everything you put into it. For a lot of us this instrument brings happiness and content, it fills an urge otherwise not filled. Take care of your djembe and it will surely take care of you.

Depending on how you like your djembe tuned, and the head material (whether it be goat, cow, synthetic, etc.), the life of your head can vary. For the most common set up (wood shell with a good bearing edge and medium thick goat skin tuned fairly tight) you should expect about 2-3 years if you play it on a normal basis. Cow hide is going to last a bit longer and synthetic should last even longer. You have to remember that natural hide heads are organic material and will eventually break down. They aren't meant to last forever. I personally like my drums tuned very tight, and go through a head at least once a year. Make sure you buy a drum for the quality of the shell and the projected sound, not the look of the head. That said, there are plenty of reasons that we get in drums with popped heads.

The most common is that a drum is left somewhere that has fluxuating humidity/weather; car, basement, garage, shed... The best place to store your djembe is inside with you, under regulated temperature and humidity. The natural skin heads are very susceptible to humidity and will stretch when in a humid environment and retract when dry. This can cause tuning issues, but most importantly will overstress the skin and eventually it will fail. Another common mistake is to try and tighten up the skin really tight, all at once. If you pull a few diamonds (or however your drum is tuned) to tighten your head, do a few and let it sit a few days, play it a lot before pulling some more diamonds. This can be a gradual process to let the skin ease into its position.

I see a lot of djembes come in that don't have extremely tight heads, but the skin has popped. 90% of the time this is due to a rough or uneven bearing edge. The other 10% is because of a scar in the skin or low quality goat skins being used. Uneven bearing edge on your djembe causes undue stress on certain areas of the skin. This is also awful for tuning the djembe properly. I usually only see this on poor quality djembes, mostly from tourist style drums from Indonesia and Ghana and cheaper ones bought of ebay and other such sites. If you suspect your drum to have an uneven bearing edge and you don't like the sound, I'd suggest sending it in or work it yourself if you have some wood working experience. I go more into this on my section about shell repairs.

I often am asked about putting a cream, or oil on the head to keep it "fresh" and not allow it to dry out; in my opinion, never. Putting an oil or cream into your natural skin head will keep it sounding wet. It will give your drum more overtones and you will loose the tight slaps that most people are after. Many drummers and djembefola go to extra lengths to make sure not even the oil from their hands gets to the head by putting glue on the drum skin where their hands hit so no moisture gets in. I don't think it's a good idea, but I have seen it done. See our section on head repair for more info on this topic.

Your drum shell is the most important aspect of your drum. All other components can be changed while keeping the look and fee,l and for the most part, the sound, of the drum the same. The shell is the foundation for your drum, so take extra good care of it. Keep metal away from the shell, keep pets away from it, keep fire away from it. I oil my shells every time I rehead the djembe. A lot of oils will work, some of my favorite are boiled linseed oil, Danish oil, coconut oil, and tung oil. They all have their benefits and drawbacks, but they are all great for protecting your shell and making sure you get the most life out of it. See my section on shell repair for more info on this topic.