A quality djembe from Ghana?

[Rhythm House Drums]

I tried to ignore this thread, but I figure I'll chime in...

aiduenu,
You should have done a bit more research on this site before trying to convince us that painted drums from Ghana made out of Twineboah are professional quality that are not geared towards tourists. There are lots of drum builders and players that contribute to this forum that have been in the scene for a long time.

You mention that Twineboah can be like Iroko, very hard and dense... however compared to other woods that the djembe is made from Iroko is very soft and brittle. A lot of people shy away from Iroko because it is a softer wood and absorbs some of the projection that a wood like Khadi or Lenke have.

I have never heard a Ghana djembe made from Twineboah that sounded anything like a Guinea/Mali/Ivory Coast djembe made from a dense hardwood. Twineboah is Twineboah... all of it has the same properties, some may be a bit more dense... but not significantly so. Just like there are TONS of pine trees in the west, some have slightly different properties, but they are all soft, and therefore do not make for good drums. Another issue aside from sound, with any soft wood is that they will dent up really easy.

I would absolutely know the difference between Iroko and Twineboah, as I'm sure a lot of others on this site would. Iroko has a very defined grain, and looking at it closely can almost appear 3D and also has a very distinctive smell... Twineboah has very little grain definition. Twineboah can be marked by pressing your fingernail into the wood. This is very difficult to do even in Iroko, and almost impossible in a wood like Lenke, Djalla, or Khadi.

I'm here to get the correct info into peoples minds... and as far as I'm concerned... Twineboah is for tourist jembes and little figurines.

[aiduenu]

Hey Mr. Rhythm,

I can tell you that you are big wrong of your emphasis, you might be a player not a producer and you do not know what comes to play when producing djembe all you know is the type of wood being used and some producer telling you stories you want to hear. Let me you you can even you a very white wood call wawa very soft and you can easily remove the inside by using you hand to produce a very good sound djembe. It does not neccessary means that only good wood can produce a good sound and for that you are very big big big wrong capital wrong, you have to do your home work well.
I am djembe make and a player as well, and what am trying to tell you is that good sound djembe do not come from the quality of the wood, it depend on the maker, and you can have a very good wood high quality wood and produce a very bad sound quality. Do you know that MR RHYTHM? are you telling the world that all djembe made from Burkina, Guinea, Senegal and Mali are all good quality djembe? You are wrong Mr. RHYTHM. Even djembe that comes from these countries I have just mentioned also have a bad quality djembe and it all depend on the maker.

For Example I was in China so few month ago for a show in shanghai and one radio station in Beijing was making a programme about african djembe and chinese guy was saying on the radio that, Africans invented djembe for communication because in the olden day there were not water for the Africans to drink and that was reason Africans invented Djembe as means of communication tool to enable the Africans to save drinking water because the more you talk the more you will drink water. We will tell the truth of our own history and tell me what is the truth of this mater?
let honest djmeb maker tells you truth of djembe making. the only problem for the soft wood is that, it can easily go bad in terms of breakages but with the sound quality it can be good if you have a good djembe maker and I can proof wrong with hard evidence.

[Rhythm House Drums]

Wow... I was just stating an observation of woods...

Actually, I love playing hand drums, especially the djembe, but my real passion is creating them. I have made MANY hand drums and have carved djembe from a log using only hand tools... I am a drum maker...

I never said all drums that come from (any country) are all good or all bad.. I agree that a lot of the sound comes from the way the drum is carved and the way it is tuned. However, you cannot squeeze a lemon to get orange juice... no matter how good you squeeze it.

We could argue all day about sound... but it comes down to personal preference... if you like the muted, unprojected sounds of a soft wood... great. But I like (as do most students of West African percussion) sound that has bright projection. Lets say a good drum carver makes a drum from lenke and a drum from twineboah. Any serious student of West African percussion and djembe is going to go for the lenke.... because it has the sound that they want.

I feel there is little difference in the sound of hard woods on a djembe... but softwoods absorb too much of the sound for my taste.

I've built lots of drums out of lots of woods... the softer the wood, the less I like the sound.

[aiduenu]

well that make two of us and as you rightly said and I quote " I never said all drums that come from (any country) are all good or all bad.. I agree that a lot of the sound comes from the way the drum is carved and the way it is tuned. However, you cannot squeeze a lemon to get orange juice... no matter how good you squeeze it. "

But i can also tell you that good farmer can put lemon tree and orange tree together to produce a very good juice.

your quoted "
(as do most students of West African percussion) sound that has bright projection. Lets say a good drum carver makes a drum from lenke and a drum from twineboah. Any serious student of West African percussion and djembe is going to go for the lenke.... because it has the sound that they want".

Well i can also tell you that, student are student and what you teach them is what they will have in mind, if all Djembe or drumming student in the world are being provide with lenke djembe for they are study, what do you think will happend to african forest? for sure i know it take longer year for lenke tree to grow to it potemtial use. If you educate your student to go in for only lenke djembe or drum what do you think will happened in the future?
And mind you not every student of yours will be a professional djembe player or master player so then what will happen to his or her lenke made djembe that they bought?
I Believe that beginners or student of djembe players do not be encourage to use lenke or other hard wood djembe for they are practice or studies.

I will also keep on saying with my long experience almost 11years of djembe production and playing I also know that, with good skill and technique every wood can produce a good sound no matter how hard or soft the wood iss. But with the life span I know for sure the hard wood djembe will live longer. That is the fact.

Benji