Pre-Stretching Skin

[teb]

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In the book African Percussion by Serge Blanc he mentions pre-stretching the skin. "Before beginning to assemble the drum, it is very important to restore the skin's elasticity. To do this, stretch it hard, holding one end with your heel, as shown". I have never done it this way but believe it might be useful. Does anyone have experience doing it this way? I have had to take diamonds out and re-stretch the skin several times before getting a good sound. My thinking is this pre-stretch might help to eliminate this need for additional stretching. I should mention the skin has been soaked and is wet. After the stretch the assembly begins.

[michi]

Pre-stretching is definitely a good thing. The skin will be softer and play in quicker, sound better (initially), and it stops some of the stretch from happening after you have fitted the skin, with the risk of ending up with rings that are way low. If you have pre-stretched and softened the skin and want to fit it with the Guinea fold-over style, pre-stretching also makes it easier to get the skin to shape itself around the knots on the crown ring, so you get a nicer finish.

You can stretch the skin as shown in the picture, or you can put it into a bundle on the floor and walk on it (refold it quite a few times and put it into different orientations), or you can roll the skin into a sausage and use an upright steel post or some such to pull the skin around (holding each end of the sausage with the center around the pole and pulling back and forth). If you use the pole, roll up the skin in different directions periodically. You can also grab two adjacent sections of the sausage with your hands, maybe 10cm apart, and turn your hands like you were turning a crank, twisting and working the section of skin between your hands. Work your way along the sausage, then repeat many times, rolling the sausage up in a new direction each time.

The goal of all the above is to soften the skin and to get the initial stretch out of the skin, and to do it evenly. Be careful if you use the method shown in the picture: it's easy to stretch the skin unevenly that way (more in one direction than another); but, with care, that method works too.

Cheers,

Michi.

[teb]

Thanks Michi for the good advice. From my past experience I thought pre-stretching might be a good idea. In the future I am going to give it a try. Your idea of stretching it evenly makes a lot of sense.