How to make a Haitian Tanbou

[Sakuntu]

Hi Guys,
I was inspired by Akdom's "How to make a gwo ka" post - only I went with another french creole culture...Haiti.
This is a high level overview of how I made a Haitan "Tanbou Petwo" out of a log of Poplar. Check it out...

Hollowing out the log with drill and Chisel. I used a chain saw too at one point...

I shaped it with a Drawshave...I so wish I had a lathe!

Hollowed it out some more with a gouge

Birds eye view

[Sakuntu]

After the hollowing out of the log and shaping the bearing edge, I drilled holes around the bottom to lace rope through. I wanted to go with natural wood, but becuase I didn't season the wood correctly there were large cracks and bug holes that i had to fill in with filler, and it just didn't look that great....so i decided to paint it. Most Haitian drums are painted bright colors anyway so i guess you could say its more authentic...but then again, what do i know... i'm just a suburban white boy who's into drums

Blue & red are the colors of the Haitian flag

Skinned it with goat and used Mali weave for tuning (not traditional...but close)

It sounds good. Tanbou's are a good cross between congas and ashiko's in my opinion. Big bass, and round opens. Here's a shot of 2 other tanbou's I got from Haiti. The one on the left is tuned traditionally with rope made from old feedbags. the one on the right I strung up just to have something to play. I'm currently reheading and re stringing it. Pran Plezi-w (enjoy!)

[akdom]

Wonderful work!

Some of the same kind of drums in this pic.

These were made in Belize out of coconut trees.

D

[bongosnotbombs]

Excellent. Really nice work on that drum. I've been listening
to quite a bit of Haitian Voudou drumming lately. I don't
know much about it, but it sounds good. Is this drum you made played
with sticks or hands?

[Sakuntu]

Thanks.The drum I made is played with hands. It's style is that of the Petwo family of Haitian Drums. They are played with the hands from the best of my knowledge. The Rada Family are the ones that use sticks, sticks and hands, and just hands. For those who are new to Haitian drumming some of the greats are Ti roro , Azor, & Frisner Augustine. Theres a American guy named Markus Schwatrz whos real good too. Check em out on Youtube.