Tongue Drum

[Porter Bassett]

I'm making a tongue drum. I don't have any plans, but am just going off of some pictures I've seen.

For those of you that might know something about them:

Does the box need a bottom, or does it work fine for it to have an open bottom?

What are my options if some of the tongues sound "dead"? I'm thinking of thinning it out from underneath near the base of the tongue to make it more flexible. Do you think this would work?

[Roger Benton]

porter,

a guy in my shop was just making a bunch of these. used paduk for the tounges.
he said you could "tune" it up or down by as much as an octave and a half in by wasting out wood from the underside of the tongues. he used a drill for this. if you do decide to put on a bottom, i guess you have to tune everything first before the bottom goes on and finishing. i would research this a little more though because he was wasting away certain areas of the tongues to make the pitch go higher or lower.

but it is possible!

as far as a bottom, as a drummer i know that a drum with top and bottom heads is more resonant than a drum with one head.

good luck!

[Christopher Kanda]

I made one from a wood mag plan but I'm not sure what issue. The music teacher I work with loved it. here is a link http://www.woodmagazine.com/woodworking-plans/tone-of-fun-tongue-drum/

[Joe Scharle]

You can hear one that I made here (http://www.ncwoodworker.net/pp/showphoto.php?photo=6730). I also used 1/2" paduak for the top and closed the bottoms.

[Keith Outten]

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/search.php?searchid=3789822

[Van Huskey]

And now I know what a tongue drum is. :cool: