I saw some posts online of people playing a metal circular drum called a hang or tank drum. It sounds like the kind of music that you would hear during a massage or yoga class. Very ethereal and calming. So I looked online to see where to get one, and found a guy on Etsy that custom makes them. So I connected with Boris from Slovenia, and ordered a drum. I saw that some people online that had ordered from Boris had some custom images on the top of the drum. So I had Bree draw me the cool mandala below: (click any of the images below to open up a fullscreen version)
Boris took that image, flipped it 4 times to make a circle, and cleaned it up a bit:
Then he applied it to the raw metal drum, and acid etched it into the metal. I wish I had more pictures of this process!
After that Boris carved out the drum to a 12 note G scale, and colored it a gorgeous blue/purple combo, and sent it on it’s 3 week trip to Kansas.
Click the image below to get an idea of what the drum sounds like. This is using soft mallets. It sounds completely different if you use the wooden mallets that came with it, the tips of your fingers or your thumbs. As you play it, you quickly discover that you can’t really make it sound bad…play slowly and deliberately, or fast with lots of rhythm…and it still sounds cool.
If you’re interested in getting one made, click the link below for Boris’s etsy shop. Tell him Gary says hi. They run between $100-$300 and about $50 shipping from Slovenia. There are a ton of drum makers online, and just about every drum I’ve seen is made a little differently and looks completely different. The price varies based on how many notes, size, and what materials the drum is made from.