Bass Tongue Drum - Padouk Wood - A Minor

The 8-tone Bass-Couch-Tongue Drum from feeltone is the first instrument with the "feeltone idea" on the market. To feel the sound while playing is so simply and uniquely realized here. The drum has feet on the bottom and on one side, so the instrument can also be tilted on its side and used as a lying version. There are two ways to experience the principle "feel the sound":

Playing surface on top. 2 players sit down at each end of the drum, where there are no tongues, and play the tongues that are now in front of them with the mallets. Slowly it starts, the exploration - the vibration is perceived with amazement in the body and quickly the shyness dissolves and a joyful interactive drumming starts, at first not necessarily musical - the players want to get to know each other - but later joyful, cheeky, funny, refreshing. Creativity is awakened and rhythm as communication connects and enlivens.

Playing surface on the side. The Bass-Tongue Drum is tilted on its side. The lid is on the side, and there is a blank pine side on top. This is padded with a blanket and a child or an adult is placed on it, when the lower legs at the end of the drum hang down, they can also be placed on top of the drum. A player (companion or educator - or an experienced, attentive child) sits next to the drum and gently strikes the individual sound tongues one after the other with a mallet. First you need to pay attention how the person is feeling, when the OK comes - then the slow, gentle drumming can begin. If you keep an eye on the breathing of the person lying down, you will recognize what is going on with the person and when to stop.

The Tongue Drum can of course also be played as a pure percussion melody instrument standing on its feet or placed vertically to save space. It also can be used as a bench. Be careful - do not sit on the tongues.

Application

In kindergartens, clinics and institutions for people with handicaps this drum is often used for mindfulness exercises because of its "feel the sound" abilities and to experience one's own body as having a pleasant blood circulation. Particularly with hyperactive children, wonderful results have been achieved. The attention goes from "being out of oneself" back inwards, the body is perceived again, the system calms down and the child can be integrated again.

Tones

The 8 notes tuned in A minor pentatonic are arranged in a sequence in which the left hand starts at the lowest note on the left, then the next note of the scale is played on the right row above with the right hand, continuing in this manner left - right - left and down again to the highest note. Arranged in this way, a clear sequence can be maintained in rhythmic playing, but it is also possible to experiment intuitively with the timbres. Playing patterns that are pleasing are repeated, from time to time a tone breaks out and new sound fantasies are explored. Starting as a drum with rhythmic patterns that are staggered in time, melodies slowly build up. The Bass-Tongue Drum can be played with mallets as well as with the fingers and hands.

How to play

With the mallets, the notes can easily be struck rhythmically and clearly in succession. That is to say, one lets the rubber ball of the mallet bounce onto the tongue, holding the shaft as if to stay on the tongue, the soft rubber ball will bounce back. If you now let the bouncing rubber ball glide over several tongues, fascinating sound patterns are created, which can be combined with the simple striking of the tongues.

Processing
The Bass-Tongue Drum has a sturdy interior, made out of air-dried padouk and is cleanly tuned. It is feeltone's largest Tongue Drum, unique on the market and popular with young and old. We use padouk because it has particularly good sound qualities as tone wood. The selected padouk from Nigeria comes exclusively from controlled and certified cutting, which is much more expensive than padouk from an unknown origin. We as a
company are not certified (very bureaucratic and costly, our consumption is too low), but we can always provide the certificate of our wood supplier as proof of our certified padouk. It is already an ethical "must" for us to use only such woods. We store the wood in the open air for 2-4 years to achieve the best drying results. Industrially dried padouk is very susceptible to cracking. We make every effort to use this precious wood, which the trees provide us with, as completely as possible. So first the planks are cut for the Bass, then the Tenor, followed by the Soprano and finally the Baba and Tinka Tongs.

Sound differences between ash and padouk
Padouk is an excellent tonewood and has very good vibrating qualities. This becomes noticeable with the Tongue Drum having a longer resonance. As a native alternative we use ash. This particularly long-fibred wood is very close to padouk in terms of quality.

Finest feeltone craftsmanship made out of high quality materials, lovingly manufactured from the plank to the tuning in the northeast of Germany by the beautiful Baltic Sea and shipped all over the world.

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