Djembe Tuning; Do You Prefer Rope or Metal?
There are several different ways to classify, or categorize, modern djembe drums. The first is by the material that the drum is made of, whether it is the traditional hard wood, or whether it is from some man-made material such as fiberglass. Within these classifications there are 2 distinct subsets. One is the rope-tuned djembe and the other is the mechanically-tuned, or key-tuned djembe.
Djembe drums must be tuned in order to produce an acceptable and expected drum tone. Djembes should have the initial sound of a drum played by hand, followed by a resonating echo when struck with certain hand-slapping techniques.
The intonation on the djembe is adjusted either with the rope-tuning system, or the mechanical tuning system, depending on the type of drum (traditional rope or key- tuned). While the end result is the same, a proper sounding djembe, the process is completely different. Ropes are used to pull the drum head tighter on the one hand. One the other, the tension on the head is increased, thus raising the pitch, by tightening the metal edge of the drum head with a drum key.