drum hide type 

What drum is right for me?
Size:14", 18", or 22"
hide: deer, goat, buffalo, kangaroo, fur on, or even vegan 

This page a has a description of drum types, pictures and a youtube playlist at the end which goes through a series of short video's on different drum types, it also has an 8minute vid discussion about drum choice.

Drum Size:
14" The smaller drum i offer is still thought of as a medium sized drum by many, it's super light easy and portable with agood loud sound and reasonace
18"  This is a big drum, made with a thin hoop, and light weight, it has a louder sound and longer reverberation.  It still fits in a standard suitcase for travel and is easy to move around
22" this is huge, but pretty easily managable, it's 75mm depp rather than 50mm and weighs a little more for the size. the sound and reverberation are the loudest and longest. it's a big powerfull drum that many facilitators love

Animal or Vegan medicine? 

A traditional drum is made from raw hide; the choice of animal skin should be chosen based on ethical sourcing, what is available, the appearance, the sound and the animal's archetypal energy. 

Animal Medicine

Factors in choosing what animal hide or medicine is right for you include:
Archetypal animal preference, often a personal or cultural resonance
Thickness, typically the thinner the hide the higher the pitch, and the thicker the hide the deeper the tone. Some claim the resonance or length of sound made for each beat is reduced with a thicker hide, but practically that's only with ridiculously thick hides (a cowhide I've defleshed myself).
Appearance,  different hide types often have very different appearances, off course each hide is different too

Kangaroo medicine is native to Australia, the skins i source are living wild until shot for being a pest on a land that they roamed long before farmers ( but that's another story right. grrrr). Still a quick passing. Further, the skins are a by-product of the meat industry.
They are light, bouncy, free, and very much Australian. The hides are thin and often partially see-through in appearance with great reverberation and a higher pitch sound. As the kangaroo hides are thinner, they can go out of tune with a change of moisture. there is a variable tension adjustment i have for this.

Goat hide is a more traditional medicine to Asia, Europe and north Africa, it's one of the first domesticated animals. Also, think Capricorn in archetype. The hides are relatively thick, but still light with good reverberation and hold a deeper sound. The hides I source are free-range and a by-product of the meat industry. Availability is dependant, i have  Australian goat hides often a little darker with a spine line and also Pakistani goat hides which have a more textured or mottled appearance.

Deer are native to everywhere except Australia and Antarcica. The reasonance is similar to goat, They can have plain or strong variation in appearance and colour with occasional see-through parts. Deer is currently in short supply as the deer meat industry in Australia is small.

Water Buffalo hide has strong connection to Native American culture. It is typically a thicker hide with deeper sound similar to cowhide. The colouring is often mostly transparent, with some variation, and the resonance is powerful.

Fur on hides i may have a few available, in a range from cow, goat, horse and buffalo. These have a deeper sound even when the hide is thinner, reverbaration is good, but they need to be strung with a little less tension, which of course we do. For availability check with brad

Clearing trauma / creating medicine

Through my mostley self taught initiation in working with animal medicine it's been huge to source ethical hides; also work with people in trauma clearing to transmute the energy of the animal passing into a clean aninmal medicine drum. This passes on through all the drums i make and workshops i facilitate so the maker can simply offer a blessing to the animal and transmute it into medicine.

book in to make a drum now.....

Vegan medicine (back to a work in progress)

The only traditional natural material vegan drum's are made from is wood, they're quite big and this isn't possible for a medicine drum. I've done a lot of research and will continue to consider natural materials for a vegan drum. Experiments i've done include vegan leathers (leather has poor reasonance compared to raw hide), seaweed kelp drums with inconsistent shrinkage, lucky to get a decent size and poor resonance and growning scoby's, super brittle (a by product of kombutcha).
i'm working on a scoby based drum with good promise, but having a logistics slow down on getting the larger scobies.

In the past So i've come back to what modern day drums are made from, a synthetic mylar. They have a very neutral energy, which emphasises the importance of the medicine of creation in the ceremony of drum making to infuse a light, harm no-thing vegan medicine. The skin is clear and can be painted, stenciled or drawn with certain mediums. when you book in for a vegan workshop you will receive more info on preparing for your soul infused artwork. 

book in to make a drum now.....