# Bongos



## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

Well, after all these years I finally own a percussion instrument, unless you count when I drum on a guitar body...

I actually didn't seek out a set to buy--they were a gift from family after they had taken a trip & brought back stuff for everybody. I wasn't expecting a gift--so anything they gave me would have been appreciated. But I think it was really cool they gave me something musical.

Now I get to see what I can do with them. Should be fun. I'm working on slide as far as guitar--and now with a piano & bongos in the house, I may be playing a whole lot more music.

Anybody else have anything like this they like to experiment with?


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## Andy (Sep 23, 2007)

I've always loved having percussion instruments around. I've had timbales and congas in the past, and currently have a drumkit and a cajon. It's so nice to have my drums set up, mic'd and tuned so I can have a practice or recording session at any time.

You'll definitely start GAS-ing for more drums as time goes on -- I couldn't live without my kit now.


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## noobcake (Mar 8, 2006)

Yeah I own a pair of bongos too, even bought a nice Gibraltar bongo stand for it. It's great for stress relief. I'm not very good at playing them though.


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## Starbuck (Jun 15, 2007)

Yeah we have em, tamborines, rains sticks all kinds of shaky things. Every trip I take I make it a point to stop at a local music store and buy some kind of intersting musical thing that's easily transported back. It's fun when the kiddies can join in.


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## keeperofthegood (Apr 30, 2008)

Starbuck said:


> Yeah we have em, tamborines, rains sticks all kinds of shaky things. Every trip I take I make it a point to stop at a local music store and buy some kind of intersting musical thing that's easily transported back. It's fun when the kiddies can join in.


:rockon2: that right there is the best way to get music in a family! I do much the same (maybe every 5th trip though LOL) and yes, so many different instruments laying around it can get interesting here


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## Starbuck (Jun 15, 2007)

Ha! yes it's so much fun! This store in San Fransisco was by far the most fun for all kinds of neat things..

http://larkinthemorning.com/category.asp?start=96&c=797

I think they even ship..


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

Have owned a variety of djembes, bodhrans, tambourines, shakers, catspaws, but never owned a kit as much as I'd like one. I have actually been recorded on bodhran years ago, but I'm no kind of player as I prefer a djembe; or sticks and something to hit with them. One former band did regular percussion jams which were hugely popular with dancers, so drums are a great secondary skill for any musician.

Peace, Mooh.


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## RIFF WRATH (Jan 22, 2007)

have been slowly accumulating inexpensive percussion noisemakers, as well as a full drum kit.....they definetly have their place and it doesn't take long before a novice percussionist is soloing......there is a grin factor involved....


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## sbowman128675 (Feb 27, 2009)

cool stuff man

i have been playing drums for the past 8 years, and ive always had some cool riff ideas for guitar. so now that im picking up guitar, im recording alot of cool stuff.
and yea, i play alottt more

i can spend full days in my room, lol


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

Andy said:


> I've always loved having percussion instruments around...
> You'll definitely start GAS-ing for more drums as time goes on -- I couldn't live without my kit now.


I know a few drummers. 
My brother drums, I've had a roommate who drummed, in another house I lived in one of my roommate's friends kept his drums set up at our place for a while, and I also let a friend set up his drums in my place at one point as well. I was over at his place and saw his drums stacked up in a closet--I asked him what happened, and he said they didn't have the space to set them up, so I told him I had some space & so we took them over to my place, set them up and he went at them. 

So I've tried drums, and had opportunities to learn them. I also taught guitar in the past--and we had bands for the students. I sometimes hung out in the band room, and checked stuff out for the bands when no one else was there--and tried stuff on the drums, but I'm pretty bad. My sense of rhythm doesn't so-operate with drumsets for some reason.

I like having a set around, in case somebody wants to jam, but I have no place to set them up where I am now, and I can't afford to indulge in all the guitar stuff I want--let alone adding drums to the mix.

I've enjoyed reading the comments above--so thanks for sharing. For now I'll stick with my bongos, and try to learn some early Santana beats on them. That's a sure way for me to annoy real drummers.:smile:

Oh and when I get set up to record I can use them for some fills & stuff. I have been having fun.


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

noobcake said:


> Yeah I own a pair of bongos too, even bought a nice Gibraltar bongo stand for it. It's great for stress relief. I'm not very good at playing them though.


I don't know how well mine would fit on a stand--I'd have to clamp the support bar--or whatever it's called--to something--there's no real hardware on them. Like I said--they were a gift from a trip, but still fun and appreciated.


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## Duster (Dec 28, 2007)

I saw "The Visitor" and was inspired enough to get myself a djembe. One of the best things I've ever bought. I can't overstate how therapeutic it is to beat on a drum with your bare hands for a while.

It might sound silly, but I'm convinced that it appeals to some latent primitive instinct that is wired into the human brain through thousands of years of evolution. Could anything be more simple and real than making a rhythm by banging on something with your hands?

If you're looking for more percussion instruments, try www.x8drums.com.

--- D


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## keeperofthegood (Apr 30, 2008)

XD Reminds me of a 'spoof' history I once wrote on the history of the drum.

If you can imagine a time in pre-history; when there was the cave, the fire, the hungry family, the need to be the dominate male and the hunt -- then I think you can imagine the time from when the drum came into being.

If you can imagine the hunt, taking yourself back to the stepp-lands of east Africa and the regions around the rift valley. Being Raw Naked Man in a bush, hiding; terrified and exhilarated, just waiting for the prey to be there and chased... the only sound heard, your own heart beating in your ears.

THEN COMES THAT POUNCE that run, that thrown stick or slammed down rock. If all went well, the pounding of hoofs, the pounding of heart, the pounding of the weapon of opportunity ended in fresh kill and meat for the family.

From the cave paintings we do know this ritual of slaughter was of manifest importance to the primitive peoples. The hunt, the kill, the feast. It can be easily imagined; the victor boasting of his day, of his hunt and his kill... only, all those sounds... what to do? It is easy to grunt or squeal but how do you vocalize the sound of the hoofs? Of of your own hearts beat? You can clap your hands. You can get the others to clap along. The thunder of clapping hands is powerful and you can then stand and beat upon your own chest to rise above that booming lament.

At the crescendo of the tale, the natural rhythmic percussive chamber of the animal itself came into play. Grabbing a long bone, a femur or ulna and the skull, an accompaniment of the hoofs and heart could be rendered to the telling of the tale of the hunt that gave food. It can then, with a final crack and crush bring the story to the end, the death of the animal and the success of the hunt.

Thus is the story told, thus is the truth of the day maintained (who but the person who's heart beat just so could pound that rhythm? who but the hunter could know the sound his prey made when alive), and the dominance of the successful male was maintained.

The drum, I feel, is the earliest of instruments. It came to us not from things, but from our own inner heart, and the thudding of it in our chest and ears. The earliest sound we hear is our mothers heart, the simplest of soothing sounds to newborns is the heart beat. When we talk of the most fearful times of our lives, or the most exhilarating times of our lives, the telling of how our hearts thudded in our ears or chest is a crucial part of those stories for it is integral to those events. The clapping of our hands to signify approval is as lost to history, the stomping of or feet in war ritual as well, or the pounding on our chests for victory is too gone; but these all can be seen to show the beating of the heart the thunder of our preys feet and our triumph for the kill. The tale I tell, though a fiction, is conceivable all the same because in so many ways, at the root of so much of everyone's identity there is that simple percussion thud-thump, thud-thump, thud-thump.


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## Duster (Dec 28, 2007)

keeperofthegood said:


> XD Reminds me of a 'spoof' history I once wrote on the history of the drum.
> 
> If you can imagine a time in pre-history; when there was the cave, the fire, the hungry family, the need to be the dominate male and the hunt -- then I think you can imagine the time from when the drum came into being.
> 
> ...


Well written. And it's all the more true when you remember that those earliest of drums were made from the very skins of the hunted animals, so those first rhythms were beat on their stretched and dried hides. In parts of Africa they say that the wood-and-skin hand drum brings the spirits of plant, animal, and human together in a common rhythm. I like that.

--- D


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## Apostrophe (') (Dec 30, 2007)

> If you're looking for more percussion instruments, try www.x8drums.com.


Perfect site. I was just reading a book that recommended buying hand percussion to help liven up home recordings, those vids helped out big time. I'll be grabbing some of this stuff this summer.

...

To anyone else - are there any other types of cheap instruments you buy, not necessary percussion? I picked up a Joe Cool Jaw Harp last time I ordered from Axe, lol:

http://www.axemusic.com/product.asp?P_ID=12783

I'd love to have a collection of this cheap type of stuff.


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