Playing The Steel Tongue Drum

Tongue drums are usually played with mallets, though we recommend playing our drum with fingers to prevent it from getting out of tune. Our steel tongue drum was specially designed for easier hand playing; the tones are placed in “right-left-right-left” order.

The longer tongues produce lower notes, the shorter ones produce higher notes. It is easier to vibrate the longer tongues than the shorter ones by a simple stroke, For easier playing, we recommend to place the drum with the lowest tone directed at you, this way you will be able to strike the longer (easily vibrating) tongues with the sides of your thumbs (like bass guitar “slapping”), and the shorter tongues with your index fingers.

The strike should be fast and soft at the same time

, as if you were checking the temperature of a hot iron with your finger. Most first time players tend to hit the tongues in a wrong way, usually the vibration of the tongue is being blocked by the finger – this is why the “slapping” technique is recommended. The hit should be with an open & loose hand using 1-2 fingers.