Getting the most out of your Cooperman frame drum

In the early 1990's we worked closely with Randy Crafton to develop our line of frame drums. Randy was a close friend of Layne Redmond, and soon enough the Layne Redmond Ancient Image Series was created. A "Windwand" was also made here at the Cooperman shop. We travelled over to the Widow Jane Mine (1996 I  think) to hear Layne and The Mob Angels perform with the Windwands.  There was a table and we sold the drums and windwands.   The drums were a single thin ply of Ash with the image screen printed on a goatskin drum head.  There were...

The first Cooperman frame drums ( circa 1976) were 18” bodhrans, mounted  with goatskin drumheads.  Pat Cooperman Sr. had a friend, Tom Callinan, who had purchased a bodhran during a visit to Ireland, but the drum head had torn from shell during the flight back ( likely due to plane cabin's the low humidity).   Tom asked Pat, who had just recently opened a rope drum building workshop in Centerbrook Connecticut, to replace the drum head.  Pat was certain there was a better way to secure the head to the shell than simply tacking it with upholstery nails,  so he rebuilt the...

The weight of a drum shell can, over time and especially when suspended from a single point (like a nail or peg in a wall),  cause the shell to distort. So, ideally, a frame drum should not be suspended, nor hung on the wall.    That said, we recognize that it is both convenient and attractive to do so – and, sure, we do it from time to time.    With the above caveats in mind, here are some suggestions to mitigate the potential problems: Use a larger peg rather than a small finish nail to better distribute the weight...