Stoked to come across this Osi drum for sale online, dating back to the 1970s… What a brilliant design – I love the tonality of tongue drums, but had never thought of one existing that could be easily re-tuned. These are quite rare, and this one looks to have been played a lot but not very well maintained so I will need to get some advice as to the best way to preserve the wood. Any suggestions? Am guessing it needs light oiling but wont be taking any chances & will research some experienced advice…
I wont get my mitts/mallets on it for a while as suspect it will be too heavy (ie costly) to ship from Japan via EMS so it may have to travel more slowly…. Here is what one sounds like:
Looks cool. I wanted to make a tongue drum with multiple top pieces, use same resonance box, top panel not glued on. My friend says it wouldn’t sound good, loose like that. My dad made a cheap, open bottom wtd, and 2 or 3 out of 4 notes sound ok.
How did you attach each of the tongues to the box? I notice the Osi tongues buzz, rather than cleanly resonate, if the bolts holding them in place are not tight
I bought an OSI Drum in NYC Sept 1982 from a world music type instrument store. The one I bought had four tunable slits. The store also had the larger 8 slit drum shown here. I bought the drum precisely for the tunability having been influenced by Harry Partch and wanting to practice just intonation. I later sold it in the early nineties as I divested myself of most acoustic instruments, focusing on synthesizers instead.