More strange connections. I love them. What do bees have with do with drums?

In the case of the kundu, a traditional drum of Melanesia, it seems that bees can be very important – at least one kind of bee.

This is a kundu:

The resonate frequency of the kundu is very important; it must sound just right to fit in with the other instruments. I know little about drums, but my understanding is that most are tuned by adjusting the tightness of the drum head material. Have a look at this photo:

As you can see (click to enlarge), the material is lizard skin. Though this is unfortunate for the lizards, the skin is tough and durable. It’s also just stretchy enough to pull very tight and be bound into place by the fibre ring that you can see surrounding the head of the drum.

I’ve been told, however, that it isn’t possible to get the right frequency by adjusting the tightness of the drum head only. You need something else.

That’s where this little guy comes into the story:

If you look at the kundu head photo, you’ll see two black dots in the centre. The craftsmen usually make these little globs from the incredibly sticky beeswax obtained from the hives of the little bee above. There are other materials that are used for tuning. In fact the globs on the kundu above are not beeswax at all. They are made from some gooey substance derived from breadfruit.

I spent a considerable time at the corner of my veranda trying to get a photo of one of these little fellows coming in for a landing at his front door. I believe it’s the same species that I showed you a couple of days ago deep inside a hibiscus flower. The hibiscus in that photo is only about three metres from the hive.

The idea is that by adding mass to the head of the drum, you lower the resonant frequency. You can adjust it only downwards by adding mass, so you have to start out by stretching it very tightly to get a frequency higher than you want. Then you add the mass of the beeswax a little at a time until it is just right.

If the frequency is too low, the drummer holds the head of the drum near the flames of the fire (there is always a fire close by) to tighten the head and raise the frequency.

Isn’t that ingenious?

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

Related posts:

1. CWA Photo Competition This from Lorraine:  CWA Photo Competition!! Enter your photo and have the chance to win K100 1st prize plus the chance to have your photo published in the 1st ever CWA calendar! The theme for the photo competition is: “Beautiful Madang” 1st prize: K100 cash 2nd prize: K40 Chemcare photo...
2. Busy as Bees on a Fishtail Palm Hundreds of bees feeding off of the inflorescence of a Fishtail Palm. Madang, Papua New Guinea - Jan Messersmith...
3. The Brassy Sea On the way to work this morning the sky was doing weird things. As I turned onto Coronation Drive, Eunie and I stopped for a minute to admire the bright glow of the morning sun on the sea. There’s an old hymn that says something about gathering around the “glassy...
4. Florence and Siena – Tuscany Revisited It’s hard to think of anything that I did not like about Tuscany. Much as the rest of Italy and Sicily, it is a photographer’s wonderland. I could do a dozen posts containing photos of the region, but I’d quickly run out of prose. Most of the snaps would be...
5. Dad Finding time to post has been hectic for the last couple of days. We had to fly to Dallas yesterday for our periodic grilling by our bosses. No, I didn’t get sacked, but it’s still a humiliating and disheartening experience to be reminded that I’ll never meet the standard. Never...
6. Manum Island – a Not-So-Sleeping Giant I shook my head in disgust as we approached Manum Island aboard Miss Rankin in the early morning. Every trick of weather and lighting was conspiring against me to prevent any serious photography. The sky was blank white. The air was furry and rich with the odor of burnt rock....
7. Put a Little Chili on My Bees and Grasshoppers, Please Today I had a breakfast in my garden of a grasshopper, some bees dusted with hibiscus pollen and a sprinkling of chilis all washed down by an Orange Fanta....

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 9th, 2008 at 10:37 am and is filed under Mixed Nuts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.