Te Pūmanawataki - The percussion table

For a long time I have wondered what to create to serve as drums for the sound garden. I considered a range of options others have shared online, such as PVC drums (too big), cajóns (too expensive) and pipe drums (too fragile) but nothing seemed to fit. Even the djembe drums we bought couldn't be left outside in the installation. Then I came across this: Mobilya Davullar.

I didn't realise it at first, but this cool multi-instrument table would be the perfect addition to the sound garden, providing an exciting mix of untuned percussion sounds to complement all the tuned taonga in the collection. With just a couple of hundred dollars left in the grant money, and the support of our tumuaki to spend a little more time in the workshop, I got to work.

Cow bell with activating mechanism

The first step was to research and plan how to construct the percussion table. Thankfully a friend put me onto the website of Tor Clausen, whose videos show pretty clearly how he makes a similar creation, with boxes to house each instrument and the mechanism from a desk bell to activate them when the ply covering the box is tapped. Working quickly, I got stuck in and using a assembly line process to make a number of plywood boxes:

Making the boxes: this is how I get things done in a hurry!

I didn't find the right type of desk bell when shopping around Wellington, and concerned about my budget I asked Murray if he could construct some simple devices to replicate the action of the mechanism. Being a craftsman, Murray went to town and made two carefully constructed, made to last mechanisms that would handle the weather and do a fine job,  even fitted copper to the moving parts to ensure they wouldn't seize up. Thanks Murray!

Murray creating the mechanisms in his metal workshop

With Murray on the job I set about making boxes to house the first two instruments, a cow bell and a cymbal. At first I wasn't sure it would work - would there be enough movement in the thin plywood covering the box to activate the mechanism and thus the instruments? A couple of days in between workshop sessions gave me time to worry. Thankfully though, after a bit of adjustment a tap on top made the cymbal crash and the cow bell ring out. Success!

Cymbal with activating mechanism

The next instrument to make was the big cajón drum. I was lucky to have some help with this from Phill Jones from Tukituki Instruments, who kindly supplied me with sheets of 3mm birch ply, cut to size to save money, and advice on constructing a cajón. The thin plywood would make a high quality playing surface for the cajón and 3 bongos, giving a crisp, responsive face to the drums. A snare mounted inside the drum would further resonate the beats.

Cajón with birch ply tapa (playing surface) being glued on.

Snare inside cajón

Bongos (mid and low) with birch ply tapa glued on

As well as replicating the instruments I saw in Tor's videos, I decided to add a vibraslap to the array of sounds possible within the table. A vibraslap is a modern version of the jawbone of a donkey or similar animal, whose teeth rattle when it is struck to create an interesting sound effect in African and South American music. Instead of teeth, the vibraslap has metal rods which rattle up and down inside a chamber.

It takes force to play a vibraslap, so rather than use a ply tapa I made a box with a hinged lid to allow enough movement to activate the instrument. Wanting to get a good sound I bought a cheap model and constructed a new chamber out of thin kwila. It was tricky to attach the vibraslap firmly enough to capture the force of a strike to the lid, but without dampening the vibration of that force through the metal rod that carries it to the chamber. Unfortunately after all the work making a new kwila chamber, it didn't sound as good as the original model! Works great for marimba bars though.

 Vibraslap with new kwila chamber in progress

Two of the more simpler instruments for the table were shakers and tambourine. Simple but not simple! I made a box with tambourine rings inside, and it rattled fine when you held it in your hand and hit it, but not when it was sitting on the workbench - even when sitting on a bit of foam to give it extra bounce. More movement was needed.

Tambourine (first attempt)

I took the box to the band saw and chopped it into 3 layers, and fitted springs to the outer two layers to give the top lots of bounce when struck. Now it sounds good!

Tambourine (take 2)

For the rarā (shakers) I scrounged around paint shops to get unused paint cans, and bought 200 ball bearings to rattle inside. Drilling holes around the base let the sound out more. The first one (a 1 litre can) sounded great, so I made another using a 500ml can. The difference in pitch makes them really effective.

In between building stints, a name for this taonga came to me: Te Pūmanawataki! 

Pū is used with lots of words to indicate a cluster of things, and manawataki are rhythms, but also pūmanawa means beating heart, so there are a number of ideas tied together in this name for what will be the rhythmic base to our sound garden - you might notice one more!

With most of the instruments made, it was time to build the frame of the table. Here are the boxes laid out while I checked measurements for the frame.

I've never made a table before, and got some guidance from Murray on how to go about it. First up was to cut dovetails to join the sides firmly together.

Dovetail joins are labour intensive, but give a much stronger structure than just screwing the sides together. This was to be a theme for the frame, which took a fair bit longer than I'd anticipated to make, but will be a strong and durable table to house the instruments into the future. With Murray's advice I put together the rails for holding the boxes using half lap joints layered with extra strips of timber, and fixed them to the sides using dowels for extra strength. 

Leftover kwila from the marimbas formed the rails.

 Above: layers of wood strengthen the joins.

Dowels hold the rails firmly.

After attaching rubber strips to the rails to support the instruments as they're struck, I used more kwila to make edges for the top. The best part about this is when you get to oil the wood, as it really brings out the colour and grain (below).

The boxes received some oil too. These ones below are walnut, birch and cherry.

Finally, the exciting part of adding legs to the table to make it complete! Murray loves making rigs for different projects, and I used his clever bench saw rig to cut the legs at an angle so they would taper, then attached them with bolts for easy assemblage. I wanted to be able to transport the table in my car easily for when I run workshops and such.

The table frame on its new legs

 Boxes in place, showing the different woods & stains.

The completed table!

At last, after 7 days of work Te Pūmanawataki is complete! Soon I will paint the frame, stencil it, and figure out how I'm going to incorporate it into my lessons. That'll be the fun job! The instruments are sounding brilliant, it's easy to play and I'm pretty harikoa with the way it looks too. Stay tuned for some videos of the taonga in action, & click here for the next page.