Hand Percussion - Arco

Cooperman Bodhrán

Hand percussion

Cooperman's bodhráns are made for players rather than for the tourist trade: goatskin heads, an internal tuning system, and depths chosen for tipper technique.
Toca Freestyle Congas

Hand percussion

Freestyle congas use moulded synthetic shells and synthetic heads, which means they do not crack in a van, do not detune in a damp hall, and cost a fraction of a wooden drum.
LP Vibra-Slap

Hand percussion

The Vibra-Slap reproduces the rattling quijada — a donkey jawbone with loose teeth — using a wooden resonator and a metal pin box, which is both more hygienic and more repeatable.
Meinl Sonic Energy Steel Tongue Drum

Hand percussion

Steel tongue drums are cut and tuned so each tongue sounds a note of a chosen scale, and Meinl's Sonic Energy range brought them into general music retail from the sound-therapy market.
Tycoon Supremo Bongos

Hand percussion

Supremo bongos cover the standard pair with Siam oak shells and steel hardware, and are among the most common bongos in schools outside the LP catalogue.
Meinl Headliner Congas

Hand percussion

Headliner congas are Meinl's student and semi-professional drums, built in rubberwood with the same tuning hardware pattern as the lines above them.
Remo Mondo Djembe

Hand percussion

The Mondo djembe replaces a carved wooden shell with Remo's Acousticon and rope tuning with tuning lugs, which makes it consistent, weatherproof, and playable by anyone who can turn a key.
Tycoon Supremo Cajon

Hand percussion

The Supremo cajon is Tycoon's volume seller: a Siam oak box with fixed snare wires, made in the company's own factory, at a price that puts it in most rehearsal rooms.
LP Jam Block

Hand percussion

The Jam Block is a moulded plastic block that mounts on a cymbal stand and does not split, crack, or go quiet — which is why it is on more drum kits than any wooden equivalent.
Meinl Jumbo Bass Cajon

Hand percussion

The Jumbo Bass is built larger than a standard cajon specifically to produce a deeper bass note, at the cost of the sharp corner slap a smaller box gives.
LP Americana Cajon

Hand percussion

The Americana groups LP's cajons — plain, snare-fitted, and slap-top — around the format that turned a Peruvian box drum into standard equipment for acoustic gigs.
Meinl Professional Djembe

Hand percussion

Meinl's professional djembes are carved from solid mahogany with goatskin heads and traditional rope tuning, alongside a mechanically tuned line for players who do not want to pull rope.

Panyard

Panyard builds steel pans in Ohio, including chromatically tuned instruments for school programmes and the Jumbie Jam, a small student pan that made the instrument teachable outside Trinidad.
Cooperman

Cooperman builds historically accurate rope-tension field drums and fifes for reenactment and early music, and a widely used line of frame drums and bodhráns. The shop has been in Vermont for three generations.
Sela

Sela makes cajons and little else, including build-it-yourself kits that ship as flat-pack shells with the snare system pre-assembled. The Snare Set mechanism is the company's signature.
Gope

Gope builds samba and capoeira percussion in Brazil — surdos, pandeiros, atabaques, and berimbaus — and is one of the names most often seen outside the country.
Toca Percussion

Toca covers congas, bongos, djembes, and cajons at prices that put a serviceable instrument in a school or a rehearsal room. The Freestyle series, with synthetic shells and heads, is the line most often seen where instruments have to survive being moved.
Rhythm Tech

Rhythm Tech's contribution is redesign rather than tradition: the crescent-shaped tambourine that removed the dead hand position, mountable shakers, and hardware-friendly versions of instruments that had always been held.
DG De Gregorio

De Gregorio builds cajons in Spain in the flamenco tradition, where the instrument entered European music, with an emphasis on the sharp slap and controlled bass that flamenco accompaniment needs.
Meinl Percussion

Roland Meinl founded the company in Bavaria in 1951, and while the cymbal side is better known to drummers, the percussion division is one of the largest in the world: congas, cajons, djembes, and an enormous catalogue of small instruments. Meinl's cajon range in particular is the widest of any maker.
Tycoon Percussion

Tycoon manufactures congas, bongos, cajons, and small percussion in Thailand, with its own factory and Siam oak as the house timber. The prices are low enough that Tycoon instruments fill a great many school percussion cupboards.
Schlagwerk

Schlagwerk turned the Peruvian cajon into a mass-market instrument in Europe, adding snare wires, adjustable corners, and playing surfaces in a range of timbers. The company also makes udus, frame drums, and a long list of small hand percussion.
Latin Percussion

Martin Cohen founded LP in 1964 after failing to buy decent congas in New York, and the company effectively industrialised Afro-Cuban percussion: consistent, tunable, durable instruments where the tradition had relied on hide, rope, and luck. LP hardware — the Jam Block, the Cyclops tambourine, the Aspire student line — is standard equipment worldwide.
Gon Bops

Mariano Bobadilla began building congas in Los Angeles in the 1950s and the drums became the West Coast standard in Latin jazz. The brand went dormant and was revived, now under Drum Workshop, with the original shell profiles reissued.

Percussion Instruments

Instruments sounded by striking, shaking, scraping, or related percussive action.