Hand Percussion · Makers

Maker

Asano Taiko

Models: 2 · Categories: 1

The Asano family has made taiko in Ishikawa for four hundred years, hollowing single trunks of keyaki and stretching cowhide over them by hand. The workshop supplies temples, festivals, and the touring taiko ensembles that carried the instrument out of Japan.

Maker

Gawharet El Fan

Models: 2 · Categories: 1

Gawharet El Fan builds tablas (darbukas), riqs, and frame drums in Cairo, inlaid in mother-of-pearl and shell, and is the name most often seen on Egyptian percussion sold abroad.

Maker

Emin Percussion

Models: 2 · Categories: 1

Emin makes darbukas and frame drums in Turkey in cast aluminium and copper, with the sharp, ringing tone the Turkish and Arabic idioms ask for, and supplies most of the darbukas played outside the region.

Maker

Bina Musicals

Models: 2 · Categories: 1

Bina makes tabla, dholak, and harmoniums in Delhi for students and performers, and is one of the few Indian instrument makers whose work is distributed widely outside India.

Maker

Hugh Tracey

Models: 2 · Categories: 1

The ethnomusicologist Hugh Tracey spent decades recording southern African music and then built a tuned, durable version of the mbira for players outside the tradition. The instruments are still made in South Africa and are what most of the world means by "kalimba".

Maker

Miyamoto Unosuke Shoten

Models: 2 · Categories: 1

Founded in Asakusa in the nineteenth century, Miyamoto Unosuke makes taiko, festival percussion, and the portable shrines they are played beside. It is one of the two names most associated with the instrument outside Japan.

Maker

PANArt

Models: 2 · Categories: 1

Felix Rohner and Sabina Schärer built the first Hang in 2000 from two nitrided steel shells, and created an instrument with no ancestor: tuned, played with the hands, and impossible to buy on demand. PANArt stopped making the Hang in 2013 and the world filled the gap with handpans, a whole instrument family descended from one workshop's object.

Maker

Nazareth

Models: 2 · Categories: 1

Nazareth builds berimbaus, atabaques, and pandeiros in Brazil for capoeira and candomblé, where the instruments are made to be played hard and outdoors rather than recorded.

Maker

Ayasa Instruments

Categories: 1 · Models: 1

Ayasa is one of the workshops that grew up after PANArt stopped making the Hang, tuning nitrided steel shells to named scales rather than to a single fixed layout — which is how handpans are bought now.