Maker

Cooperman

Vermont maker of frame drums and rope-tension drums

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.

Models

  • Cooperman Rope Tension Field Drum

    Hand percussion

    Cooperman builds rope-tension field drums to period specification for reenactment, early music, and fife and drum corps — the drum as it was before metal tension rods.

  • Cooperman Frame Drum

    Hand percussion

    Cooperman's frame drums are built with a tuning system that lets a natural head be brought back into pitch as the weather changes, which is the practical objection to skin frame drums answered.

  • 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.

Categories

  • Hand Percussion

    Congas, bongos, djembes, cajons, timbales, frame drums, and the small instruments that live on a percussion table: tambourines, cowbells, shakers, and claves.

  • Concert Percussion

    The percussion section's non-pitched instruments: concert snare and bass drums, tambourines, triangles, crotales, tubular bells, and the stands that hold them.

Representative model

  • Cooperman Frame Drum

    Hand percussion

    Cooperman's frame drums are built with a tuning system that lets a natural head be brought back into pitch as the weather changes, which is the practical objection to skin frame drums answered.