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DrumBell, a revolutionary new percussion hand drum accessory, which allows one person to play hand drums plus bells and blocks. This will inspire and challenge hand drummers to produce new rhythm combinations.

DrumBell attaches accessories to your hand drums like the Sambago Bell set which has history in Africa and the metal Agogo Bells played throughout Brazil. A two tone Rock Cowbell set is another great addition.

Get creative and attach almost any accessory you can imagine to your hand drums. Please Explore the knowledge base below:

Most gratifying is to be able to participate in a rhythm with others in a drum community. Just to feel that you add a piece of group percussion feels great and inspires one to another level of skill. What is needed is willingness to try and a good drum, well tuned. The drums you'll see most at drum circles will be a djembe or asiko so it seems a good place to start.

Consider a drum with a 10 to 13 inch head. You'll want to have two distinct sounds, one from near the center of the drum called dun. This is produced using fingers together striking with some force then quickly remove the hand. The other sound called tone, found near the side of the drum - with a quick slap, remember to withdraw hand quickly. With a little practice this also produces a ringing sound. If a drum can produce these two sounds then it will probably produce a muff and a sound called slap.

When going to buy, its a good idea to bring some help. This could save you from buying something that proves to be a dissapointment. If buying in a store, ask if they can retune or teach you to tune your drum. Can they replace the head if needed? Would they consider a trade back should you want to step up to another drum? OH YEA - REMEMBER TO HAVE FUN! Peter Crane

Worldwide there are many different approaches to passing on rhythmic phrases and patterns, as they exist in traditional music, from generation to generation.

African music:In the Griot tradition of Africa everything related to music has been passed on orally. Babatunde Olatunji (1927–2003), a Nigerian drummer who lived and worked in the United States , used worldwide particularly by Djembe players such as Chuck Berry and Jelly Roll Morton.

A drum circle is any group of people playing (usually) hand-drums and percussion in a circle. They are distinct from a drumming group or troupe in that the drum circle is an end in itself rather than preparation for a performance. They can range in size from a handful of players to circles with thousands of participants. Bells can add a distinct sounds to the circle. In 1991, during testimony before the United States Senate Special Committee on Aging, Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart stated:

Typically, people gather to drum in drum "circles" with others from the surrounding community. The drum circle offers equality because there is no head or tail. It includes people of all ages. The main objective is to share rhythm and get in tune with each other and themselves. To form a group consciousness. To entrain and resonate. By entrainment, I mean that a new voice, a collective voice, emerges from the group as they drum together.Hand percussion is a term used to indicate a percussion instrument of any type from any culture that is held in the hand. They can be made from wood, metal or plastic and are usually either shaken, scraped or tapped with fingers or a stick. It is a useful category in terms of a large percussion orchestra in that it identifies all instruments that are not drums or pitched percussion such as marimba and xylophone.

A Dunun (also known as dundun, doundoun, or djun-djun) is the generic name for a family of West African bass drums that developed alongside the djembe in the Mande drum ensemble. It is not to be confused with the dundun, theYoruba name of the West African talking drum . There are different sizes of dunduns, ranging from 25 to 60 cm. Basing on the size, construction technique and tuning, there are different names for each type of dundun. Some of the most often used names are konkoni, kenkeni, sangban, dununba, djeli-dun, etc. There are two primary playing styles for dununs. The traditional style has each player using a single drum resting on its side, either on the floor or on a stand, and striking the head with one mallot and a bell mounted on top with the other. A melody is created across the interplay of the three dununs. For the other style, known as ballet style as it is used in the National Ballets, one player has command of the three dununs standing on the floor, allowing a more complex arrangement for the dance.

There are wide variations on how the dunun is played throughout West Africa. In Mali they are sometimes played with just one dunun and a bell that is held in the hand. In some regions of Guinea the dunun is played with no bells, or only two dunun are played. In some regions of Mali up to five dunduns are played at the same time. In Hamanah, (Guinea) three dununs with bells are played. This style is one of the most known in the west, due to the influence of Mamady Keïta, Famoudou Konaté, Mohamed Diaby, Bolokada Conde, and other players from Guinea. It is formed of three dununs of different sizes; the kenkeni (smallest), sangban (medium) and doundounba (largest). The kenkeni has the highest pitch and usually holds the rhythm together with a simple pattern. The sangban typically has a more complex part which defines the rhythm. The doundounba often serves to add depth with deep, widely spaced notes. These drums provide a rhythmic and melodic base for the djembe ensemble.  In Bamako (Mali), a style of playing with two dunduns developed. Both so called konkoni, have goat skin and are played without the bell. The konkoni with the highiest pitch keeps the accompaining rhythm and the konkoni with the lowest pitch keeps the lead melody and solos.  In the Khasonke region of Mali , the biggest of the dunduns has the leading role - making solos and leading the song. 

The conga is a tall, narrow, single-headed Cuban drum with African antecedents. It is thought to be derived from the Makuta drums or similar drums associated with Afro-Cubans of Central African descent. A person who plays conga is called a "conguero". Although ultimately derived from African d rums made from hollowed logs, the Cuban conga is staved, like a barrel. These drums were probably made from salvaged barrels originally.  They are used both in Afro-Caribbean religious music and as the principal instrument in Rumba. Congas are now very common in Latin music, including salsa music, merengue music, Reggaeton, as well as many other forms of American popular music.  Most modern congas have a staved wooden or fiberglass shell, and a screw-tensioned drumhead. They are usually played in sets of two to four with the fingers and palms of the hand. Typical congas stand approximately 75 cm from the bottom of the shell to the head. The drums may be played while seated. Alternatively, the drums may be mounted on a rack or stand to permit the player to play while standing.

An ashiko is a kind of drum shaped like a truncated cone and meant to be played with bare hands.The drum is played throughout sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas.  The Ashiko has three primary tones, just like the Djembe. Some consider^[who?] the ashiko to be male and the djembe female.  In Eastern Cuba, the ashiko is known as a boku. The boku drum is played throughout eastern Cuba during carnivals and street parades called Comparsas.