Meinl Ibo Drums |
|
It's true, the
drum is the world's oldest instrument, apart from the voice, of course,
and certainly a drum made from a Meinl once again enhance their reputation for innovation by manufacturing Ibo drums in fibreglass as the big drawback with pottery drums is that they can be prone to breakage. Another major advantage with these fibreglass models is that they are far easier to play than the pottery ones. |
|
 The
ID4BKO, the ID1HC and the ID2HC are different sized Ibo drums and are
all made from fibreglass and therefore light and durable. The larger the
drum the lower the general tone, of course. The great thing about these
Ibo drums is the variety and quantity of sounds you can coax from them.
Each drum has a side hole and by
bringing your palm down on the hole and leaving it there you can achieve
a satisfying low bass note. If you use the same stroke but raise your
palm after striking, the sound is a higher-pitched 'booing' type of sound.
The bottom of each drum is covered by a thin skin which provides another
playing surface on which you can create higher-pitched bongo-type sounds. Thus intricate and ethnic-sounding rhythms can be played by palming bass tones on the side hole coupled with higher tones from the bottom skin. You can  also
strike the body of the drum with your fingers to achieve a variety of
other high-pitched sounds which you can also throw into the mix. Indeed,
the ID4BKO provides even more sonic possibilities because of the additional
fibreglass playing surface on the side of the drum! The ID7RB is more authentic in that it is actually ceramic. Whilst the bass tones using the side hole are relatively easy to achieve and in fact do seem to have more tone and clarity than these produced by its fibreglass counterparts, achieving the high tones from the bottom of the drum is much more difficult, and for this reason I prefer the fibreglass models. There is also a wooden-shelled Ibo available which would no doubt provide alternative sounds, and for safety and transportation a special Meinl Ibo Bag would seem to be just the ticket. Web Links: |
|
|
|
pot of some sort would have been one of the first drums ever put to
use. Medieval Europe had the Goblet Drum, remarkably, a drum shaped
like a goblet, and even before that Africa had various primitive drums
including the Ibo drum. Ibo is the Nigerian word for pottery.