PYLE PSTLDRM78PU Professional Steel Tongue Drum User Guide
- June 6, 2024
- Pyle
Table of Contents
Professional Steel Tongue Drum
Percussion Instrument, Steel Tongue Drum
with Bag, Music Book, Mallets, Finger Picks
USER GUIDE 
Questions? Issues?
We are here to help!
Phone: (1) 718-535-1800
Email: support@pyleusa.com
The Professional Steel Tongue Drum has the ability to create a powerful connection between the player and their own inner world regardless of age or musical experience. They can be used to attain a deep meditative state, for healing purposes, and for the care-free experimentation with music.
Drum Safety:
Steel Tongue Drums are quite heavy, and they come with mallets and other small
parts that can be hazardous to children if handled improperly or ingested!
Not recommended for children under 5 years old
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Steel Tongue Drums are quite heavy and can cause severe damage to people or property if dropped on them. Be careful and make sure your hands are free of grease/water before attempting to pick up your instrument. This will ensure you have a solid grip on the drum and will not inadvertently drop it on anything or anyone.
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Do not leave young children unattended with the mallets provided with the drums, and absolutely do not allow your child to put the mallets in their mouth! Although we perform our due diligence when we produce our products, there is always a danger that a mallet head could come off and it could become lodged in an airway.
Never leave your child unattended with the mallets. -
Do not leave young children unattended with your instrument!
Pyle USA accepts no responsibility for incidents of damage or injury caused by the misuse or neglectful supply of our products to young- children. Use common sense! Stay safe!
How to play?
Steel tongue drums are really easy to play as they do not require much effort
or any special skills. Even the least amount of pressure or force applied to
drums brings out big sounds. The practice is the only key to expertise with
these drums.
It is about your hands and the fingers that produce the most sounds.
While you put your palm at the center, use your fingers to play at the tongue
of the drums. This creates beautiful sounds from it. On one side, using and
playing the tongue drums with hands really creates a feeling of connection
with the drums, while on the other hand, mallets or sticks are easy to use for
beginners as these require minimal effort to bring more music. In fact, the
clearest sounds are made from the mallets.
Steel Tongue Drum Instructions
Please read the following information carefully after receiving the
goods:
STEP ONE: To fatten the drum face after receiving it.
Due to the bumpiness in the way of logistics, that the received drum with a
curved tone tongue is a normal phenomenon and does not affect the tone of
pronunciation. Using a thumb slightly, the point at the top of tone tongue,
press fat slightly down. If you have a concave tongue, open around the black
hole at the bottom and push it slightly with a long stick. This method should
be used to fine-tune the later period, which will not affect the pronunciation
and tone color.
STEP TWO: Avoid severe impact
If the drum appears severe impact deformation, even if it is reset, the tone
color of the tone tongue will be affected because of the change of the
resonator cavity. Do not place heavy objects above the product and avoid
severe impact.
STEP THREE: Indoor storage
Drums are made of alloy materials. Please put it in a cool and dry indoor
place and store at room temperature to avoid exposure to the sun and rain.
Steel Tongue Drum Tuning Problems
What if the instrument is out of tune?
First of all, the steel tongue drum is a non-fixed instrument, it is a normal
phenomenon that the test range of sound, generally positive or negative 10
points.
The steel tongue drum can be adjusted by fine-tuning: Pitch down by
pressing the tongue for overtone, or by using a file with grinding (fig. A) to
file it down at the root of the tongue and the tone will be lowered; If it is
low tone, please top up the tongue from its bottom. Generally speaking, our
shipment product sound is a little higher, there is room for fine-tuning.
What is the correct method for testing intonation?
The steel tongue drum testing method must be accurate to test the true
accuracy. Above all, the drum is to be fattened. You cannot measure intonation
on an uneven surface. Secondly, to measure the tone of the target tongue, one
should press on the other tongues (fig. B), and then point the target tongue
to face the tuner (fig. C). If not, there will be 1-2HZ test errors. After
knocking the head position of the tongue several times in a row when aiming
the tuner, remember several times of continuous percussion, the tuner will
appear a beating range (the steel tongue drum can only test the sound range
value), this range is the intonation of the target test tongue tone.
Correct scale sticker method
How To Play:
These instruments are meant for melodic exploration and the free expression of music, so we highly encourage you to find your own playing style. However here are a few tips to help you along the way:
- Using your thumbs, finger-tips or mallets make soft strikes on the center of the tongue, near the tip to create the best sound.
- You can use one hand to mute notes/sound while striking notes with your other hand or a mallet.
- Once you have the desired sound, begin to create patterns counting out the beats, such as 1-2-3-4 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3 1-2-3, etc.
- Try speeding up and slowing down smoothly, striking 2-3 notes at the same time to create chords, different styles of mallets, pausing and allowing space to enter your melody, experiment with every different way to play that you can! Have fun!
Music Score
Drum Care:
- Avoid playing your Steel Tongue Drum extremely aggressively with the mallets. This can cause the tongues to bend and experience “Metal Fatigue” which can cause the tongues to fall out of tune. We suggest gentle playing with the mallets, or using the hands/fingers/thumbs. It is suggested that if you are attempting to play at comparable volumes to other loud instruments that you mic your Steel Tongue Drum.
- Your drum is very tough, but it is susceptible to scratches and dings if rubbed against abrasive surfaces, or dropped.
- Avoid exposing the drum to extremes in temperature.
For instance: Hot cars in the summer, snow, saunas.
Washing/Cleaning:
Your drum has been powder-coated, so it is relatively impermeable against moisture. We suggest using a light touch-up of clear nail polish to coat scratches. Due to the nature of the powder-coat used, the instrument cannot be re-coated if it gets scratched. However, if you treat it well it will last you a lifetime!
Troubleshooting:
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I hear a rattle/buzz!
Please check to make sure that your wooden plug is affixed firmly in your instrument (It must be very snug to avoid buzzing). Make sure there is no debris inside the drum/no debris stuck to the tongues. If it is still sounding of please contact us. -
There is rust forming at the base of the tongues!
We fine-tune our instruments after they come out of the kiln by cutting the tongues slightly longer. Although we re-coat these areas on the drums with rust paint before they come to you, we may miss small areas. Please take fine sandpaper, give the area a light sanding and use a desired metal paint to re- coat the area. Acetone free nail-polish will remove paint without hurting the finish.