PREPARATIONS

If you're replacing a broken skin, here are a few tips for useful things to do when you take the old skin off:

1.. Notice the way the rope is threaded, both the horizontal rows around the drum (the "Mali weave" - see below) and the vertical lines that go through the loops on the top and bottom rings; this may help when you have to do it yourself later

2.. Don't unthread all the rope from the rings; do it just over halfway round the drum, just enough so that you can lift the rings off to one side and separate them to remove the old skin; this means less work when you come to re-thread it

3.. Notice how the top rings best fit round the drum (you want the gap between the rings and the wood to be roughly even all the way round) and provide some marks for yourself to line them up again once the skin is on

4.. If necessary, lightly bend the rings to make a more even fit

While the drum shell is free of a head, you might want to oil the wood of the drum, which helps to keep it in good condition. I use linseed oil. Some people prefer to use the traditional West African "shea butter", but I think it's messy and doesn't make the wood look half as good as linseed oil. Please note: if you do this, it can take a couple of days for the oil to be fully absorbed.

When you choose your new skin, there are a number of things to bear in mind:

1.. The best skin to use is goat. That's the skin traditionally used in West Africa. It has both the strength and the elasticity needed to produce the characteristic djembe timbres.

2.. Obviously, find a skin that has no holes or splits in it - hold it up to the light and look carefully; any holes should be visible.

3.. Don't worry if you can see scars on the skin; scar tissue, apparently, is likely to be stronger than ordinary skin tissue.

4.. Whether you choose a relatively thicker or thinner skin seems to me to be mainly a matter of what sound you want; thin skins tend to have a more metallic sound when tight; thick ones have a "drier" sound.

When you've chosen your skin, soak it in water until it is soft and pliable - overnight is plenty long enough.

PUTTING ON THE SKIN

Drape the wet skin over the djembe shell, with the spine (a band of coarser hair, often a different colour to the rest of the skin) central.

Place the larger top ring over the skin and shell, lined up as previously determined. Gather up the skin hanging down and fold it over the ring into the centre of the drum. Then put the next ring on top, so that the skin is sandwiched between the rings. Unfold the skin out from the middle, over the second ring, and let it hang down again.

Grasp the skin edge and, using the heel of your hand as a lever against the rim of the drum, start to pull it through between the rings, going round the drum. At first you are pulling to get all the creases and folds out - look underneath the skin to see where they are. At this stage, take care not to pull the rings off one side of the drum completely and have to start again! Once you've pulled all the creases and folds out, it's worth going round the drum a couple more times, pulling the skin through. You're not trying to make it tight yet. It's still basically floppy at this stage.

THREADING THE ROPE

Next, thread the rope. You should have a length of rope with a "noose" tied in one end. The noose end is the tail, the other end the one you start threading with. Threading is difficult to describe. You'll probably get a better idea if you examine how it was done when you remove the old head. But, basically, at the top ring, the rope goes up through one of the loops on the ring and then back down through the next; at the bottom ring, it goes down through one loop and back up through the next. It doesn't matter whether you go clockwise or anti-clockwise round the drum. Keep threading all the way round. Don't pull anything tight at this stage, keep it all loose (even letting the bottom ring still hang free). Once you've threaded all the way round, you should end up with the "noose" end of the rope hanging down from the top of the drum and some spare rope at the other end. If you've not got any spare, go round again, taking up more of the slack. But still not at all tight. Once you've got some spare, tie it off loosely through the "noose".

Once you've done this, you can have another go at pulling the skin through the rings. Grab hold of the skin on the opposite side of the drum, lean your elbows on the rim right in front of you, and pull for all you're worth! Work your way round the drum. How tight you want the skin to be at this stage is up to you - the looser it is, the lower down the body of the drum the rings will eventually be, when you tighten it properly. I've found that, if the centre of the skin has about a centimetre play when I lightly tap it, that's OK.

FIRST TIGHTENING

Now start the first stage of tightening. You tighten by simply pulling the rope "verticals" through all the ring loops, starting at the "noose" end and then tying off again at the free end. One of the pitfalls in tightening is that it's done unevenly and you end up with the bottom ring all skewed - not particularly important from a playing point of view, but it doesn't look very good. Up-ending the drum on a flat surface and tightening it that way helps to avoid this, as does doing the tightening in gradual stages. Sometimes you can't do anything about it at all and the bottom ring is just going to be skewed. In the end, it's a matter of how well the ring fits round the drum shell; how you tighten can only make so much difference.

CUTTING DOWN AND SHAVING

Once there's a certain amount of tension in the ropes (with the bottom ring now held in place against the drum), it's time to cut the skin down and shave it. I've seen djembes with a full four inches of skin left on, folded down over the rings. I prefer them cut very short myself. It's up to you. Whatever final length you want to aim for, remember that the skin will shrink as it dries (it's still fairly wet at this stage) - so, if you want it short, don't cut it too short or the skin will not be held securely between the rings. I've made that mistake a couple of times, the skin came free of the rings when I tried to tighten it to playing pitch, I wasted a goat skin and had to do the whole thing again!

If, on the other hand, you want to leave the skin long and folded down over the rings, the trick is to fold it down when it's wet (one or two vertical slits cut in the extra skin will help), then hold it in place while it dries with a loop of rope running round the drum. If you don't do this, the skin will most likely stick out from the drum. Shaving - in my experience, best done when the hair and skin is still damp (like when you shave, if you do) and when there is a certain degree of tension in the skin - so that it doesn't bounce away too much from the blade. As I said earlier, I use an ordinary double-edged razor blade. To use it, you need to grasp it firmly between fingers and thumb and bend it into a curve towards you. In that position, start to shave off the hair, working always in the same direction as the hair growth, and towards your body. Be careful! With experience, you can actually exert quite a lot of pressure and shave quite fast - but at first it's best to be slow and tentative. I guided someone through this whole re-skinning process once: I said, you must be very careful when you're shaving; he picked up the razor blade and stuck it straight through the skin, first stroke!

There are other ways of removing the hair. Some people, I believe, use depilatory preparations, others beard-trimmers. I'm a bit of a traditionalist, so I do it how I was shown. Once the skin is shaved, leave it to dry out properly. Depending on the weather, that can take several hours, or even till the next day. If it's really damp and cold, help the process along by keeping the drum in a warm room. I don't think it's necessary (or a particularly good idea) to do anything to try and speed the process up (like aiming hair-dryers at it, for instance!).

SECOND TIGHTENING

Once the shaved skin is dry, start to properly tighten the drum for the first time, by pulling the rope verticals through as before. I use a gadget called a "clam cleat", which I got from a sailing shop, which grips the rope and allows it to be pulled strongly, without wearing holes in your hands. Take time over tightening. I usually tighten the skin as much as I can by pulling just the verticals, then leave it for half a day or more. It will usually lose tension as the skin, and/or rope, stretches. Go round again pulling the verticals to take up any slack, then leave it again. Sometimes this is enough, but if necessary (and if your hands aren't feeling too sore!) do it again. Putting extra time in at this stage, although it may be frustrating ("I want to play my drum NOW!") does seem to help the drum hold its pitch for longer. Usually by the second or third time, most of the "give" in the skin and rope seems to have been taken up and you can move on to the final stage.

THE "MALI" WEAVE

I've never managed to get a djembe to playing pitch just by tightening the verticals. And even if you do, you'll eventually need to maintain pitch by using the "Mali weave" - the "diamond" pattern. So, I'll attempt to describe this as well. I'm sure there's a pictorial representation of it somewhere on the Web - can't remember where, though. To begin with, take the free end of the rope and pull it as tight as you can through the "noose". Thread it through the loop on the bottom ring directly below and tie it off round that loop or immediately below the "noose". You're now ready to start the "Mali weave". Thread the rope behind (or "under") the nearest two verticals (it doesn't matter whether you go clockwise or anti-clockwise. , pull it tight, bring it back over the second one and under the first again, and pull towards you. The second vertical will slip over the first, creating your first "diamond". Thread the rope under the next two verticals, back over the second and under the first, and pull. Continue round the drum until it's as tight as you want it. As a guide, it's good if it reaches playing pitch by the end of the first set of the weave. First time round the drum it's obvious which are the next two verticals. But, when you want to tighten further and have to create another row, it can get confusing - the thing to remember is that it's always the next two at the top ring that you have to cross. The other confusion people often have with the Mali weave is what to do when you've got to the end of one row and want to continue into another one, higher up. The problem is that suddenly there aren't two adjacent verticals that haven't been already crossed. What you have to do is to re-use the second vertical of the last pair as the first of the next. Then carry on as before, always referring to the top ring to decide which are the next two to cross, as I said earlier. It's easier to understand when you're looking at it than just reading it, believe me. Good luck!

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