Melodic Tongue Drum

The tongue drum is one of the world’s oldest known instruments. They’ve been a part of many cultures for thousands of years. The idea behind the tongue drum is simple — a hollow box, or “sound chamber” reverberates when the individual tongues, or soundboard, are struck. On some tongue drums, the tone the tongues produce is varied by making each one a different length and width. On this design, I opted for form over function and made the tongues symmetrical in appearance. The tone is varied by removing material from the back face of the toe or heel of each tongue.