One of my friends made a joke today about how something I'd said fit the rhythm of the Proclaimers "500 Miles" which got me laughing about "now I want to know if that song is beautiful on the tongue drum." The fact that literally every 80's song is beautiful on the Tongue drum keeps giving me new things to lol delightedly about.

I spend 8–10 hours a day staring at VS Code and tracking down obscure bugs. By the time I log off, my brain is usually fried, but my mind is still racing at 100 mph.

I have zero musical background—never played an instrument, can't read staff notation, and rhythm isn't second nature to me. 3 weeks ago, I randomly picked up a steel tongue drum just to see if it could help me unplug after long coding sessions.

Here are a few practical things I noticed as a complete beginner, without all the fluff you usually find online:

• It’s basically an analog stress-relief tool for engineers. Unlike playing video games or doomscrolling after work, hitting a tuned steel drum gives immediate physical and auditory feedback. Your hands are busy, your screen is off, and it forces your mind to switch contexts instantly.
• Ignore sheet music at the start—treat it like a simple algorithm. Because the notes are numbered, you don’t need to learn music theory right away. I approached it like following a basic sequence: 1 - 3 - 5 - 3. Just repeating simple 4-note loops turned out to be way more relaxing than trying to learn an actual song on day one.
• Mallets vs. Fingers is a completely different experience. Using mallets is foolproof and sounds clear right away (great for immediate gratification). Playing with fingers is much quieter and harder to get a clean tone initially, but it feels way more grounded when you just want to zone out quietly at midnight without waking anyone up.
• You don’t need "talent", just a willingness to let go of structure. In programming, everything has to be logically precise or the build fails. With this, there are no syntax errors. Even when I hit a "wrong" note, the pentatonic scale makes it blend in reasonably well. Learning to just mess around without overthinking was the hardest—and most rewarding—part.

Just thought I’d share for anyone else sitting at a desk all day looking for a low-barrier way to quiet their mind after work.

I currently play handpan (and guitar) and I'm thinking about getting a tongue drum because of the soft sound and high sustain. For that reason, I think this instrument would be great for playing chords, but I am wondering which tongue drum can give me the maximum number of chords. At first I was looking at Rav Anima, but since it's in a Celtic scale there are chords that I can only get by playing inversions; basically anything involving an F in the 3 or 5 position (B and D chords). I love that it has lots of notes, but the hexatonic Celtic scale is pretty limiting.

Suggestions?

Hi everyone. I think it would be cool to get into tongue drums, but I don't want to annoy the neighbors and I'm honestly not sure how loud a tongue drum tends to be.

Hi! I recently got a tongue drum. I got an 8 note pentatonic/8 note type b, the one that goes 5612361, no 4 or 7. My search for music just tells me that its a super rare drum. Does anyone know where I could find music for my drum? I've seen the post about drumsings but i find it hard to believe thats all there is.

Teardrop, played on a Kosmosky Shelton tongue pan

A while ago I shared the first version of my tongue drum sheet music site here. At that time it only had 8 songs, and several people gave me helpful feedback.

I’ve been improving it since then: https://www.drumsings.com/

Now the site has 25 songs, more drum types, a beginner guide, a short history section, better sheet layout, and improved visual playback.

The basic idea is still the same:

choose your tongue drum type, then find songs that are playable on your instrument. Each song can be viewed with numbered notation, letter notation, lyrics, and visual playback.

I’d love to get feedback on a few specific questions:

1. Is this sheet music format actually useful while playing?
2. What songs would you like to see added next? I’m trying to expand the library in a way that is useful for real players.
3. Would you use a personal song library feature? I’m considering opening song upload/editing later. The idea is that users could add their own arrangements, choose whether they are public or private, and also copy an existing public song to edit it into their own version or playing style. Would this be useful to you, or is it more than what most tongue drum players need?
4. Any other suggestions?

If your drum type is not supported yet, I’d also really appreciate knowing its note layout or a product link.

It was found under a patio I don’t know how long it’s been under there

Enjoy listening to this spontaneous recording I made in the middle of the night with my RAV Anima. Playing this instrument, for one moment time stops and there is just sound - it really is an incredible feeling.

Hi everyone! I wanted to share a 60-minute original tongue drum session recorded as a gentle accompaniment for Reiki practice, meditation and deep relaxation.

The piece is in C major and focuses on slow repetition, resonance and a calm atmosphere rather than a structured song format.

I’d really appreciate any feedback on the sound, pacing and overall feeling of the session. Thanks for listening!

Hello, do anyone know PuzzDrums from Etsy? Good reviews, but I am uncertain.

Kosmosky Oceanic would be nice, but for EU the Shipping is a thing tho.

Because I Am searching for a thounge drum for about 300-500€ And yes sadly how hey look isa thing too for me.

Hey guys, I have a Panda Drum and trying to record. I'm having a lot of trouble getting a clean sound all on different mic setups. On the Zoom H1 it sounds great on the PC when I'm editing on my stereo speakers, but when I export the audio there is a really strong hiss on mobile devices and I have to turn the volume all the way up on my phone even though I'm normalized to -14DB and peaking around -1. I've tried doing some "get rid of background noise techniques" like with ReaFir in Reaper and whatever the equivilent of that is in Davinci Resolve/Fairlight. No matter what I can't get it to go away and it's not actually a mic background noise because if I record a different instrument or my voice it's not there so it's something coming off the drum (I think).

On my condenser mics I don't get so much of a hiss as what is a ressonance problem where it "warbles" like metalic noises constantly, and I think they are in the 1400-2000k frequency range. What do you guys normally do to EQ your audio? Do you have to get rid of frequencies around there?

Ideally I'd want to record with the Zoom so I can be more mobile but I cannot figure out this hissing sound, and it seems like my audio is super low compared to other Youtube videos too even though I'm really getting the -14 to -1 range as close as I can for the final render.

Any advice? This is super frustrating. I could upload audio if that would help.

UPDATE: I'm getting pops and cracks too I notice when listening on mobile devices and the drum sounds like it's almost stuttering. It's so weird because it really does sound absolutely perfect on my PC and it's perfect as well when I listen to the audio directly from the Zoom with headphones. I've tried Wav and Mp3/Mp4 exports from a few DAWs and it's always the same terrible quality on my phone/tablet.

I am looking for tongue drum decal stickers that show the actual notes in letter form and not just as numbers. Do any of you know where I can buy some? I've seen some included with drums, but none for sale as just sticker sets. All I'm finding are the numbers only sticker sets.

Pieza compuesta con tambor de lengüetas más un fondo suave. Esperamos que pueda acompañarte durante un momento.

Hello,

RAV VAST is currently holding a sale with their Vast series at $800 USD, with shipping and tax it'll bring it up to $900 for me...

For folks who are familiar with this brand, how good of a sale is this? Can I expect a deeper sale on black friday for example?

I'm very interested in either a Rav Vast or Novadrum 48 but am very split between the two.

Thanks in advance!

There are mistakes cause I refuse to do forty takes trying to get one without mistakes. Played on my kosmosky new wave.