I have played many instruments, wind and string, but have always loved percussion. I’m not coordinated to play a typical drum set but I could always bang out reasonably good rhythms on djembes, congos, bongos and the like.
When I was in Vegas at Black Hat/Defcon, I attended a party at the Hard Rock that included two guitarists and a guy sitting on what looked like a rectangular box. He was leaning backwards and hitting the front of it, like one might play a hand drum. It had quite an amazing dynamic range for a box with a hole in it and looked like a lot of fun to play.
When the “band” took a break and others jumped in to sub, so did I.
Turns out this instrument was called a Cajon. I didn’t know anything about them until that point in time but rapidly fell in love with the tonality and simplicity of the instrument. I played for about 3 hours on that little box that night and although I managed to turn my fingers into swollen sausages, it was an awesome experience.
A couple of days ago I went to my local percussion store and they had several Cajons to choose from.
I picked up a Tycoon Percussion Roundback Model 29 Cajon. The one I have has a gorgeously deep black front panel. It’s rounded back (as opposed to squared-off) adds to the low end bass response. It’s quite a bit deeper than the ones I tried without it. It has guitar strings threaded/strung internally that are tuneable — these allow for a tympanic or snare sound to be tuned in/out. Further, one can even add bells to it.
This is an all wood version. They make versions with metal fronts, also.
It’s a great instrument. I’m having a lot of fun with it and look forward to playing with the tuning.
I’m looking forward to jamming on it for a while and then seeing about some other styles/sounds with other versions.
/Hoff