Construction
Traditionally, the tassa is made by tightly covering a clay shell with goat skin; early tassa were covered in monkey skin as well. When ready to play, the goat skin is heated by aid of a fire to tighten the head, making the pitch higher. This process is called "standing it up". In this way, the pitch can stay high for 20–30 minutes. Now tassa drums are even made by cutting an empty coolant tank in half and attaching a synthetic drum skin to the top of it with nuts and bolts, welding it shut. Synthetic drums do last longer and do not have to be adjusted as frequently. Although synthetic drums last longer, they deviate from the long standing tradition of clay and goatskin and do not sound as well.
Bass drums are constructed from a single piece of tree trunk, usually mango or cedar, but older, larger drums were made of the dense but light weight cottonwood tree which is rarely found today. The hollowed out trunk is covered on both sides by goat skins which are pulled tightly with rope. Different amounts of "massala" is placed in the insides of the skin to create a lower frequncy resonation on the "bass" side hit with a stick, and a higher frequency resonation on the more "treble" side hit with the hand. The deep, booming sounds of bass drums can be heard for long distances.
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