One of our stops is the nearby village of Adjarra, where two families make many of the drums for markets in Southern Benin. This year the family we have been visiting for many years made a presentation for us about drum making. This included a demonstration of the “talking drum,” as seen in the video linked below. A talking drum is a two-sided drum with strings that modulate the drum sound. Traditionally, talking drums were used to communicate messages from a village and even relayed “point to point.”