Two apprentices, a slit drum and a Peruvian cajón.

Schlagwerk — the German word for an orchestra’s percussion, and for the striking train of a clock — is a percussion maker in Gingen an der Fils, a small town in the Fils valley in the Göppingen district of Baden-Württemberg. Its history begins, by its own account, in 1982, when two carpentry apprentices, Gerhard Priel and Bengt Schumacher, working in a small barn, copied a Brazilian slit drum that a friend had brought back from South America. The instrument was almost unknown in Germany at the time, the company says, and the prototype drew interest well beyond their circle of friends.

A 2010 version of its website said the two had founded “Schlagwerk Percussion” more than 25 years earlier, specialising in wooden instruments and concentrating at first on professional slit drums for therapy and music education, its first customers. The range then grew to frame drums, udu drums, small percussion and cajóns. In its early years the workshop was in nearby Geislingen an der Steige, according to the company’s timeline.

The cajón, the Peruvian box drum that a player sits on and slaps, became the company’s central product. Its timeline dates a first “Cajon Comparsa” to 1984, and says that in 1986 the Puerto Rican percussionist Freddie Santiago visited with an original Peruvian cajón, “hardly different from an ordinary wooden box,” which Priel set out to develop into a professional instrument; the 2010 website gave 1986 as the year of the first Schlagwerk cajón. In 1990 came the La Perù, which the company says set the standard for sound and quality in its modern cajóns. Schlagwerk calls Priel “the inventor of the modern Cajon based on the classic Peruvian model,” which is its own description of him.

The 2inOne, a found stencil and a sound-wave logo.

Schlagwerk’s best-known product is the 2inOne snare cajón, introduced as the CP404 in 2005 with a removable snare assembly. The company calls the 2inOne its best-selling series and “probably the most successful cajón in the world,” which we give as its claim. Ten years earlier, in 1995, it says it introduced a tunable string cajón, whose snare wires can be adjusted with a tuning bar. Later designs include the Fineline, the Cajinto and the Cajabuka, add-ons that let a cajón be played more like a drum kit, the La Ola Drum and the SamJam guitar snare.

The 2inOne also carries the brand’s most recognisable graphic. According to the company, the idea came to Priel on his way to work, when he saw discarded letter stencils that a firm had made for the American army. The resulting stencil decoration was for many years the brand’s identifier, and the company says it is still applied by hand with a roller, so each instrument looks slightly different. Its corporate identity has changed twice by its own account: at the 2011 Frankfurt Musikmesse it replaced the “hard to understand Peruvian tree of life” of its early logo with stylised sound waves, and in 2020 it launched the brand campaign “The Sound Experience” with a new website.

Materials are central to how the company presents itself. It says it uses European birch, alder and beech, makes its own high-density fibreboard panels in a process it calls Cross-Laminating and Moulding, and faces its cajóns with a composite it calls SC6. It also says no instrument in its range is built from endangered wood species. In 2023 it added EINKLANG, a line of tuned instruments for therapy and wellness, which brings the company back to the market its first slit drums served.

Hand percussion and its makers.

The seven brands in this group make the instruments that sit around the drum kit: hand drums, cajóns, frame drums, tambourines, concert percussion and drumheads.

Two are hand-drum makers. LP, or Latin Percussion, was founded in New York in 1964 by Martin Cohen; Drum Workshop bought it from Fender’s Kaman Music business in 2014–15, and Roland bought Drum Workshop in 2022. Tycoon Percussion says it was founded in Bangkok in 1983 by Stephen Yu, a musician from Hong Kong, and that it is family-owned and makes its instruments in its own Thai factory.

Two work mainly in wood. Schlagwerk says it began in 1982, when two carpentry apprentices, Gerhard Priel and Bengt Schumacher, copied a Brazilian slit drum, and that it makes its cajóns at Gingen an der Fils, Germany, though its cajón cymbals are hammered in Turkey. Cooperman says Patrick Cooperman began making drumsticks and fifes in Mount Vernon, New York, in the 1950s, and that it has worked from a former sawmill in Bellows Falls, Vermont, since 2006.

Three make tambourines, concert percussion and drumheads. Rhythm Tech grew from the crescent tambourine of the session drummer Richard Taninbaum, which it says it introduced in 1980; its website calls it a division of JAM USA. Black Swamp Percussion was founded by Eric Sooy in Bowling Green, Ohio, dates itself to 1995 and now works from Zeeland, Michigan, calling its instruments “USA made.” Aquarian, founded in 1980 by Roy Burns and Ron Marquez, has made drumheads since 1987 and is based in Anaheim, California.

This guide sets out what can be checked about each brand — who founded it, who owns it, and what it says about where its products are made — and marks clearly what rests only on the company’s own word.

Percussion handmade in Gingen.

“Percussion handmade in Germany” is Schlagwerk’s tagline, and its account of where things are made is specific. Its FAQ says that all its wooden instruments, meaning cajóns, slit drums and small percussion, as well as its frame drums, udu drums, chimes and wah-wah tubes, are made only in Germany, at its headquarters in Gingen. Its cymbals are made in Turkey: the company says they are hand-hammered by a smith there to its specification and checked against a reference cymbal in Gingen, and that rejects are melted down and recast. The retailer Thomann lists a Schlagwerk cajón as “Made in Germany.” The company describes itself as an “industrial manufactory” that combines handwork with special machines it has adapted, and says it is a member of the Verband Deutsche Manufakturen, an association of German manufactories.

The works has grown in steps, by the company’s account: from the barn to an old factory hall, then in 2003 into a newly built headquarters, and at the turn of 2015 into a new production building next door, with more than 4,000 square metres of production space. It sells its regular range through music dealers rather than directly, with a small online shop for special models, B-stock and spare parts. Its legal notice names the company as Schlagwerk GmbH, with the founder Gerhard Priel and Winfried Holl as managing directors. Its roster of “sound experts” includes the percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie and Rhani Krija, whom it lists as a percussionist for Prince, Peter Gabriel and Sting.

For a design guide, Schlagwerk shows how a found graphic, army stencil lettering rolled on by hand, can become a brand’s signature, and how a logo can move from a folk symbol to an abstract sound wave. Compare Meinl, the Bavarian maker that also sells cajóns, Sonor, another German drum house, and LP, the American hand-percussion pioneer. For this guide we use birch, beech and stencil black with a stencil sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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