I have been making pottery since 1987, a hobby I picked up after college. In 2007, I followed a childhood dream of mine to take drum lessons. I learned on the African Drum, the Ube, modelled after the traditional DJembe from Ubaka Hill. This is when I learned about the Udu Drum, and I have been bonded ever since to this drum. In the summer of 2019, I personally met Frank Giorgini when I enrolled in his Udu Drum workshop in the Catskills of New York. This was the workshop’s 30th anniversary, and it included his professor and mentor of the Udu Drum, Abbas M. Ahuwan, who traveled from Nigeria with his wife Martha to co-teach this workshop. Being there was one of my dreams coming true.

We began each workshop Saturday morning by finding a stone by the creek that runs through Freehold, New York, the stone I would use to pound and shape my clay. Back at Frank’s studio, we each picked the size drum we were going to make based on the bowl molds he had made over the years. Of course I picked the biggest one. I had already been trying to make these for several years on my own, and I had started trying to make them the way Frank taught the year before, after I found him online, bought his two instructional videos, and began teaching myself from them. 

I came to that 30th anniversary workshop carrying more grief than I could put into words. My dad passed in March of 2019 at age 89. My precious senior dog, Precious, passed that April at 17. My other senior dog, Punkin, passed that July at 14. One night in June, in the middle of the night, I suddenly remembered Frank Giorgini and his videos, and I had a feeling he must have a workshop coming up. I got up and looked online right then, and sure enough, he did. It happened to be his 30th anniversary workshop. I emailed him in the middle of the night, and I could not wait for a reply, so I called the next morning too. Frank chuckled when he picked up the phone. He already knew who I was from my email. “Yep, this is the year to come here,” he told me. “You’re lucky, this is the year Abbas is coming back for the 30th anniversary, and we still have room.” 

Participating. Trusting my Spirit guiding me to this sacred journey…this was life changing. 

The workshop ran across two weekends. The first weekend we made our drums from the clay and learned their full history from Frank and Abbas, their lectures on the tradition, the meaning, and the craft. I videotaped the whole thing with Frank’s permission. In between, I went to visit my dear friend Rich in New York. 

I came back for the second weekend, which also happened to be Frank’s birthday, when people came back year after year for the drum circle around the fire. 

That Saturday we did the firing. We pulled our drums from the kiln that morning and prepared them for the pit firing that followed, learning to layer straw, paper, and leaves and other things gathered from nature around each piece, the same elements that would smoke and mark the clay with their shapes. We wrapped the drums in newspaper, packed straw between them in the half barrels, and lit the fire, letting the smoke do the work the way the Nigerian people who first made these drums always had, without kilns of their own: a bisque firing first, then a smoke firing, exactly as we had just done. That Saturday night there was a drum circle and dancing around the fire that I will cherish forever, and a group of us went out to a wonderful restaurant nearby called Ruby’s. I went back twice more in the years that followed to study under Deborah, who had trained under Frank and Abbas and carried the workshop forward after Frank passed away in October 2022, after an illness with cancer. I had met Deborah on that very first trip, and she was every bit as amazing a teacher as Frank and Abbas had been. Those turned out to be the last times the workshop could be hosted there. When I went back, we gathered at Ruby’s again, this time for Frank’s memorial, where I was able to capture a spontaneous, heartfelt testimony from his partner and a live performance on one of his own drums by a well known musician. I have hours of video and photos from all of these years still waiting to be shared, and I hope to release more of them over time. 

The drums pictured here are the ones I have made over these years that I still keep in my own home, each one pit fired and marked with its own leaves, symbols, and story: a grasshopper, a sunburst, a turtle, a little house with a spiral inside it, and more. Every one of them carries a piece of that fire, that circle, and those two remarkable teachers with it. [existing photos of the sculptural early drums stay here] These were some of my very first ones. I had fun with the sculpture forms on the drums and playing with the symbol turtle. This is two sides of the same drum. The side hole was too big for what I know now. The neck of the Udu is shorter, which impacted the sound coming from it. 

The drum is spiritual for me. More on that another time. 

I typed one day, and the words “Frum Drum” appeared on the screen almost without thinking. I almost deleted it, then realized it was the perfect name for the drums I had made that were not the authentic Udu and had taken on a personality all their own. What I make now are the Udus as Frank and Abbas taught me. 

Many of the pictures here are of drums I made in the Udu Workshops that Frank and Abbas led in 2019, and then Deborah in 2023 and 2024. I have been making pottery since 1987, a hobby I picked up after college. In 2007, I followed a childhood dream of mine to take drum lessons. I learned on the African drum, the Ube, modeled after the traditional Djembe, from Ubaka Hill. This is when I learned about the Udu Drum, and I have been bonded to it ever since.

In the summer of 2019, I personally met Frank Giorgini when I enrolled in his Udu Drum workshop in the Catskills of New York. This was the workshop’s 30th anniversary, and it included his professor and mentor of the Udu Drum, Abbas M. Ahuwan, who traveled from Nigeria with his wife Martha to co-teach. Being there was one of my dreams coming true. My 1st Udu Drum, made in 2007. The word Udu means both pottery and peace in the Ibo language of Nigeria. 

Those original Udu Drums I was attempting to make were not how I make them now. After learning from Frank Giorgini and Abbas in July of 2019, I have been making them the way they taught me. When I spoke with Martha, Abbas’ wife, she shared how the women would gather in the evening and play these softly in their laps, a group of women, since back then only women were allowed to play the Udu. I also learned through my research that some believe the deep, haunting sound particular to the drum is the “voice of the ancestors” when used in religious ceremonies. 

Now I form each of my handmade drums true to the traditional techniques handed down to me by Abbas M. Ahuwan and Frank Giorgini. These drums are created by pounding clay with flat rocks, then forming and adding one coil at a time with precise technique all the way to completion. I use various tools, including my hands, to make the coils as Abbas taught me. I shape the drum with wooden paddles, then burnish the surface with a smooth gemstone for a beautiful, luster filled finish. The UDUs are not thrown on a potter’s wheel, which is how I made my original drums before learning from the gurus Frank Giorgini and Abbas M. Ahuwan. 

Thank you, Frank and Abbas. We are giving birth to these drums one touch, one coil at a time. When my dad was in hospice, I brought one of my Udus and played it for him. It made a soft, soothing sound. I had been attempting to make these Udus for years in a way very different from how they were made by the people of Nigeria; I stacked wheel thrown pieces. I do not do that anymore. Even then, they made a pretty sound, and my dad enjoyed the soft, bubbly, bassy tones coming from the top hole and the side hole. 

Sometimes I would tap the clay lightly. I love playing the Udu; it calms me and is deeply meditative. I feel very relaxed after playing for 10 to 15 minutes. The sound, and the playing, is soft, for me. My unique Frum Drum Udu Drum is personalized with embedded Reiki healing throughout the creation process. 

As a Reiki Master and healer, I was also blessed to be in the right place at the right time when my friend Abbas fell ill during the workshop week. I offered him my Reiki healing, and 15 minutes later he stood up and declared, “you healed me.” I have truly magical and incredible memories of a lifetime from my journey to Frank Giorgini’s Udu Drum Workshop, which the late Frank Giorgini created and mastered, learning from his teacher Abbas. I am so very grateful to Frank and Abbas and his wife Martha, and their family. I continue to work on my practice of making the Udu as I learned it from them. I can only pray I make something they would be proud of. I am forever grateful to Frank and Abbas. 

Namaste,

Lisa Frumhoff.  

(Updated September 9, 2026)