I stumbled upon this unique instrument while looking for small, pocket-sized ones. While its size is a bit too large to do so, curiosity got the better of me, and for the low cost, I decided to make a small investment. There is a complementary spring drum, larger and often sold as a pair.

Although it doesn’t appear to be a drum in the way most people recognize the term, this is the first one I own. The glossy sticker and its lightweight make it look like a black plastic tube, but it’s actually made of engineered wood. A long spring, about two feet long and a quarter inch in diameter, is twisted into a pinhole at the bottom and glued onto the inside of the membrane.

Hold the tube upright with the spring dangling below, then slowly rotate it horizontally to initiate a rolling thunder sound. As you increase the speed, the rumbling gets louder. During lightning strikes, whiplash can be caused by rapidly moving the tube to the side and then returning it. For many lighting strikes, you can twist quickly to whip the spring up against itself.

In addition to its primary use, you can produce other sounds by gliding your fingers along the spring, tapping on the membrane, or humming into the tube. Another fun effect is to hold the tube at the top, cover it with your hand, and open and close it with your fingers to produce a phased wah-wah sound. Another effect is to use a drumstick while making the rumble and tap the spring for some hail. Lastly, you can tap along the side of the tube with your palm.

Quite quickly, you’ll catch on that the thunder tube has a bit of a metal-sounding echo to it. This is primarily due to its smaller diameter. Watching videos online, I have found that the wider, shorter version has less metallic reverberation and a lower rumble. More deluxe versions include thunder drums with a separate membrane at the top for hand tapping and a side hole to emit the rumble.