DURHAM - R.J. Perz-Edwards used to have a retort for when people asked if he played a musical instrument. "I'd always answer, 'Yeah, I play the radio.' " Now the joke is on Perz-Edwards, who is not only a musician, but a maker of West African drums and other percussion instruments. This career change came after he earned a doctorate degree in cell biology from Duke University. "It just astonishes me sometimes," the 39-year-old said of his journey from science to music.

Bang a drum: Perz-Edwards doesn't recall what inspired him to buy a small brass drum when he was in his mid-20s other than thinking, "Oh, that's cool. I like drums." He had always been partial to percussion and had attended percussion concerts. But that's as far as it had gone.

Magic to his ears: In 1994 he went with a youth group to the weeklong Southeast Unitarian Universalist Summer Institute in Blacksburg, Va. "We had a drum circle and it went on for a whole weekend," recalled Perz-Edwards, who while there had his first experience with the cone-shaped African ashiko drum, which is played with bare hands. "Here are all these teens and we're playing the drums and we may get a groove for an hour and a half. And then simultaneously the music stops. I mean everybody just stops at the same time. It's this amazing connection you feel with other people when you drum. It grows into this thing that's greater than the sum of its parts. It transformed my life."

Next stop, African: Perz-Edwards, who wanted an ashiko of his own, recalled seeing them sold at the annual Festival for the Eno in Durham -- where he now regularly sells his wares, including this weekend. "The vendor I remembered wasn't there. A new one was there, but I didn't like it as much and I thought prices were too high. I came home and thought, I can do that." He has since learned about drum making and drumming from several African instructors, many of whom he met at the annual Blue Ridge Mountains African Drum and Dance Camp. A decade ago he started to make drums on the side and also took a break from science to do carpentry work while his wife, Alyssa Perz-Edwards, was finishing her graduate degree. She now teaches biology at Duke. About five years ago, before the birth of their older daughter, now 4, Perz-Edwards decided to build drums full time.

A do-it-yourselfer: "Really, I'm a jack of all trades," Perz-Edwards said while giving a tour of his crowded garage workshop. "I'm a carpenter, a cooper, a blacksmith, a wood turner, a dyer, a weaver, a musician." Despite the labor intensity, he said, "for me, making the drums is very Zen, like playing the drums. Because there are so many steps involved in the process, Perz-Edwards works in batches of about 20 drums. He figures he sells about 80 a year.

Barrel of fun: He goes to the Hardwood Store of North Carolina in Gibsonville for such wood as maple, poplar, ash and walnut. "One of the things I like about being a business is it lets me support other local businesses." He starts with a barrel design, making staves or slats with a table saw and then beveling them with a joiner and gluing them to make a circle. "That's the most important part, where the perfection comes in," he said. He then turns the drum on a self-customized oversize lathe.

Buying locally: Many drum makers import their rawhide goat skins from Africa, Perz-Edwards said, but he wasn't happy with the quality. Through a county extension agent, he found Chaudhry Halal Meats in Siler City. "I'm one of the few drum makers who preps their own skin," he said. "I get it from a slaughterhouse, or an abattoir, if I want to make it sound better. It's a lot of work to prep all the skins, scrape off the meat and fat, and then stretch and dry them. They end up like a piece of parchment." The final step is taking the hair off the hide with a razor. He leaves a tuft in one section of the rim. "It's my little trademark," he said.

Finishing touches: "The skin goes over the drum shell and wraps around these rings at the top," Perz-Edwards said, demonstrating with a 13-by-26-inch drum. Three ropes tied with what's called a Mali weave circle the top and bottom and also run vertically, to create 1,400 pounds of pressure pulling on the head. Perz-Edwards rigged a machine to help tighten the ropes, using his leg for power along with his hands. "It's a little bit like a Stairmaster. Every serious drum maker does something like this." If the cord is not white, it's because he hand-dyed it. He used his grandmother's old sewing machine to make cloth covers with plastic and foam liners to protect the skins. Along with drums, Perz-Edwards makes a variety of other smaller instruments, including a frog clockers, shakers, thumb pianos, and krins, or log drums. This summer he's been designing a marimba with glass keys.

Back in business: Perz-Edwards, a stay-at-home-dad, took last year off when the children needed more attention. Now that they can play on their own (the younger girl is 2), he gets to play some too. He recently joined the African drum group Rhythmicity, out of Cary, and is music director for Tekere Duafe, a Durham-based African Dance and Theater Company. He also started, in 2000, River Rhythms, a community percussion choir out of the Eno River Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Durham. Last year he established a Web site and is now selling drums online. He hopes to push that concept further and attend more shows once the girls are in school. At some point, he'd like to hire an apprentice. "Everything sells," Perz-Edwards said, grateful that he can make a living doing what he loves. "Right now my limiting factor has been how many drums can I produce."

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