(Fr. tambour de Basque; Ger. Schellentrommel, Tamburin; It. cimbaletto, tamburello, tamburino; Sp. panderete).
A small single-headed frame drum of Middle Eastern origin (it is classified as a Membranophone; see also Drum, §I, 2(vi)). It consists of a shallow ring of wood, covered on one side with parchment (or a plastic material). With isolated exceptions small metal discs called jingles (and occasionally small bells), arranged singly or in pairs, hang loosely in openings in the shell. In the modern European form the head is nailed to the shell (see fig.1). Rod-tensioning is occasionally applied. In many Middle Eastern instruments, the heads are glued to the frame. The diameter of the present-day instrument (varying from 20 to 30 cm) seems to correspond with early representations, though certain 18th- and 19th-century specimens reach a diameter of about 50 cm.The following frame drums have entries in this dictionary: Bendīr, Bodhrán, Daff, Dāira, Mazhar, Rebana, Riqq and Tār. For further information see entries on individual countries.
The simple frame drum which was the ancestor of our tambourine is of high antiquity. It appears on Babylonian reliefs of the 20th century bce and in Egyptian reliefs from the 18th Dynasty (c1500 bce), with at least one excavated example in the National Museum in Cairo, and it is unlikely to have been new at those dates. It is probable that the Biblical tof, played by Miriam and her women after the crossing of the sea (Exodus xv.20), was a similar instrument (see Biblical instruments). Many Greek representations of maenads in Bacchic or Dionysiac processions, as well as on other ocasions, show similar instruments (see Tympanum (i)), and such scenes were copied by Roman carvers (and later by artists of the Renaissance, such as Luca della Robbia; see fig.1).
Similar instruments are found today in India, as well as throughout Central, East and South-East Asia, the Middle and Near East and North Africa. They are also endemic right round the Arctic Circle, especially as ritual instruments, from Lapland through Siberia with the shamans, to North America and Greenland, where it is said that the frame drum is the Inuit's only instrument. From North America it has percolated down to the south, as far as Peru.
Some of these drums have rattling elements added. Many Central Asian drums have a series of metal rings fixed to the inner surface of the shell, overlapping each other like chain mail. The Siberian shamans' drums have diametric cross-bars, usually of metal or twisted sinew, from which hang folded iron and other jingles. Near Eastern and some North African frame drums have, like those of Italy and Spain, pairs of circular discs of brass or ferrous metal let into slots cut in the frame, much like our orchestral tambourine. These jingles are usually equidistantly spaced around the frame, and it is noteworthy that a common number is five pairs, as it most frequently is in the European medieval iconography also. In North Africa the rattling element is more usually one or more snares or strands of gut running across the underside of the skin. This is also found in Portugal where, as in Morocco, the drum is usually square or rectangular, rather than round, and with two heads, on each side of the frame, rather than single as in most other areas. In such cases, the snares and any other rattling elements are usually concealed inside the drum.
It is impossible to say whether the frame drums of antiquity had any such rattles. Nothing is visible in Mesopotamia and Egypt, but a snare would not be; the paintings on Greek pots often show small circles on the frame, but whether these are decorative or whether they represent jingles we cannot tell.
The frame drum appears in many medieval carvings and manuscripts, and was then known in English as the timbre, which later became timbrel, especially in poetic parlance. It sometimes had pellet bells attached to the frame, as well as the normal jingles, and frequently there was a snare (Fr. timbre) running across the upper surface of the head.
After seeming to disappear from European art music during the Baroque and Classical periods, the frame drum reappeared, presumably having survived as a folk instrument, in the late 18th century in the military band and in the orchestra in the 19th century as an exotic sound. In North Africa and the East it had never lost its popularity, being played with an elaborate technique combining the use of the free hand at various points on the head to obtain different tone colours, with that of the fingers of the hand that holds it to strike close to the rim.
In most of the world's cultures, it is unusual for women to play drums of any kind – when they do so it is the frame drum they most frequently use.
Gluck (Echo et Narcisse, 1779) and Mozart (German Dances k S71, 1787) were among the earliest composers to make orchestral use of the tambourine. By the early 19th century the tambourine was, as Berlioz said, ‘in considerable use’. Its firm introduction into orchestral works was occasioned by the need for special effects of a Spanish or gypsy character, as for instance in Weber’s overture to Preciosa (1820). Berlioz, who in his Grand traité d’instrumentation (1843) dealt to some extent with technical details concerning the instrument, often used the tambourine. He occasionally called for two tambourines, as in Le carnaval romain (two players), and for three in Harold en Italie. Later composers have used the tambourine in a variety of ways (see fig.2). In addition to providing local colour, the instrument is used to mark rhythms and supply a particular background. Exemplary scoring for the tambourine is found in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Spanish Capriccio (1887) and Sheherazade (1888), and in Stravinsky’s Petrushka (1910–11). In Petrushka (Gypsies and a Rake Vendor) Stravinsky asked for a tremolo to be produced by a shake and a thumb roll (see ex.1).
Composers make frequent use of the thumb roll to ensure a quiet tremolo or trill; it is produced by rubbing the moistened ball of the thumb in an upward direction along the surface of the vellum near the rim. This vibrating of the jingles by means of friction is by no means a simple matter, and at times may elude the most skilful. (In the case of a pp tremolo, if not marked as a thumb roll, the player will use either a shake or a friction roll depending on the context.) The ‘thumb roll’ technique was referred to as the ‘travale’, a term that has become obsolete (see Monthly Magazine and British Register, Feb 1798, p.136; A Dictionary of Musical Terms, ed. J. Stainer and W.A. Barrett, 1876). One of the most generally known examples of the use of the thumb roll occurs in the Arabian Dance in Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite. In the same work (Trepak) there is a vigorous part for the tambourine, calling for an extremely deft wrist, or the use of two tambourines (or the striking of the instrument back and forth on the knee and the hand).
For a normal tremolo the tambourine is held aloft and shaken, and for the normal stroke the head is struck with the fingertips, knuckles, palm or closed fist, according to the composer’s instructions or the player’s discretion. For a series of quiet strokes the rim may be struck with the fingertips or drumsticks. To ensure a pp or ppp many orchestral players use a jingle-ring – a tambourine without a head. (The jingle-ring (Schellenreif) is occasionally referred to and illustrated in medieval manuscripts.)
More unusual methods of playing the tambourine include flicking the jingles (Walton, Façade) and brushing the jingles (Lambert, The Rio Grande). Possibly the most unusual request came from Stravinsky, who (in Petrushka: The Scuffle) asked for the instrument to be held close to the floor and dropped. A tambourine without jingles is occasionally used in the orchestra, e.g. in Stravinsky’s Renard and Falla’s El retablo de Maese Pedro. In George Benjamin’s Sudden Time (1990–93) five very small tambourines are required: these are meant to be used in ascending order of pitch, but though they may start at the correct pitch, atmospheric conditions in the hall can change this very rapidly.
Kolberg has developed a tambourine mounted on a stand, which the player can turn with one hand while executing a continuous thumb roll with the other. This instrument is provided with several sets of interchangeable jingles, allowing a choice of tone colour. A tambourine with no head, but sometimes provided with a handle, has often been used in pop and light music as a rhythm instrument.
Notation for the tambourine is generally on a single line (as in ex.1), though staff notation and pictographic notation have become more common in 20th-century music.
BladesPI
F.W. Galpin: Old English Instruments of Music (London, 1910/R, rev. 4/1965 by T. Dart)
F.W. Galpin: Textbook of European Musical Instruments: their origin, history and character (London, 1937, 2/1956/R)
H. Hickmann: Catalogue général des antiquités égyptiennes du Musée du Caïre (Cairo, 1949)
F. Ll. Harrison and J. Rimmer: European Musical Instruments (London, 1964)
J. Blades and J. Montagu: Early Percussion Instruments: from the Middle Ages to the Baroque (London, 1976)
JEREMY MONTAGU (1), JAMES BLADES/JAMES HOLLAND (2)