Tambourine

The tambourine is a percussion instrument, consisting of a circular wooden frame across whose top is streched a plastic, paper, or animal skin. To the sides of the frame are attached short columns of metal discs that jingle when the top of the instrument is struck. The tambourine's ancestry extends farther back into prehistory than that of almost any other Western instrument. The name derives from the Arabic tanbur, and examples of similar instruments are found in many countries. The tambourine of medieval and Renaissance secular song ensembles was essentially similar to the modern instrument. First introduced into the classical orchestra at the end of the eighteenth century by Mozart and Gluck, the tambourine is part of the large battery of percussion present in a full symphony orchestra. It received a new lease on life thanks to the do-it-yourself aesthetic of the rock era--with comparatively little technical expertise, a percussionist can produce a wide range of sounds by shaking the instrument, tapping its edge, beating the top, and so on. The tambourine's centrality in the musical aesthetic of the 1960s was enshrined in Bob Dylan's classic folk-rock composition, Mr. Tambourine Man.

Percussion Instruments