Tambora: Dominica Republic musical instrument

The Dominican tambora is a two headed drum that is performed in the merengue music. In many countries, specifically the Dominican Republic, the musical instruments were produced from salvaged barrels. The players of the musical instrument are called tamboreros.

source: rhythmtraders.com

There are three type of tambora for the merengue music; the oldest type is the rope tuned tambora that has black colored heads. This is seen more in folkloric music of the Dominican Republic and afro-Caribbean slaves. The second kind is a rope tuned tambora performed with the skin of goat or chivo heads, either with the hair left on or without it. The third kind of tambora is recently manufactured by companies; it is the bolt-tuned type with rawhide conga heads. This type often has metal or wooden rims to hit as filler for the rhythms, sounding, if the player strikes it correctly, something analogous to the wood block. This kind is also tuned to higher settings and can sound like the conga.

In the merengue tipico, the musical instrument has a significantly large role, performing many different kinds of rhythm and variations on those rhythms. Meanwhile, in orchestra merengue, the musical instrument often only performs the merengue derecho rhythm as a background musical instrument, while the congas are the basic rhythm musical instrument, and then followed by the Güira. In orchestra merengue, a separate player for the timbales can be seen very common, while in the timbales and the tambora are performed most of the time by the same musician. The timbales are opined to have been introduced into the genre of music by a Dominican percussionist known as Ray ‘Chino’ Diaz.

There are three main strokes; the slap, rim or woodblock and the open tones. These three are all used in the standard merengue rhythms like the merengue derecho and the pambiche.