Tambourine: Belarus musical instrument

The tambourine is a family musical instrument that consists of a frame that is made from wood or plastic with pairs of tiny metal jingles that is known as the “zils”. Simply styled, the tambourine connotes a musical instrument that is made of a drum head. Although some of them may not have a head at all. The tambourine is often used with other sets of musical instruments, they can be mounted but the player can decide on the position. The tambourine come in so many shapes but they commonly come with sphere shape and can be found in many forms of music; Greek folk music, classical music, Italian folk music, Persian music, gospel music, popular music rock music and many more.

 

source of picture: www.musicwithease.com

           The tambourine is believed to have originated from Mesopotamia, Middle East, India, Greece and Rome and mainly it was used in religious contexts. The word tambourine has its root from the French word “tambourin” which means a long narrow drum used in Provence, the word being a small part for tambour which means “drum”.  

            This musical instrument can be held in the hand or mounted on a stand and has so many ways of playing it; shaking the jingle, stroking the jingles or even striking sharply with the hand or a stick or striking the instrument on the edge of your hip. There are so many ways of doing the tambourine roll but the easiest way is to swiftly rotate the hand while holding the tambourine back and forth, turning it around the wrist. An advanced method of playing the tambourine is known as the thumb roll. Here the finger is moved over the skin or the rim of the musical instrument causing it to produce a faster roll from the jingles on the instrument. The finger of the hand that is not holding the musical instrument is run around the head of the tambourine about 1cm from the rim with a little pressure to be mounted. The thumb is supposed to be bouncing swiftly along the head and producing the roll if properly performed, and the roll will be perfected using heal of the other hand. In the present day, the thumb roll is done using wax or resin to apply on the outside of the drum head. This wax is to allow the finger bounce more swiftly and harder across the head to produce an even sound.

            In rock music, tambourine is most often headless, a ring with jingle but with no skin and since the 18^th century, the tambourine has become a more permanent element of the western orchestral musical instruments.