Percussion Instrument
Tambourine
With a name that means, "the hitting of one body against another,"
instruments in the percussion family are played by being struck, shaken,
or scraped. In the orchestra, the percussion section provides a variety of rhythms,
textures and tone colors. Percussion instruments are classified as tuned or
untuned. Tuned instruments play specific pitches or notes, just like the woodwind,
brass and string instruments. Untuned instruments produce a sound with an indefinite
pitch, like the sound of a hand knocking on a door. The percussion instruments
are an international family, with ancestors from the Middle East, Asia, Africa,
the Americas and Europe representing musical styles from many different cultures.
The tambourine is a shallow, handheld drum made of a
circular wooden frame with a calfskin or plastic drumhead stretched across the
top. The tambourine has small discs called jingles set into its circular frame
which produce sound when the tambourine is shaken, rubbed, or struck on the
drum head with the knuckles. Early tambourines were played by Turkish army musicians
known as "Janissaries.� Mozart first used the tambourine in his music in 1782.
This project was created by Ahmed Azab.
Since �2001