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Frame Drums and Tambourines

Introduction

Technically, a frame drum is a drum that has a shell depth smaller than the diameter of the drumhead, which can be from 6" to 20" (15 cm to 50 cm) or more; in simple terms, it is a hoop with a skin stretched across it. Although the frame is most commonly round, it can be square or hexagonal; it is made from various woods, metals or clay, and has a single or double head. The drumhead of a frame drum is made either from an animal skin – cow (calf), goat, fish, lizard, deer, whale, seal, or snake - or from an animal's internal organs. The skin is attached to the frame with glue, tacks, or a counter-hoop system with tuning hardware (devices such as screws to tune the skin to a particular note or pitch by tightening or slackening its tension over the frame). Construction styles for most frame drums often vary from region to region. Synthetic plastic skins and frames have been successfully made by North American drum companies such as Cooperman and Remo.

There are two major types of frame drum: those without jingles, which can be played with the hands or with sticks; and those with jingles, which are played with the hands (tambourines). Tambourine jingles are usually round metal discs set into the frame, but they can also be pellet bells or brass rings attached to the inside of the frame.

Frame drums are found in many cultures and have a long history. Examples of different types are depicted in pottery, reliefs, paintings and folk art. The earliest depictions of frame drums appear in Mesopotamian art from the third millennium BC. These frame drums are much larger than those used in popular music of the late twentieth century. Depictions of smaller frame drums similar to some still used can be found in the artwork of Greece, Egypt, Persia, and India. They mainly show women playing frame drums in ritual, but men often appear in Arabic examples when a frame drum is employed for martial purposes. The first appearance of a frame drum with jingles attached to the frame is found on the 2nd Century AD sarcophagus, The Triumph of Baccus.

Grips and Technique

A consistent feature of the depictions of frame drums throughout their history has been the use of two main grips for holding the instrument. From the iconographical evidence, the most common was what can be called the Oriental grip. The player is always shown with the left hand holding the instrument at the bottom with the skin facing away from him/her and the fingers of both hands playing. This grip allows the player to produce numerous sounds from the skin: for example, a low-pitched natural ringing sound produced by striking the drum off-center; a high-pitched sound produced by striking the edge; a stopped stroke produced by slapping the instrument in the center; various jingle sounds; brushing sounds produced by grazing the skin with the fingernails or fingertips; a drone produced by the friction of a moistened finger rubbed on the skin; and the sound produced by knocking the frame with the knuckles. In Arabic drumming, the first three sounds mentioned above are onomatopoeically known as doum, tak, and kah. Persian drumming makes use of different strokes, employing snapping techniques for the high-pitched rim sounds. Indian drumming has similar names for drum strokes, as well as rhythmic solfege systems known as bols and solkattu (konnakol). The Indian technique has developed in such a way as to allow fast and clear repetitions of specific sounds, usually stopped sounds.

The other main grip can be called the European grip and first appears in Dutch artwork from the seventeenth century. This grip seems to be reserved largely for specific tambourine playing, such as that used in African-American minstrelsy, gospel, rock, European orchestral playing, and folk musics of Spain and Brazil. The player holds the instrument in the left hand so that the drumhead faces up toward the sky, with the thumb touching the skin; most of the playing is done with the right hand. Compared with the multiple skin sounds (and jingle sounds, if the instrument is equipped with jingles) that the Oriental grip permits, the European grip allows for a more jingle-based sound.

The sitting position facilitates another playing grip. The seated player holds the instrument on the left knee with the left hand resting on top; this allows for similar manipulations of the skin as with the Oriental grip. This 'sitting' grip becomes a necessity when the frame drum is too large for handheld playing.

Numerous grips are used for frame drums played with sticks, as for Native American frame drums, the Irish bodhrán, the tapou of Martinique & Guadeloupe, Ukrainian stick-beaten tambourines called buben, frame drums in Chinese opera (jing xi) called bangu and in the silk and bamboo music (jiangnan sizhu) of Shanghai called biqi gu, the Japanese paranku (Okinawa) and kacho (Ainu), and frame drums with handles attached, such as uchiwa daiko (daimoku daiko) from Japan, the sogo of the Republic of Korea (South Korea), and the North American kilaut (cauyuq) played by the Inuit. These grips constitute exceptions to the three already discussed. The hand beaten frame drum of Brazil’s bumba meu boi rituals, the pandeirão, is also an exception.

Apache frame drums (SW USA)

Frame drum from British Columbia (NW coast)

Paranku from Okinawa, Japan

Uchiwa daiko (daimoku daiko) from Japan

Inuit kilaut (cauyuq)

Tuning the tapou of Martinique

Bangu from China

Lastly, a grip called free-hand position was popularized by John Bergamo in the USA. The player holds a frame drum between the legs so that the skin slants away from him/her; this allows both hands to be used for playing. This style was actually first used in the USA in New York in the early 1980s by electric tambourinist Peter Wharton, who damped the jingles and amplified the tambourine while playing. The free-hand grip is traditionally used for large frame drums in Cuba and in Turkey and pre-dates the popular spread of this playing position among frame drummers in the USA.

Nomenclature

The nomenclature for frame drums is problematic, as similar instruments have different spellings and names in different cultures, which demonstrates differences in regional preferences. In addition, drum companies such as Remo have continued to market newly invented versions of frame drums simply as "frame drum." Other inventions have included the Remo ocean drum (a double-head frame drum with metal shot inside), Glen Velez's Mediterr-Asian tambourines made by Cooperman some of which feature small tunable frame drums with wooden jingles, a one-piece all-wooden frame drum used by Glen Velez, a one-piece all-clay frame drum known as "claypan" made by the Wright Hand Drum Company, Barry Hall's ceramic "didjibodhrán" (a ceramic circular didjeridu with a skin stretched across making both a frame drum and didjeridu in a single instrument), and Carlo Rizzo's "polytimbral tambourine" (with which he can control the tension of the skin, damping of the jingles, and application of snares to the skin while playing).

12" ocean drum

22" Cooperman tunable bodhrán with synthetic skin

Frame Drums (Without Jingles)

Following are brief descriptions of the most common frame drums (without jingles) found in popular music.

The adufe (pandeiro quadrado, pandero cuadrado) is a double-headed square frame drum, 12"-16" (30 cm-40 cm) in diameter, mainly played in Portugal, Spain, but also found in Egypt, Guatemala, and Brazil. It can have pellet bells attached to the inside frame, and is held in the Oriental grip. The Egyptian version is quite old, dating back as far as 1400 BC. The Brazilian version was stick beaten and may have been a precursor to the tamborim (see below). The European versions are usually hand beaten and triangular shaped drums may also be found. There is also a Spanish version that uses the sitting position while the right hand uses a stick to strike the frame and skin with the left hand playing the skin as well.

Spanish adufe

The bendir (bendyr, bendire) of Morocco and Tunisia is similar to the tar (see below), with the addition of snares stretched across the inside of the skin so that the instrument produces a buzzing sound. This drum can range from 10"-16" (25 cm-40 cm) in diameter, and is held in the Oriental grip. Large variations can sometimes be found that include jingles in Morocco, which may be called tarr or târa (tar and bendir are often used interchangeably in Morocco for frame drums with or without snares).

Moroccan bendir

Traditionally used in Irish pub music, the bodhrán is 16"-20" (40 cm-50 cm) in diameter and is played with a double-ended stick known as a "tipper." Both traditional and innovative hand techniques also exist. Although the bodhrán can have jingles, it is a frame drum that is usually without jingles. This is probably because prior to 1950, tambourines were used in Irish folk music but died out by the mid-1900s. The switch to a frame drum without jingles may have to do with preferences in the recording studio at that time. Many playing styles exist including the Kerry style (use of both ends of tipper), the Limerick style (use of a shorter, single-sided tipper), the Roscommon style (use of bare hand only), and the Top End style (from Northern Ireland, makes use of a larger variety of left hand dampening and accented sounds while playing with the tipper on the skin towards the top of the drum).

Traditional Irish bodhrán with tipper

The gombe (gome) is a large square frame drum played by the Ashanti and Ga people in Ghana, usually 18" x 15" (45 cm x 38 cm). This drum is set on the ground with the player sitting down on the drum. The player reaches down between the legs to strike the goat skin to achieve open tones, slaps, and bass tones much in the way an Afro-Cuban conga drum is played with the exception that the gombe player uses the heels of the feet to press into the skin to change the pitch. This drum may be used in highlife music in place of a bass player (similar drums are played in Sierra Leone and by the Maroon people in Jamaica).

Gome from Ghana

The panderão and panderinho are frame drums used in the Brazilian bumba meu boi folk music in Maranhão and Amazonas. The pandeirão is a large frame drum of about 20" (50 cm) that is held in the left hand with the skin facing the player while it is beaten with the right hand. The panderinho is a smaller frame drum of about 12" (30 cm) that is held in the left hand with the skin facing up towards the sky while it is beaten with the right hand. These two frame drums traditionally play in a polyrhythmic texture along with wooden sticks and other percussion.

Panderão from Brazil

The Puerto Rican pandereta (also known as pandero) is usually in three sizes 10" (25 cm), 12" (30 cm), and 14" (35 cm) in diameter, has tuning hardware and a thick skin, and is used in traditional la plena music. The playing technique is similar to that for playing the congas, and the instrument is held in the Oriental grip.

Panderetas from Puerto Rico

The pandero is a large frame drum from Spain and Portugal, 16"-20" (40 cm-50 cm) in diameter. It can be played in the sitting position, or held in the Oriental grip if the frame depth is shallow enough. (Pandero and panderoa are also terms sometimes used for tambourines in Portugal).

The patenge is a rectangular frame drum that was used in an urban style of music in Zaïre (now Democratic Republic of Congo) known as maringa. The drum has two wooden legs and is played with the hands while seated resting back against the player. It resembles a rectangular and more shallow gombe drum and is played much in the same manner in terms of performance practice. A similar frame drum is found further down the Atlantic African coast known as malinga.

The rammana is a frame drum, 10" (25 cm) in diameter, used in the classical music of Thailand and Cambodia. It is often played simultaneously, either by the same player or another, with a clay or wooden goblet drum called a thon. The instruments are known collectively as thon-rammana. The thon lies on the player's lap and is played with the right hand, while the player holds the rammana in the sitting position and plays it with the left hand. The playing technique involves low-pitched, rim, and stopped sounds similar to those used in Arabic drumming, and snapping techniques similar to those of Persian drumming are used on the rammana (left in photo below).

Thai rammana & thon

The ravann (or ravanne) is a large frame drum, 20" (50 cm), held on the lap and played in sega music on the island of Mauritius (in Indian Ocean between Madagascar and Australia, south of Sri Lanka).

Ravanne of Mauritius

The samba drum is a rectangular frame drum from Nigeria usually 14" (30 cm) in diameter and was used along with tambourines in early forms of jùjú music. The Christian church introduced tambourines and Nigerian made versions (jùjú drum) may be square, octagonal, or hexagonal but they are often referred to as tambourines. Both drums were also used by street musicians and small ensembles of Yoruban palmwine, and asìkó (ashiko) musicians. (Round clay stick-beaten frame drums without jingles called sakara, usually 12" (30 cm) or more, are also played in Nigeria and Liberia).

Nigerian sakara

The sogo is a small frame drum with a wooden handle played for rhythmic accents by dancers in samul nori in South Korea.

Sogo from South Korea

The tamalin is a large rectangular frame drum played in parts of Ghana in three sizes, usually 17" x 14" (42 cm x 35 cm), 19" x 16" (47 cm x 40 cm), and 24" x 19" (58 cm x 47 cm) in diameter. These drums are used by the Ashanti and Ga people in traditional ensembles as well as their urban music called highlife. Each drum has a cross piece in the back by which it is held (as in the Irish bodhrán) and the drum is played with the hand achieving open and closed sounds.

Tamalin from Ghana

Tamalins from Ghana

The Brazilian tamborim (tambourim) is a frame drum used for samba. It is 6"-8" (15 cm-20 cm) in diameter, and has a wooden or metal frame, with a plastic or skin head. The stick used to play the tamborim has a frayed tip that produces a thicker sound than a regular stick. Using the European grip, the player employs a technique that involves turning the hand holding the drum so that rhythms are produced on the skin as the drum rotates around the stick. The hand holding the instrument also damps the skin from underneath.

Brazilian tamborim

The tape (or dap or dapu) is a stick beaten frame drum found throughout India. Sizes vary from 11 inches in diameter to 18 inches. The shell depth ranges from 3 to 4 inches approximately and the shell can be made from wood, brass, steel, or aluminum. Traditionally, a goat skin was used but modern versions make use of plastic skins. The tape is used in traditional funeral music in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka as well as in some popular Tamil film music.

Tape (or dap) from southern India

The Egyptian tar - not to be confused with the tar used in Persian music, which is a lute - is a circular frame drum found in Arabic music traditions throughout North Africa. It ranges from 12" to 16" (30 cm to 40 cm) in diameter, and is held in the Oriental grip (tar and bendir are often used interchangeably in Morocco for frame drums with or without snares).

Egyptian tar

Tambourines

Tambourines vary in size, shell, skin and jingle type, as well as in playing technique, and are usually circular (the Chinese octagonal snake-skin tambourine bafanggu [or bajiaogu - which is also the term for the ballad-chanting music in Beijing this tambourine is used in] is an exception).

Chinese bajiaogu (or bafangu)

The generic tambourine, used in popular and orchestral music of the West, is held in the European grip. The playing technique involves shaking the frame to activate the jingles and striking the skin for accents. This approach seems to be focused on producing a jingle sound, with no exploration of the expressive possibilities of the skin. The playing techniques of African-American tambourinists are an exception: in gospel music and in vaudeville, the players, using the European grip, rock the instrument from side to side while striking it with the thumb for low sounds and slapping it with the palm in the center for stopped sounds. The famous vaudeville tambourinist, Juba (William Henry Lane), performed in this style between 1840-1850.

What is most commonly called a tambourine in the context of popular music often does not have a skin and is technically neither a tambourine nor a frame drum. Its proper name is "jingle ring." The distinction between a tambourine and a jingle ring is rarely made and usually only by knowledgeable percussionists. Similar instruments are also common to India.

Jingle ring from USA

Orchestral tambourine

Vaudevillian tambourine from USA

Following are brief descriptions of tambourines found in popular music.

The bassé (bas, tanbourin) is a Haitian frame drum, 12"-16" (30 cm-40 cm) in diameter, that can be with or without jingles. Used traditionally in some rara and voodoo music, it is also sometimes played in Haitian popular music along with other traditional drums. Held by a cross-brace or rope-tension system at the back, the instrument is slapped for stopped and low sounds.

Haitian bas (no jingles) & lambi (conch shell trumpet)

The buben is a Ukrainian stick-beaten tambourine, which features a cord cross-brace on the inside frame from which various other jingles, such as pellet bells, are hung.

Ukrainian buben player with fiddler

The doira (or ghaval) is a tambourine played in Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Xinjian (China), Turkey, Uzbekistan (doyra), Iran (dayereh), and in parts of the former Soviet Union (doira). The preferred skin is fish, and the jingles are brass rings and/or pellet bells attached to the inside of the frame. The instrument is held in the Oriental grip, and the playing technique involves snapping the fingers against the rim for accented high-pitched sounds, as well as stroking the fingers toward the center to produce low ringing sounds. The frame can also be struck or shaken to activate the jingles. The rings of the ghaval or dayereh tend to be lighter than the heavier rings and much higher tuned (& thicker) skin of the Uzbek doyra.

Azerbaijani ghaval

Uzbek doyra

The term daf is used in Iran (Persia) / Kurdistan for a large drum that has a series of four interlinked rings in the frame where the ghaval (other terms for this drum are dayereh or dayré) has only a single ring. On the daf, the playing technique involves shaking the frame so that the rings strike the skin in conjunction with the player’s hand.

Daf from Iran

Although frame drums in India are numerous, there is one that has been incorporated into western popular music. The kanjira, used in the Carnatic classical tradition in southern India, is a tambourine with a 6-7" (15 cm) lizard-skin head and one pair of coin jingles. The skin, held in the Oriental grip, is moistened so that it is loose enough for the player to bend the low sound by pressing into it with the holding hand. The playing technique involves rotating the right hand so that two different parts of the palm alternate as playing surfaces. This technique allows fast, clear repetitions of the stopped sound along with a low sound produced by strokes of the index finger.

Kanjira from India

Kanjari is a term used in North India for tambourines used in folk music. Sometimes the term duffli or duff (and even kanjari) are used for the common Western tambourine as well as a small frame drum without jingles in Northern India.

Duffli from northern India

The Egyptian mazhar looks like a large riqq (see below). It is about 12"-14" (30 cm-35 cm) in diameter, has huge brass jingles and is very loud. The playing technique involves shaking the instrument and striking the skin for low and stopped sounds.

Egyptian mazhar

The pandeiro is a tambourine used in traditional Brazilian music, such as samba, choro, and capoeira, and in Brazilian pop music. It is 10"-12" (25 cm-30 cm) in diameter, with a plastic head or a skin head of calf or boa constrictor. The frame can be made of plastic, wood or metal. The jingles are arranged in a single row in the frame with sometimes three per slot; the third jingle restricts jingle movement, which allows the skin articulations to be heard clearly. The European grip is used, and several playing techniques exist that involve the player damping and turning the drum from right to left with the holding hand while striking it with different parts of the playing hand, moving the instrument up and down to get jingle articulations while striking, and playing on the edge of the skin with the fingers. The term pandeirola is used for a jingle ring in Brazil.

Brazilian pandeiro

The Mexican tambourine, the pandero, is usually 12"-14" in diameter, with a single row of jingles (although some instruments may not have jingles as pictured below). Played in Veracruz, Mexico, it is used in an ensemble that performs music in the son jarocho tradition (fandango), a multicultural mix of Spanish, African, and indigenous influences. Since the 1990s, there have been many groups in California in the USA and southern Mexico playing a modern version of this music with electric instruments and cross-cultural performers including Conjunto Jardín (USA) and Chuchumbé (Mexico). A heaxagonal pandero is also used in Chile (see recordings by the group Illapu and Héctor Pavéz).

Mexican pandero

Pandero used in Chile in the group Illapu

The Spanish tambourine, the pandereta, is usually 10-13 inches (25 cm-30 cm) in diameter, with usually a staggered row of jingles, and is held in the Oriental grip. In Galicia, the northwestern corner of Spain, the technique involves holding the pandereta (also spelled pandeireta) in the right hand while often keeping the left hand stationary (but some players do hold with the left and play with the right). In this manner, the right hand moves the pandereta around the left hand to execute a variety of duple and triple rhythms. The thumb and middle finger of the left hand are also used to articulate rhythms across the surface of the skin and the instrument can also be shaken and beaten much in the way a common tambourine is played. In Basque Country, northern Spain just left of the border with France, a technique used for playing the pandereta (also spelled panderoa) involves bouncing the tips of the middle and/or ring fingers across the skin in alternation with the thumb for duple rhythms with the right hand (if the instrument is held with the left but some players do hold with the left and play with the right). In Asturias, northern Spain just next to Galicia, and Cantabria (next to Basque Country), the pandereta is used in annual festivals of folk music. The pandereta from Asturias and Cantabria usually have smaller jingles than those found on pandereta in Basque Country and Galicia. The terms pandeiro and pandeireta may be used generically in both Spain or Portugal indicating tambourine. Basque terms for tambourine also include panderoa and pandero. The Galician term is pandeireta and also pandera (with pandeira referring to a large tambourine). Pandereta is the common term for tambourine used in Asturias. Terminology can be confusing for non-natives. Different terms and spellings are often based on regional (and historical) differences, the size of a particular drum, and feminine vs. masculine language practice. Xabier Berazaluze, also known as "Leturia," is one of the most refined players of pandereta (panderoa) from the Basque Country in Spain and has been recording on the instrument since 1986 primarily with Tapia eta Leturia. Anerlis Gonzalez is pandereta player from Asturias who records with Xuacu Amieva. Alba Gutiérrez is a pandereta player from Cantabria.

Spanish pandeireta from Galicia

Spanish pandereta from Asturias

Basque Country panderoa player Xabier Berazaluze "Leturia"

The riqq or deff (riq, duff), a tambourine played in many parts of the Arabic Middle East, Turkey (tef), and Israel, is 10" (25 cm) in diameter, with five double pairs of jingles set into a wooden or metal frame. The preferred skin is fish or plastic, but it can also be goat or calf. The instrument is used in both popular belly-dance music and the Arabic classical traditions. The Oriental grip is used, and the playing technique involves three basic skin sounds (doum, tak, kah), playing on the jingles with the fingers (the resultant sound can be called tik), shaking the frame, and striking the frame itself. The instrument can be played dramatically with a great deal of jingle strokes and shaking, or in a softer style in which no jingle strokes are used and the index fingers of both hands damp the skin while the middle and ring fingers of both hands alternate skin sounds.

Arabic riqq

The tamburello, a southern Italian tambourine, is usually 10"-14" (25 cm-35 cm) in diameter, with tin-can jingles. It is held in the Oriental grip. The playing technique, which involves only right-hand strokes, is demanding and is based on producing a triple stroke by means of a pivotal motion in the center of the skin that moves from the thumb to the side of the hand to a full-hand slap. A variety of playing styles for tamburello exist in the different regions of southern Italy including those found in Lazio, Campania (Salerno & Naples), Puglia, Abruzzo, Molise, Calabria, Marche Basilicata, and Sicily. Terminology can be confusing for non-natives. Different terms and spellings are often based on regional practices and issues such as the size of a particular drum.

Italian tamburello

A larger version of the tamburello, with a deeper frame, less jingles, and lower tuning, is called tammorra. This tambourine is typically 14"-18" (35 cm-45 cm) or more in diameter, is held in the Oriental grip, and requires a different technique, which involves bouncing the playing hand across the skin to produce duple rhythms. The tammorra is used for playing duple rhythms in the traditional folk music dance known as tammorriata (or tammuriata), which is found in Campania. Terminology can be confusing for non-natives. Different terms and spellings are often based on regional practices and issues such as the size of a particular drum.

Italian tammorra

The tambour di bass is a large tambourine played in Martinique of 20" (50 cm) in diameter. This tambourine is played in an ensemble along with two barrel drums, bamboo flute, shaker, a stick-beaten bamboo tube, singers, and dancers.

Terbang from Indonesia

The terbang is an Indonesian tambourine (known as rebana kercing in Malaysia) with four to five pairs of jingles and is usually 10"-12" (25 cm-30 cm) in diameter. Held in Oriental grip, the drum is played with the fingers utilizing the doum and tak-style sounds. The frame is made from wood and has a characteristic convex shape in the same manner as the Thai rammana, Malaysian frame drums (rebana besar, rebana ubi, kompang), and Mongolian frame drums. Coming to Indonesia via Islam, the terbang was used in older Central Javanese Islamic ritual music called terbangan and was rarely used in some Central Javanese gamelan ensembles and other parts of Indonesia. Rebana is also a term for a large frame drum (with or without jingles) in Indonesia played in Lombok and in Betawi rebana biang ensembles.

Rebana besar & rebana ubi from Malaysia

Kompang from Malaysia

Singapore Hadrah and Kompang Association

Malay kompang players in Singapore

Rebana from Indonesia

Rebana player from Indonesia

Frame Drums in Popular Music

Frame drums in popular music is perhaps too broad a category to cover in a single entry given the diverse musics of Egypt, India, Brazil, Africa, America, Native America, and Europe as there is not always a binding common thread that unites these instruments and musics in a single category. For this reason, more ethnic musics that may be included within the popular realm, such as Irish or Brazilian, will not be detailed here. Instead, popular music of the West will be the focus to bring attention to the more recent innovations in frame drum playing and their subsequent adoption by many percussionists in the 1980s-1990s.

In the late 1700s, the tambourine was popular briefly in the salon music of England and even had composers, such as organist Joseph Dale (1750-1821), Franz Steinglaw, and Frank Stybelt, create pieces that called for up to 30 different strokes (many for show) that involved different types of rubbing, twirling, and striking. Dale composed eight waltzes for harp and tambourine accompanied by flute and triangle as well as his Grand Sonata for Pianoforte and Tambourine with Accompaniment for Flute, Violin and Bass. Tambourines in England at this time often had a thumbhole that allowed the drum to spin freely around the thumb of the holding hand, an effect called for in the notation.

Classical European music was a part of the American popular culture scene in the 1800s. Although the tambourine does appear in European art music literature from time to time (Christoph Willibald von Gluck's opera Echo et Narcisse, 1779), it wasn’t until the rise of the vaudeville/minstrelsy performers that the tambourine experienced an innovation in playing techniques and a rise in popularity as the primary minstrel rhythm instrument. By the 1840s, an African-American tambourinist known as Juba (William Henry Lane) was said, by Charles Dickens, to astound audiences with a highly stylized way of playing that included the ability to mimic the sounds of trains and other mechanical devices. Breaking the color barrier by performing for white audiences, he toured the USA with a group called the Ethiopian Seranaders in 1843 ending up in London in 1848. By 1929, recordings featuring this Afro-American tambourine style were made by Paramount Records, featuring tambourinist Uaroy Graves of the Mississippi Jook Band playing a variety of gospel and blues songs. More contemporary African-American tambourinists from New Orleans include Sister Gertrude Morgan and Rosalie "Lady Tambourine" Washington.

The innovative Afro-American technique, however, remained exclusive to gospel music. During the post World War II era, the Salvation Army adopted the tambourine for its efforts. Preferring the biblical term, "timbrel," the Salvation Army’s use of the tambourine did not involve an innovative playing technique, rather, it was a symbolic and militaristic use in the style of a marching band. Routines for large ensembles of timbrel players were choreographed for visual appeal. Two editions of a manual for timbrel were published between 1955 and 1960 that detail such routines involving formation marching into various shapes with ensemble movement of timbrels to various positions. Such routines were part of the Salvation Army’s efforts through the 1960s.

With the free jazz movement from the late 1950s-60s, psychedelic rock music of the 1960s, and jazz fusion during the 1970s, ethnic influences on popular music began a steady stream of influence culminating in the 1980s and 1990s with the popularization and commercial packaging of "world music." The term is often used generically for traditional ethnic musics, rock/pop music with ethnic influences, creative-like new age offerings, and an off-shoot of jazz fusion involving multi-ethnic influences with a jazz aesthetic. It is within this jazz context that a new innovation and subsequent rise in popularity of frame drums occurred, influencing western percussionists to learn non-western instruments. The first recording of a jazz inspired world music fusion involving frame drums was in 1958 by Ahmed Abdul-Malik called Jazz Sahara. Along with American jazz saxophonist Johnny Griffin, this recording features jazz musicians playing with North African Arabic musicians and features the riq throughout in a typically traditional style. The recording in 1967 by George Grunz, Noon in Tunisia: Jazz Meets Arabia, along with several other European and American jazz musicians, features traditional Bedouin musicians from Tunisia and the bendir prominently. A subsequent hour-long performance film of the same title was also released in Germany in 1969 but with the added feature of trumpeter Don Cherry. The bendir players on these recordings performed in a traditional manner in a non-traditional setting; jazz.

Use of native frame drums and players on jazz recordings was not that common but there are several recordings that provide an historical continuum up to the major innovations in the 1980s. For example, in 1971 Native American jazz saxophonist Jim Pepper, along with his father Gilbert Pepper, featured Native American frame drums on several tracks of his recording Pepper’s Powwow. To continue, the addition of Brazilian percussionist, Airto Moreira to high profile jazz artists like Miles Davis in 1969-70, Weather Report in 1971, and Return to Forever in 1972 began a featuring of traditional percussion instruments of Brazil within this new jazz context. Brazilians Dom um Romão and Paulinho da Costa, along with Airto Moreira (who became known for wild pandeiro solos), began to feature the Brazilian frame drums, pandeiro and tamborim, on their jazz inspired solo recordings through the 1970s. Again, these frame drums outlined here were played very much as they would be in traditional settings as far as technique and rhythm patterns go. Another example within the jazz context would be Natural Elements by the group Shakti in 1977 as master percussionist of India T. H. "Vikku" Vinayakram (sometimes spelled "Vinayakaram") performs on kanjira alongside jazz guitarist John McLaughlin. Jazz inspired recordings throughout the 1970s that featured frame drums did so mainly with native players of respective traditions performing much in the same way they would within traditional contexts, which was a restriction that led to frame drum use only where native rhythmic patterns were compatible within the jazz context. Collin Walcott, on the Paul Winter Consort’s Road in 1970, is most likely the first western percussionist to use a foreign frame drum technique on a jazz recording, the buben (Ukraine-style sick-beaten tambourine), while Diga in 1976, by the multi-cultural percussion group Diga Rhythm Band, features Zakir Hussain of India on the Egyptian tar, making these last two examples notable exceptions. Other exceptions would be Afro-American tambourinist Joe Habad Texidor, who performs on several recordings by jazz virtuoso Rahsaan Roland Kirk (Volunteered Slavery in 1969) in a style not typical of Afro-American musics featuring tambourine, and Afro-American jazz percussionist Don Moye, who used the bendir on his 1975 improvisatory solo recording Sun Percussion Volume One.

Bruce Langhorne, folk-rock singer-songwriter in NY scene, 1965

In the New York City folk-rock singer-songwriter scene of the early 1960s, Bruce Langhorne was a session musician who played a large Turkish frame drum with pellet bells around the interior (credited on recordings as simply "tambourine") on many recodings by Richard & Mimi Fariña, Bob Dylan, and others. Langhorne was not schooled in the technique of playing frame drum and developed his own way of striking the drum and obtaining timbres used in his work as a session musician. A more traditional frame drummer that played with rock musicians in the 1970s was the great Nubian musician Hamza El Din, who played tar with The Grateful Dead and others on numerous occasions.

Glen Velez with frame drums & brushes set up

The use of frame drums in popular music during the 1980s blossomed into an innovative renaissance largely as a result of the work of frame drum virtuoso Glen Velez. A type of new percussionist, the innovation in the work of Velez centers around detailed studies of unrelated frame drum techniques, such as Egyptian riqq and tar, Azerbaijani ghaval, Moroccan bendir, South Indian kanjira, Brazilian pandeiro, and southern Italian tamburello, with subsequent application of these techniques as a composite performance technique to drums such as Irish bodhrán (with bare hands or drumset brush and hand), Thai thon-rammana, Native American frame drums, Spanish adufe, as well as to the riqq, tar, ghaval, bendir, kanjira, pandeiro, and tamburello. This approach was successful because nearly all frame drums have a similar basic physical construction that allows for the transposition of techniques and ideas resulting in a unified sonic possibility (such as the three onomatopoetic sounds from Egyptian drumming - doum, tak, and kah). The only criterion for this unified approach to frame drumming being that the skin be thin enough to respond to the various hand techniques (stick-beaten frame drums usually have thicker skins and are not always the best choice for the application of hand-drumming techniques). Later in his career, Velez had also pioneered the use of brushes in conjunction with hand drumming and drumset techniques and has even devised a drumset-like set up of frame drums in which a tar is held in the freehand grip between the legs while a kanjira and tamborim are mounted on a stand with a ride cymbal. With the addition of a maraca on his foot and brushes, the range of sounds he can produce is quite expansive (see recordings by Trio Globo). The early work of Velez demonstrates this approach in recordings by Horizontal Vertical Band (duo with Charlie Morrow) in 1980-1981, Manzanita in 1981, and with Paul Winter in 1983. Velez’s first solo recording Handance in 1984 shows a refinement in his unified technique, which continued to develop both in breadth and depth throughout his recorded work in the 1990s.

The unified approach to frame drumming by Velez had a resultant impact on western popular music in two ways. First, his stylized approach created interest in many other percussionists causing the Velez approach to playing in a unified manner to spread amongst his students resulting in more performers of this style in the New York area (Mark Nauseef, Layne Redmond, N. Scott Robinson, Jan Hagiwara, Eva Atsalis, Randy Crafton, Rich Goodhart, and Glen Fittin are all proficient frame drum specialists with recording careers). Second, the Velez unified and improvisational approach freed the frame drum in western music from a reliance on compatibility of traditional rhythmic patterns, which subsequently made the kinds of musics they could be used in go beyond the jazz context (see recordings by Rabih Abou-Khalil, Kimberly Bass, Malcolm Dalglish, Horizontal Vertical Band, Patty Larkin, Manzanita, Mokave, New York’s Ensemble for Early Music, Pilgrimage, Steve Reich, Akira Satake, Richard Stolzman, Trio Globo, Suzanne Vega, and Paul Winter).

Another innovator during the latter 1980s, is multi-percussionist John Bergamo. Located on the American west coast at California Institute of the Arts (a music school with diverse world music opportunities), Bergamo began applying North Indian tabla and South Indian kanjira and thavil techniques as well as conga, dumbeck, and other drumming techniques to generic tambourines and frame drums as well as the bodhrán, developing his own unified approach to frame drumming. Differing widely from the Velez school, Bergamo developed a grip where large frame drums were held between the legs so that both hands were free for playing. His approach also explored the sonic possibilities of frame drums in new ways, such as obtaining harmonic pitch bends with a sweeping of the hands upwards across the skin and rubbing superball mallets on the skin for increased sustain and harmonics. Bergamo did not limit his unified approach to drumming to frame drums and explored possibilities with African and Indonesian hand drums as well as suspended Indonesian nipple gongs and found objects, such as metal pots and jars of water, all played with the hands. Being a leading instructor at a prestigious music school, Bergamo was successful at creating his own pool of students that went on to professional careers (Mark Nauseef, Rich Goodhart, Austin Wrinkle, Andrew Grueschow, Peter Fagiola, and most notably Randy Gloss who remains a highly innovative frame drummer). His impact on popular music as a recording artist with frame drums is more restricted to highly creative styles of music (see recordings by Bracha, Mokave, Repercussion Unit, and Hands On’semble).

Carlo Rizzo & polytimbral tambourine

Melodic tambourine (copy of Rizzo's polytimbral tambourine) by Guillaume Toutain

Melodic tambourine by Guillaume Toutain

By the late 1980s, in Europe the Italian virtuoso Carlo Rizzo developed a unique and highly individual unified approach to tambourine playing with a synthesis of Italian, Persian, and Indian drumming techniques. By engineering his own "polytimbral tambourine," Rizzo could control the tension of the skin, application of snares, and dampening of jingles making his instrumental solos sound distinctly like tamburello, tammorra, kanjira, bendir, dumbeck, or a snare drum within a single performance. Residing in France, he recorded with a host of diverse European artists (Luc Ferrari, Michael Riessler, André Velter, Justin Vali Trio, Valentin Clastrier, Antonio Placer, and Rita Marcotulli) throughout the 1990s before his first solo recording Schérzo "Orientale" was released in 1997. Also equally innovative is the Italian virtuoso Arnaldo Vacca, who is the most prominent percussionist in Italy. Vacca has mastered all of the regional tamburello and tammorra styles and has invented new versions of the tamburello with new techniques including a quadruple stroke with a single hand motion and shakers attached in place of jingles (see recordings by Indaco & Xicrò).

In Brazil in the 1950s and 1960s, Jackson do Pandeiro [whose real name was José Gomes Filho] was a popular artist known for singing in a variety of styles and his pandeiro playing but it was in the 1990s that the pandeiro experienced a liberating innovation as a result of the work of percussionist Marcos Suzano (particularly in his work with the group Aquarela Carioca). Taking a technique initially developed by Jorginho and Celsinho, Suzano combined Brazilian, Indian, and drumset techniques/rhythms in a way as to sound like pandeiro, kanjira, and funk drumset during performance by employing a constant sixteenth-note shaken subdivision with the left hand (pandeiro holding hand). Residing in Brazil, he recorded with many artists local to Brazil and the USA (Hendrik Meurkens, Maria Bethania, Joan Baez, Ana Gabriel, Ashley Cleveland, Gilberto Gil, Marisa Monte, Boca Livre, Joyce, Carlinhos Brown, and Carlos Malta). In 1996, his solo recording Sambatown was released.

In the 1990s, several percussionists from South India had developed newer playing styles for the kanjira outside of Carnatic music. With the death of one of the most proficient kanjira players in India in 2002, G. Harishankar, younger players such as N. Ganeshkumar and T. V. Selvaganesh became the leading exponents of playing the instrument outside of classical music and India in the 1990s (along with Trichy Sankaran in Canada). These musicians developed rhythmic styles on the kanjira that mimicked typical funk rhythms of the drumset and drew somewhat on the rhythmic and technical complexity of G. Harishankar's earlier innovations. While both had performed and recorded with fusion groups in India, Ganeshkumar recorded with Béla Fleck and the Flecktones (Little Worlds – 2003) and John Wubbenhurst (Facing Beloved – 2003) while Selvaganesh recorded with Remember Shakti (The Believer – 1999 and Saturday Night in Bombay – 2000) and Jonas Hellborg (Good People in Times of Evil – 2000). Kanjira artists within India that continued in the much deeper and more complex playing style of G. Harishankar since 2000 include B. Shree Sundar Kumar in Chennai and N. Amrit in Bangalore. In 2001, Ganesh Anandan, a South Indian percussionist living in Canada, developed a frame drum kit that involved multiple frame drums bolted on top of each other and played as a single instrument. Anandan's technique involved kneeling in between two sets of multiple frame drums bolted on top one another on either side of him while employing both traditional and non-traditional strokes such as use of the thumb, scrapes with the fingernails, and striking the back of the wooden shells with thin sticks (featured on the GaPa 2003 CD Imaginaria).

Daf player Houman Pourmehdi is known for using the traditional Iranian tambourine in new musical contexts. After arriving in Chicago in 1988, he later relocated to California where he founded the Liän Ensemble for playing traditional Persian music as well as a fusion of Persian, Hindustani, and creative contemporary music. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Pourmehdi has performed and recorded with Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith, John Bergamo, Hands On'semble, David Johnson, and Rajeev Taranath, among others.

Following its use in Irish folk music in Kerry, the bodhrán started being used more in the late 1950s after it was featured in a Dublin theater production of Sive by John B. Keane in 1959. Later bodhrán players in Ireland expanded the technical possibilities of their instrument. Leading innovators have developed pitch bending techniques with the left hand since the 1970s. Perhaps the best known of these inventive players is John Joe Kelly of the group Flook. Other innovators include Tommy Hayes, who bends the pitch of the bodhrán by pressing the left hand fingers against the skin. Rónán Ó’Snodaigh developed a technique in the 1990s in which the left hand places a 6-inch piece of steel pipe against the skin to achieve tabla-like pitch bends. Brian Fleming, who regularly uses the steel pipe pitch bending technique, also sometimes uses a drumset brush in his right hand in place of the traditional tipper to achieve helicopter-like effects (many leading bodhrán players are featured on the double compilation CD Pure Bodhrán: The Definitive Collection-1927/2000).

Faltriqueira - One of the Galician pandereteira ensembles

In Spain, both Basque panderoa and Galician pandeireta players worked with groups that combined traditional instruments with electric instrumentation and cross-over musical styles. The Basque group Oskorri has been recording since 1976 and features Natxo de Felipe on the Basque tambourine known as panderoa. In Galicia, a revival of pandeireta playing and singing began in the early 1990s when the Spanish government started to fund schools for learning traditional music. Currently, the movement has developed to feature all-female groups such as Leilía and Faltriqueira who perform traditional music with some new twists (polyphonic vocals). Perhaps the best known and most experimental Galician pandeireta player is Mercedes Peón, who mixes many musical styles and electronic effects in her music. Eliseo Parra is a singer and player of pandereta who performs a blend modern popular music with folk styles from all over Spain. Recordings of his music have been released since 1984.

Steve Amedée with The Subdudes

In rock music, some percussionists specialized in the use of frame drums. Jack Ashford was the percussionist with the Motown label’s premier soul backing group known as The Funk Brothers (featured in the DVD Standing in the Shadows of Motown – 2002). Ashford played a common tambourine on many of the Motown hits from 1959 to 1972 and continued recording with many artists. Since the late 1960s, English studio percussionist Ray Cooper has performed on tambourine with rock artists such as The Who, George Harrison, Elton John, and Eric Clapton, among others (featured in a special duet with Elton John in the video To Russia With Elton - 1979). During tours in the 1980s, Phil Collins, the drumset player and singer from the pop group Genesis, frequently performed short features with a common tambourine as part of an elaborate stage show. The innovative Steve Amedée (often spelled Amadee) of the New Orleans group The Subdudes (also with the trio known as The Dudes) plays a modified 11-inch plastic-headed Cosmic Percussion brand tambourine made by Latin Percussion and plays it with a single modified brush/stick called Blastick made by Calato-Regal Tip. His technique also involves close proximity of a microphone, and he is able to fully support an entire acoustic ensemble in place of a drumset player with snare drum and bass drum types of sounds and pitch bends (Lucky by The Subdudes – 1991 and his instructional video The Amedée Way). Irish percussionist Jim Sutherland played bodhrán with Jimmy Page and Robert Plant in 1994 (featured on the DVD No Quarter: Unledded) while English percussionist Terl Bryant plays a specially built synthetic tunable bodhrán and other frame drums having worked with John Paul Jones, Robin Mark, and Peter Murphy, among others. Pete Lockett is another English percussionist who works creatively with frame drums in a variety of popular music styles.

Conclusion

By a new kind of western percussionist approaching frame drums as a single family of instruments, it has become common to mix the playing techniques, grips, and ideas associated with each instrument to create a unified composite vocabulary that can be used on almost any frame drum as its playing technique. Since this approach operates mostly outside of each instrument’s respective cultural tradition, innovative use of frame drums in western popular music continues alongside traditional frame drum use in various regional ethnic musics.

[An edited version of this article was published as "Bodhrán" and "Frame Drums and Tambourines" in Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World, Volume 2: Performance and Production. Edited by John Shepherd, David Horn, Dave Laing, Paul Oliver, and Peter Wicke. New York: Continuum, 2003, 349-350, 362-372].

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