The idea that I think about the tambourine being played is a young girl in bright outfit – a gypsy girl in fact. She dances as she plays and her skirt swirls around as the sound of her feet hitting the ground, the resonance of the skin of the tambourine, and the clang of the mini-cymbals that are located on the edge of the tambourine entrances the listener to a sound that is almost not of this world. But the tambourine is not just an Eastern European sound. You can hear it from elementary school chorus performance to bluegrass music in Nashville, and from gospel music on Sunday mornings in church to classic rock at Woodstock the tambourine has been used to add variety to the percussion section of any band, worship experience, or performance.
The tambourine can come in so many different variations for playing, but the first question that comes up is what makes up the basic tambourine into such a widely used instrument all over the world. The tambourine can be used in so many different styles of music, but we are going to look at where it came from and truly how far the tambourine has branched in its long-history of music performance. Though playing the tambourine seems easy to the onlooker, to truly play the tambourine correctly you must follow some instructions which make the difference between just clanging and beating of the tambourine to someone that actually makes music with the instrument. And the last question that many people come up with is where they can buy a quality tambourine, not just the kind they see at Wal-Mart or the toy store.