Tambourine: history, video, interesting facts.

Tambourine

Altai is a magical region with amazingly beautiful nature, with golden mountains, blue lakes and low canyons, recognized by UNESCO as a World Natural Heritage Site, and repeatedly sung by poets. If anyone has ever been there, they will remember this all their lives. A charming, magical place calms, leads to peace of mind and serenity in thoughts. However, besides its picturesque nature, another bright landmark of this region is the famous Altai shamans, sorcerers, healers, who can communicate with spirits, see a different reality and travel in it. Dressed in a national costume, decorated with feathers, skins and rings, the shaman dances a very spectacular dance to the blows of a tambourine heated over fire, an ancient instrument with a rich and interesting history. Nevertheless, the tambourine is famous not only for being the main instrument of the shamans. All over the world he is very popular, his amazing sound adorns the music of various nations, for example, the incendiary dances of gypsies. And in the east, many folk dances are performed only to the sound of a tambourine, where it is often used as the only accompanying instrument.

The history of the drum and a lot of interesting facts about this musical instrument, read on our page.

Sound

A tambourine is a percussion musical instrument that has an undetermined pitch, so the rhythmic pattern played on a tambourine is recorded on a single ruler. The instrument has a fervent timbre color, which is created by small clanging elements attached to the body of the tambourine. It turns out an interesting sound of the drum in combination with the chime of bells.

Many people think that a tambourine is a rather simple instrument and it doesn’t require great skill to be performed on it; you just need to shake or hit it. However, this view is wrong. The performer on the instrument must have a good ear for music and a sense of rhythm, as well as be able to masterly own a tambourine. The tool is usually held in the left hand, and the right to strike, although many performers do quite the opposite. They keep their right hand without moving, but acting as a tambourine is more complicated, but it looks and sounds much more elegant.

There are a lot of tricks for playing the tambourine, but the main ones are three: some not very sharp blows, shaking and tremolo.

• The performer performs blows with the help of the joints of the extreme phalanges of the fingers.
• Shaking is a very frequent, almost convulsive tapping of the hand holding the instrument in the area of ​​the elbow or wrist; only suspensions produce sound.
• Tremolo - fast shaking of a tambourine with his left hand.

Real virtuosos performers on the tambourine from their performances arrange the whole performances - impressive shows. Like real jugglers, they throw up the instrument, then intercept it. A tambourine is beaten on the knees, chin, head and other parts of the body, even on the nose. Effectively tremulating and can make the instrument howl.

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Interesting Facts

• At the behest of the Moscow Patriarch Nikon, a reformer of the Russian church, five unreasonably loaded with clowning musical instruments, including tambourines, carts arrived at the Moscow River, unloaded and burned there publicly. The great fire blazed for several days.
• A shaman tambourine is the most important tool, with many meanings. He may be a horse on which the sorcerer moves in the heavenly world, a boat floating on underground rivers, weapons that protect the owner when he encounters evil forces.
• There is documentary evidence, proved experimentally, that shamans with the help of tambourine sounds, performed in a certain rhythm, can introduce a person into a light trance or even into a hypnotic state.
• A shaman’s tambourine is considered sacred and other people are not allowed to touch it. Even the shaman should make his own instrument himself, having passed before this special rite of purification, refusing various kinds of pleasures, including bodily pleasures.
• Usually, the shaman begins the rites with cleansing and "reviving" the tambourine, heating it at the stake. Then with blows on a tambourine and guttural singing, causes spirits, who, in accordance with the centuries-old beliefs, arrive and sit on the tambourine's pendants.

Design

The tambourine-like semi-drum construction is no different. The instrument consists of a wooden or metal rim - a shell on which membrane skin is tightened, which is the main source of sound. Six or eight holes are cut into the shell and in them on a rigid fixed pins or wire they install a pair of small metal plates, similar in shape to orchestral plates. Some types of tambourines as additional ringing elements are supplied with bells - metal balls with shot or bells. They are attached to wires, strained in the form of a star inside the body of the instrument.

Varieties

A tambourine is one of the most common instruments. Its varieties are found in many corners of the globe, but each tool has its own distinctive features, for example:

• Daph, gaval, doira - is the name of the same tool used in the countries of the East. Its diameter ranges from 35 to 46 cm. The membrane is made of sturgeon skin. Execution on the instrument is carried out with your fingers or palm. Rings are used as hanging elements, the number of which can reach 70 pieces.
• Kanjira - Indian instrument, which has a higher sound than other types of tambourine. The diameter of the tool is from 17 to 22 cm. The height of the rim is 5-10 cm. For the membrane, lizard skin is used. Only two metal plates are inserted into the rim.
• Boyran - Irish instrument. The diameter of the instruments is from 25 to 60 cm, the depth of the shell is 9-20 cm. The instrument is played with a single-sided or double-sided stick.
• Pandeiro - the tool is very popular in Portugal and in the countries of South America. In Brazil, it is considered the soul of samba. The difference of the tool is that it has the ability to adjust.
• Thyungur - Shaman tambourine of the Altai and Yakuts. It has the shape of a circle or oval and is a rim covered with leather. To hold the instrument, the inner side of the tambourine is equipped with a vertical handle. Also on the inner side of the drum there are rods on which metal pendants are suspended. Sometimes the leather membrane of a shaman tambourine is decorated with a drawing - a shaman map of the world.

Application

Despite the fact that the tambourine is a simple tool, it is very versatile and the range of its application is very extensive. First of all, the tambourine is widely used in ethnic music, as well as in the witchcraft practice of shamans. In the second, he is a full member of various ensembles: folk instruments, gypsy and music ensembles of various modern styles. In addition, a tambourine is a full instrument in such orchestras as symphonic, brass, pop and orchestra of Russian folk instruments.

The tool is very popular among young people, such as hipsters, and also plays a very important role in primary music education.

Story

How many centuries have passed since the first tambourine appeared on earth, nobody can say for sure now about this. Perhaps his story began from the time when the ancient man, in order to make clothes for himself, learned to make skins, for this purpose pulling them for drying on a wooden frame.

Instruments, prototypes of a tambourine, have been known since antiquity. For example, the ancient percussion instrument tympanum, which is a one-sided drum, was widely used in ancient Greece as early as the 5th century BC, having got there from Thrace. In Greece, it quickly spread along with the cults of the gods Dionysus and Cybele. The ancient Greek playwrights Euripides and Athenaeus mentioned the timpan in their works, and the artists - masters decorated the dishes with the images of the instrument, including antique vases that have survived to our times.

In ancient Rome, timpani were called one-sided and double-sided percussion instruments, they were used not only in rituals dedicated to the gods, but also simply street musicians.

Tools like tympanos in Old Testament times found use in the Middle East, as evidenced by ancient texts. For example, in Jews, the frame drum tof was used in religious rites and ceremonies.

In Russia, the tambourine has also been known since archaic times, when there was no statehood yet, people were united by tribal unions and worshiped pagan gods. Tools played an important role in the life of the Slavs: weddings, funerals, hunting - all accompanied by the sound of a tambourine. It was used in ritual ceremonies and was the main instrument in the hands of the priests.

However, historians-art historians obtained more reliable information about the use of tambourines in Russia from ancient chronicles dating back to the 10th century AD, describing the military campaigns of Prince Svyatoslav Igorevich. The common name of the tambourine at that time was all percussion instruments, which were covered with leather from above.

At that time huge military drums were especially honored by the Russian people. In military affairs, they performed very important functions: they performed a conditional sound connection between the brigades, as well as with their sinister roar, influenced the psyche of the enemies, making them fearful. The warts tambourines, which were very large and for the transport of which required the strength of four horses, were

metal boilers covered in leather. Such tambourines were called Nabat or tulumbas. The sound on them was extracted by four or eight nabatchik with the help of special beaters - horse whips with a wooden handle at one end and a ball with leather braiding at the other. Such beaters were called wax.

The military tambourine was in the squad of each governor, and the number of troops was determined by the number of tambourines.

Somewhat later, in the Middle Ages in Russia, the tambourine was widely used by bear guides and buffoons. The tambourine of that time was already more like a modern instrument, representing a skinned, not very wide shell made of wood, with bells and bells attached to the inside.

Bear fun, which has a long history, was a very favorite entertainment of the Russian people. People of various ages readily gathered to see such performances. The bear bowed to the spectators, marched like a soldier, fought jokingly with the owner, and with great pleasure danced on its hind legs, accompanying himself on the tambourine.

At the same time, tambourines were widely used by amusing buffoons, who not only rejoiced the people, giving different ideas, but also were obligatory participants in various life events: weddings and funerals. Buffoons kept the knowledge of the ancient Russian pagan priests, the Magi, knew how to heal and predict the future, and also participated in pagan rituals and games.

The churchmen and secular authorities were very unhappy with such activity of buffoons. Persecution began on them, and their tools were declared demonic. And in the middle of the 17th century, by the special order of Prince Alexei Mikhailovich, the buffoons were sent into exile and even executed, and the buffooned musical instruments, including tambourines, were collected and destroyed. Russian national music has suffered sensitive losses.

The tambourine is a very interesting musical percussion instrument with a long history. Today, as an important attribute of shamans and priests, it also finds active use in various musical styles and genres of modern music, and, of course, in folk art. Its sound raises the spirits, decorates the sound of musical compositions, bringing new amazing colors to them.