19th century Minstrel Players

Comment by Strumelia on March 24, 2016 at 10:07am

I said in 2013:  The whole purpose of the 'thumb roll' is to make the jingles ring in an extended shivering way.  So doing that same thing on a regular bodhran or frame drum without jingles would probably not produce any effect to speak of. 

I'm going to correct myself here.  Using the edge 'thumb roll' on a frame drum without zils does indeed produce a nice effect, can be used like a miniature drum roll to lead up to an assertive hit.  It's simply one of many cool effects one would naturally get when experimenting and adding textural hand moves on a frame drum.  The complex hand moves seen in frame drum/tambourine playing spanning multiple cultures are breathtaking (to me anyway) and the techniques are traditional, dating far back.  Simple open framed hand/lap held frame drums are found in mind boggling variety, and were one instrument that was common to just about ALL cultures and regions.  Many of the earliest surviving images depict women frame drummers leading dances or ceremonies.  

The word "tambourine" means "little drum" but early on came to specify a frame drum with zils (jingles).  But to confuse matters more, you can buy "tambourines" with or without jingles nowadays...or with or without a skinhead.  But a tambourine without a skinhead and without zils is simply a hoop and won't do you much good...it won't make any noise if you hit it in the forest, whether or not anyone is there...lol.

All this said, the photo in this thread shows a large tambourine/frame drum that I wish could be seen a little more clearly.  It appears to me to have tuning brackets, but I'm not seeing the zils, so are we just assuming this fellow's drum had jingles?  Does anyone have a better copy of this image?

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