The tambourine can be played in three different ways: (1) by striking the head with the knuckles, which gives detached notes and simple rhythmical groups of notes; (2) by shaking the hoop, which gives a rolling noise to the “jingles”; and (3) by rubbing the head of the tambourine with the thumb, which produces a queer, hollow, rushing, swishing kind of noise accompanied by the roll, or tremolo, of the “jingles.”
The tambourine is used in the Orchestra to give “local color,” especially to folk-music of Spain and Italy; to “gypsy-music”; and to some kinds of dance-music. It is also called tambour de Basque.
THE TAMBOURIN
The tambourin is a long, narrow drum, which the performer beats with one stick, holding a flageolet with the other hand. It originated in Provence.
THE CASTANETS
Castanets are generally used to accent the rhythm of Spanish dance-music, or to give color to music of a Spanish character. They consist of two small hollow pieces of hard wood, usually of chestnut, castaño in Spanish, whence their name. They are shaped something like the bowl of a spoon, or a shell, and are held together by a cord, the ends of which pass over the thumb and first finger of the performer. The other three fingers clap the two halves of the castanets together. The sound is a deep, hollow click, which, although not a musical note, is not unpleasing when heard with its appropriate music.
The Spanish dancer holds a pair in each hand. The right hand plays the full rhythm of the dance which is known as the hembra, or female part, and the left, a simplified rhythm, on a larger pair of castanets, called the marcho, or male.
Wagner uses both castanets and tambourine in the delirious revels of the Tannhäuser Baccanale.
Saint-Saëns calls for castanets in his opera of Samson et Dalila.