Shaping Tambourine Notes: The Ups and Downs of the Left Hand
How moving your holding hand changes sustain, dynamic control, and orchestral phrasing.
While players frequently spend hours analyzing how their dominant hand strikes the tambourine head, the non-striking hand often controls the actual shape and duration of the sound. By learning how the holding hand affects jingle movement, you can manipulate note lengths to match the phrasing of strings and winds across a wide variety of orchestral repertoire.
Table of Contents
Don't miss a post! Sign up for the Black Swamp Newsletter to receive regular educational guides, player interviews, and percussion tips directly in your inbox.
Meet Your Instructor
Josh Jones serves as the Principal Percussionist of the Grant Park Music Festival. Renowned for his clear pedagogical style and dynamic orchestral presence, Jones approaches percussion with an emphasis on practical musicianship, physical efficiency, and sound production. Rather than treating accessory percussion as an afterthought, his approach highlights how subtle mechanical adjustments create significant musical differences on stage.
How Left Hand Tambourine Technique Shapes Your Sound
A common misconception among student percussionists is that note lengths on tambourine are fixed. When you strike a tambourine held in a static position, the jingles respond immediately, settle onto their pins, and quickly decay.
Applying deliberate left hand tambourine technique changes that natural decay curve. Because the tambourine rests in your non-dominant hand, moving that hand alters how gravity and inertia act upon the jingles. Moving the frame allows the jingles to stay suspended in motion longer or settle with extreme precision. Instead of producing uniform, staccato hits, refining your left hand tambourine technique gives you direct control over note envelope, acoustic resonance, and musical phrasing.
Upward Motion: Emulating Longer Notes
Inspired from French percussionist and BSP Artist, J.B. Leclere, the upward technique is designed to emulate longer note values.
When performing passages with sustained note values—such as the prominent half notes in Antonín Dvořák’s Carnival Overture, a standard strike can sound too brief and dry for the surrounding orchestral textures.
As you raise the instrument during the stroke, the upward momentum causes the jingles to swing open rather than immediately falling flat against the frame. This motion creates an open, sustained wash of sound that carries through the hall and fills out the full duration of a half note.
To practice this, begin by isolating the left hand: simply lift the instrument into your stationary right hand to feel how the jingles loosen, then combine the motion with a relaxed strike.
Downward Motion: Precision in Softer Excerpts
While an upward motion extends resonance, moving the instrument downward produces a controlled, delicate note shape ideal for softer dynamic levels.
This downward approach shines in sensitive orchestral passages, such as the quiet textures in Benjamin Britten’s Four Sea Interludes or the crisp rhythmic figures in Georges Bizet’s Carmen.
When executing this stroke:
Swing the tambourine downward with the holding hand as you initiate the sound.
Provide a subtle forward push with your striking hand.
Drive the movement primarily with the forearm rather than collapsing the wrist.
Keep the push minimal; pushing too aggressively makes the sound harsh and accents the attack unnecessarily.
By moving downward, the jingles maintain clean contact without blooming into an uncontrolled wash, keeping delicate rhythms defined and audible.
Comparing Left Hand Motions
Attribute | Upward Motion | Downward Motion |
Primary Musical Goal | Elongate sustain; emulate half notes | Control decay; articulate soft passages |
Physical Direction | Lifting upward ("fanning" motion) | Dropping downward with forearm support |
Jingle Behavior | Jingles swing open and float | Jingles remain compact and controlled |
Striking Hand Role | Clean strike as instrument meets the hand | Gentle forward push to seat the attack |
Ideal Excerpts | Dvořák: Carnival Overture
| Britten: Four Sea Interludes, Bizet: Carmen
|
Student Action Plan
1. Isolate the Non-Dominant Hand
Before playing full passages, practice the upward and downward motions using only your holding hand. Move the tambourine up toward eye level, then smoothly down toward your hip. Listen closely to the passive jingle sound. The upward motion should sound airy and open, while the downward motion should sound tight and short.
2. Calibrate the Striking Hand Push
Set a metronome to 72 BPM. Practice the downward motion at a pianissimo dynamic. Focus on using just enough push from your striking hand to speak cleanly without creating an unwanted accent. Keep the motion centered in your forearm.
3. Apply Repertoire Phrasing
Take a score excerpt such as the opening of Carnival Overture. Play the quarter notes with a neutral frame, then immediately apply the upward fanning motion on the half notes. Check whether your half notes audibly match the sustain of the brass and winds.
4. Audio Self-Evaluation
Place a recorder or phone 15 feet away in your rehearsal room. Record yourself playing identical rhythms with a static hand versus using directional left hand movements. Listening back from a distance will clearly show how frame motion shapes acoustic projection.
Percussion performance is built on deliberate acoustic choices. Next time you open a score with tambourine parts, look past the rhythms on the page and examine the orchestration. Ask yourself: What instrument family am I supporting, and how long does their sound last? Let your holding hand shape that answer.
Comments