Tambourines are rubbish!

About me:

I have an irrational hatred for tambourines and the people who think they can play them.



They can't, of course.

The moronic arseholes just play louder trying to drag the other players into whichever tempo or time signature they decide on spontaneously at the time they come blasting in.

I am prepared to hold up my hands and accept that, fair enough, when played respectfully with a modicum of taste, (any more than a modicum is impossible, it is still and forever remains a tambourine,) by gifted professional players who have learned their trade well; there is a smallest chance that it won't offend the ear more than oooh... say, a howling gibbon smacking a pneumatic drill into your temples while you stand in a foghorn operating a klaxon.

It is really sad I know. But really.

Every festival drumming sesh I've seen or been involved in in some way has been ultimately ruined and disbanded by a tambourine or two being brought out by that guy who was already dancing as if someone else was operating his limbs for him.



With a tambourine in his hand he is invincible and cares not one jot for the drummers who have been practicing all year to get those crazy cross-rhythms just so... only to have a tambourine player fuck it all up for everyone.

I've seen twenty drummers all stop an hour long jam because of a tambourinist, I have seen accompanists and jazz musicians give up mid tune thanks to tambourinists who don't give a fuck or even have an awareness of ensemble, the very purpose of playing with others.

Be warned they don't just go chk....... chk....... on the off beat or every bar or two as is their proper place, oh no.

They also go CHKCHKCHKCHKCHKCHKCHKCHKCHKCHKCHKCHK!!!!!!!!!!

Completely out of time.

Heed this warning. You will thank me later.



If you are a group of percussionists and you have one person who can play drums better than everyone else, that virtuosic conga player who can make a set of bongos sing. Give them the tambourine, hopefully they will know what to do with it.

Take aim, pull back, wait for it, savour the moment.
Now throw it over a wall.

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