The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zills".

[6][7] The middle finger or thumb is moved over the skin or rim of the tambourine, producing a fast roll from the jingles on the instrument.

The thumb or middle finger of the hand not holding the tambourine is run around the head of the instrument approximately one centimeter from the rim with some pressure applied.

Used for Pentecostal praise in revival meetings in the early 20th century, by the 1920s the tambourine was firmly established as the primary percussion instrument of gospel music.

For instance, singer and guitarist Blind Roosevelt Graves was accompanied by his brother Uaroy on tambourine and voice, singing both sacred and secular songs.

[10] In the 1950s as gospel elements were incorporated into rhythm and blues by African American singers such as Ray Charles, the tambourine often accompanied the changes.

The Supremes performed with two tambourines – more for choreography than percussion – played by Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson standing apart from Diana Ross.

[11] Jack Ashford's distinctive tambourine playing was a dominant part of the rhythm section on many Motown records,[12] for instance on the Miracles tune "Going to a Go-Go",[11] and Marvin Gaye's "How Sweet It Is".

[13] Singers who rarely play an instrument are likely to play the tambourine at concerts:[12] among the most well-known examples are Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones, Jim Morrison of the Doors,[13] Janis Joplin leading Big Brother and the Holding Company, and Stevie Nicks as part of Fleetwood Mac and as a solo performer.

[14] In jazz, the tambourine was used prominently but non-traditionally by percussionist Joe Texidor who backed Rahsaan Roland Kirk in 1969 on Volunteered Slavery.

[8] In 1960 when Nina Simone wanted to play the old minstrel song "Li'l Liza Jane" at the Newport Jazz Festival, she said "Where's my tambourine?

Some position the tambourine above the toms in the same manner as a cymbal, for instance, Nathan Followill of Kings of Leon, and Larry Mullen Jr of U2.

Since the late eighteenth century it has become more common in western orchestral music, as exemplified in some of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's dance pieces from the Nutcracker Suite.

[18] Georges Bizet's Carmen opera includes the famous "Habanera" aria which has a series of tambourine strikes in each chorus.

In Kievan Rus, drums and military timpani were referred to as buben.A daf (دف) is a large-sized tambourine or Perso-Arabic frame drum used to accompany both popular and classical music in Iran, Azerbaijan, the Arab world, Turkey (where it is called tef), Uzbekistan (where it is called childirma), the Indian subcontinent (where it is known as the dafli) and Turkmenistan.

As attested in 1923, the youth gathered to dance to the rhythm of the bare pandero, with no other music instrument implicated but the player's (a woman's) voice.

A dayereh (or doyra, dojra, dajre, doira, daire) is a medium-sized frame drum with jingles used to accompany both popular and classical music in Iran (Persia), the Balkans, and many central Asian countries such as Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

Tar (Arabic: طار) is a single-headed frame drum of Turkish origin, but is commonly played in North Africa and the Middle East.

Timbrel or tabret (the tof of the ancient Hebrews, the deff of Islam, the adufe of the Moors of Spain), the principal musical instrument of percussion of the Israelites, similar to the modern tambourine.A rabana (plural raban) is a one-sided traditional tambourine played with the hands, used in Sri Lanka.

Rebana is a Malay tambourine that is used in Islamic devotional music in Southeast Asia, particularly in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, and Singapore.