Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
In this step, we're going to take a look at how to play two tambourines at once--both
hands are going to be doing the same thing, and you're going to clack them together on
two and four. There's a few reasons for this. Recently, I was in the studio and most of
the time I just lay down one tambourine track. Well, like we said before, if you hear these
two, they sound different. Well which one do you want to use? Well let's use both. And
in this particular studio session, I had another person there, and we played the exact same
tambourine part two separate tambourines, at the same time, and it added a really nice,
different type of tambourine track that added a lot of color. It was really cool. Well,
what happens if you want to do that and you don't have someone there to play the second
tambourine? Well, you can play two tambourines at once. And like I said, it just adds a little
bit more color--a different type of vibe, if you will, because you're going to have
the two different pitches of tambourines, and it's just kind of a neat little fun experiment,
because it's not like the tambourine is something people will focus on anyway in a piece of
music. So, it's just fun to mess around and experiment. And it's a little bit difficult
because for me I'm used to playing the tambourine in my right hand. That is really natural to
me. Well to play two at once, you have to use the other hand. So, what we do, get one
in each hand, and you just start shaking like you would if you're playing one. You've just
got to add in the second hand, right. Now as you can tell, the clack on two and four
sound pretty decent. Two pieces of plastic--of heavy duty plastic--hitting together. That
could really help accent the snare drum or beats two and four, kind of give this cool
vibe. Also you're getting both pitches of the tambourine in there, which is pretty cool.
Now, it's kind of odd and weird, but it does add a neat effect, especially when you're
talking about a mike, you're playing into a mike that's right here, and this tambourine
is going away from the mike this way, this tambourine's going away from the mike this
way, and they're coming together. So, you can add a really neat--the tambourine when
listening to a piece of music, not that you'd really notice it, but could be kind of in
different areas as you're listening, and it just adds a little bit of fun color to a piece
of music. So that is how to play two tambourines at once.