Tambourin

This article is about the musical form and the old French drum, both called the tambourin. For the percussion instrument with a similar name in English, see Tambourine. For the court game, see Tamburello.

The tambourin is a Provençal dance accompanied by lively duple meter music. It is so named because the music imitates a drum (tambour being a generic French term for "drum"), usually as a repetitive not-very-melodic figure in the bass. A small, two-headed drum of Arabic origin is also called the tambourin [de Provence] or tambour de Basque; it is mentioned as early as the 1080s and noted as the "tabor" in the Chanson de Roland). This was played together with a small flute known as the galoubet or flaviol.

Jean-Philippe Rameau included tambourins in many of his operas, such as Platée, Les Indes galantes, and Les fêtes d'Hébé. The last gained more fame in a keyboard arrangement from the E minor suite of his Pièces de Clavecin. The tambourin was popular throughout the 18th century and can be found in Handel's Alcina and Gluck's Iphigénie en Aulide, among others.