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Making Tambourine Jingles

This is a project that very few may find interesting. It's time intensive with a long learning curve, but it's fascinating how much I learned about jingles.
When I started coaching for the Colorado Springs Youth Symphony there was only one tambourine. It was the $15 step up from a toy variety-a loose skin head with the tone quality of cardboard, thin stamped steel jingles that you could almost see through and had a sound like someone running with a pocket full of loose change. One of my first purchases was a Black Swamp and later a Grover was given to us by a generous donor. I kept the old tambourine in the inventory and eventually it received some of my first jingles.

Materials:
1 5/8" or 1 3/4" discs (copper, brass, bronze, or German silver) 22 or 24ga.

I drilled holes in the center of the discs.
Using various sockets and a bench vise I  pressed the center raised portion.
A second pressing using different sized sockets created the upward flange.
Using a drift punch I stamped 12 indents on the outside of the flange bend.

Copper & German Silver Jingles


What I learned:
The diameter of the hole affects how the jingle lies in the frame. Different sizes create different residual sounds.
The material (brass, German Silver, etc.) dictates the basic sound.
The overall height of the jingle affects the dynamic range of the instrument.
The different gauges and diameters create different pitches and sustained ring.
Number, size, depth, and position of the indents (dimples) affect pitch and ring but more importantly increases the complexity of the sound.

I placed no value judgments on these variations, changing one or more variables I could fine tune the overall sound of the instrument.
Re-heading and installing the new jingles provided us with a very respectable sounding tambourine.
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