Collection: Headless Tambourines

Tambourines with no drum head, from Groove Masters Percussion, EMUS and NINO, in six, eight and ten inch.

Take the head off a tambourine and what is left is the frame and the jingles. The sound is brighter, sharper and shorter, with nothing to soften the attack, and it cuts through a room full of drums and voices better than a headed tambourine does.

For a classroom set, that plus the weight is usually the deciding factor. A headless tambourine is lighter to hold for a whole session, there is no skin for a student to press a thumb through, and it plays perfectly well tapped against a palm, a knee or a hip.

Jingle count and row layout set the character. The EMUS eight inch has five jingles and the ten inch has seven, both single row, which gives a clean and defined sound. The GMP double row models in two sizes are louder and denser, with a longer shimmer after each hit.

NINO's eight inch headless model comes in a choice of colours, and EMUS wooden headless tambourines are stocked in two sizes.