How do you play 8th and 16th note rolls on a tambourine?

Question:

How do you play 8th and 16th note rolls on a tambourine?

I am auditioning a pit band of the musical "Oliver!" and need some help with the requirments. How do you play an 8th note roll or a 16th note role on a tambourine. Also, how do you play a finger role (Not sure if that's the name for it). Any help with that or overall tambourine technique would be appreciated.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Alright. The 'finger roll' you speak of is called a 'thumb roll' (Well at least I hope we are on the same page).

First, you will need a tamb with a head on it. Not a tambourine that is made for just hand use. This shouldnt be any trouble, but I did want to clairify if you only had the 'hand use only version'.

What you are going to do is (Non-percussionists turn your heads) Take your right hand and do a 'thumbs up'. Next, With your nail facing to the right, lick the edge of your thumb from the knuckle up, then while holding the tamb with your left hand (4 fingers inside hoop, thumb on the outside) You want to take your wettened thumb and press/rub it along the edge of the head around the edge of the tambourine. This press/rub is going to take some pressure, but not too much to make the head vibrate and therefore sustain a roll on your tamb.

With these small values, you might not even need to thumb roll and just a simple tapping of your 3 main fingers could surrfice.

Rolling on a tambourine for such a small value could also be done by shaking the tambourine.

I hope that through my different explainations i was able to answer what you needed.