Thursday, March 28

Tanxugueiras boosts the boom of the tambourines


Earthquake Tanxugueiras continues with his peculiar Richter scale marking more than three million views in seven days on YouTube to his historic live performance of “Terra” in the final of the Benidorm Fest. In the previous week, said video and the clip of “Averno” with Rayden have been in the top 5 and 6 of musical trends in said social network.

To gauge the shock, three points of comparison: the trailer for “Fame” by Rosalía and The Weeknd adds 2.1 million views in two months; and the most dance appearance to the tune of Nathy Peluso’s SNAP in the video “Love, always” by the firm from Vigo Bimba y Lola accumulates 1.4 million views in two months.

The aftershocks to this tanxugueiro tremor are marked by the sound of the tambourine, an instrument that is already experiencing a boom that amplifies the boom it has been registering in recent years.

“I think I sell more tambourines now than 20 years ago,” he says. Jose Manuel Salvado, from the Sanín workshop in Compostela. He received the commission in December Aida, Sabela Y Olaia to create the three tambourines they brought to Benidorm.

“We come from an exceptional Christmas, online sales surpassed us”

Jose Manuel Salvado


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“They were traditional tambourines painted black, with a goatskin head, pine wood exactly the same as those made 150 years ago, traditional ferreñas (rounded metal). It is as if they were the tambourines of the mid-nineteenth century”, he emphasizes.

Salvado believes that “it is extraordinary that the phenomenon of the Tanxugueiras happens because in the end they are telling people through a more modern language that traditional music is current. It is not an exercise in history but in contemporaneity. They’re saying, ‘Look how cool we are.’”

Sanín began to make this instrument in the 90s. “It was a way to find a space to dedicate myself professionally to something related to traditional Galician music and dance, a world that caught me, that conquered me,” he says.

This graduate in Teaching, who resigned from teaching, details that “those of my age are the first artisans of this instrument. Before, the tambourine was made by the ‘peneireiro’, who made the ‘peneiras’ (wooden and mesh instrument to separate flour or sand) as well as pots for shellfish. We do not. I have been making instruments for 32 years”, he explains.

He confesses that they are “overwhelmed. It totally caught us off guard. I didn’t imagine it. We have already come from an exceptional Christmas in which online sales surpassed us”.

To interpret the trend, he points out that the pandemic moment must be taken into account: “Music stores are out of stock because they did not know if they could rehearse or not; There have been no parties or performances. Suddenly, people started shopping online through dealers.”

In December, he went to Culturgal where his colored tambourines stood out or with the flowering gorse plant printed on the patch.

Another craftsman who has been characterized in recent years for applying R&D to the tambourine is Carlos do Viso. Co-founder of O Afiadeiro, in Vigo, he has dedicated part of his life to recovering the touches of an instrument in the hands of women and its oral transmission through the villages.

Carlos Do Viso, in his workshop in O Viso, Redondela. FdV


“When we made almost the first tambourines in color we were very criticized”

Carlos do Viso


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“25 years ago, there was a very low quality in the instrument because it was a bit forgotten. We recover a little they will be in the south zone. So, I started building tambourines. I went together with Xosé Manuel Brañas who initiated me in this work. Then Mon passed away, a craftsman who was in Vigo, and many people began to order me. We got to deliver tambourines with a three-year wait. Now, the waiting list is also large. We are taking between six and eight months,” he details.

“All the tambourines we make have a client already; We do not build to have on display or in stock”, details Carlos do Viso. “We –he adds– have evolved a great deal in weight, aesthetics, in the quantity of ferriñas, in the quality of the patches, the sonority”.

But, what marks the quality of a tambourine? “It depends on the type of wood you use. This will give it more or less duration over time, it also affects the timbre”, details the craftsman who also emphasizes how to make the grip: “If it is more or less deep it will give more speed or balance”.

The workshop of the black tambourines of Tanxugueiras

Sanín is the workshop, located a few kilometers from the Lavacolla Airport, where the three black tambourines with which the Tanxugueiras played at the Benidorm Fest came from. Years ago, Muxicas had already opted for this color due to mourning. They had been made by Carlos Do Viso.

return to the village

Another detail is the material of the ferreñas (rattles), their calibers, diameter and striation (shape). In Carlos do Viso’s workshop, up to 35 different models are prepared that vary in timbre. “In the beginning, we found ourselves in the tambourine villages with five pairs of ferriñas, with very few, to accompany the voice; however we started making them with nine pairs. I have always defended lowering the number. Little by little the students came asking for less. The market was reducing to five. The trend is to make ferriñas that sound less. Until Xavier Díaz arrived on the music scene, that need did not become evident”.

Of course, do not forget about the patch. The thicker the better and more expensive, but at the same time it requires a good wooden structure. “The tambourine, he concludes, seems like a simple thing but it is a complex instrument”.

In your case, they invented different systems to tighten the patch as well as to assemble and disassemble the ferriñas quickly, passing through some discs to block the rattles. It is a manufacturing process that pampers the detail from the first moment, including the cutting of the wood. “We cut the trees, we make the planks, we saw the boards that we rotate in iron molds with heat to later drill, varnish and sew,” he details.

panderetas 2


Do Viso adds that “we practically made the first colored tambourines that were made in Galicia. It was heavily criticized. We made them for a school for children with different abilities in Caldelas de Tui. From there, we made a lot of colors. It is an aesthetic evolution.” In his memory, he keeps the black tambourines for the Muxicas group “who went into mourning and decided that we dye their instruments black.”

Although the general bet is on tambourines with a natural leather head, little by little the current of the synthetic patch has been entering. Yes, vegan fashion has also reached this instrument thanks to Tomás Axeitos.

This live sound technician –a native of Ribeira but who lives in Ames– works for Xabier Díaz and Adufeiras do Salitre. “We are traveling with them quite a bit around Europe. Due to changes in humidity, we find a lot of problems in leather instruments, which do not remain stable in timbre or tuning. I began to investigate with materials to solve the problem. It will be four years,” he recalls.

Testing, he spent about two to finally patent the discovery under the Landra brand. Its synthetic heads are purchased by artisans who sell instruments to Japan or South America.

In the Vigo workshop Michael Rivas, very close to Avenida del Aeropuerto, you can see the difference between a Landra tambourine with a synthetic head and another with a leather one. The first, much lighter, allows scratching without difficulty.

The craftsman Miguel Rivas, in Vigo, in his workshop. M.M.


“There are artisans who cannot cope as a result of the Tanxugueiras”

Michael Rivas


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“The synthetic head – made of plastic although it looks like leather – allows stability so that the instrument will always sound the same at 30 degrees or minus two, it does not tighten with heat or loosen with humidity”, he details. The only problem: it is much more expensive. A high-end tambourine with a skin head can cost 80 euros; in the same craftsman but with a synthetic patch it goes up to 150 euros.

Rivas is one of the many disciples (Carlos do Viso, too) of a legendary teacher: Leni Pérez. “I started –explains Miguel Rivas– when I was six years old and from then on I got into percussion with my teacher Iván Blanco. When I was little I started to play with wood and ended up doing a carpentry training cycle. I was lucky to have a teacher who liked this world and, at the end of the classes, I would spend hours with him to investigate how to bend wood. Based on breaking and trying, talking with other artisans and going to the EMAO (Municipal School of Arts and Crafts), I entered this world”.

Being a percussionist, Rivas looks for “certain finishes”, experimenting with different ferriñas (rattles) and different types of skins. “I usually do what people ask me for with the mythical natural finish, but they also ask me for them in other colors,” he details.

A percussion instrument that 25 years ago was going through a delicate moment

To choose the color, it presents samples that are reminiscent of those offered to order a piece of furniture. Furthermore, he has designed a varnish that changes color depending on the light: in one area you can see wood colors, while in another there is a kind of iridescent green.

Throughout the ten years that he has been a craftsman, he acknowledges that the interest in this instrument “goes in waves. Sometimes, you can’t keep up, on other occasions few orders come in. With the lockdown, I thought it was going to decline. But it was the other way around, a lot of people started playing the tambourine on the floors.”

For him, Tanxugueiras took the tambourine to a “total extreme. To think that the tambourine could represent Galicia in Eurovision was very cool. I have artisan friends who can’t cope as a result of Tanxugueiras”.


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