The pandeiro (Portuguese pronunciation: [pɐ̃ˈdejɾu]) is a type of hand frame drum commonly used in Brazil. It is played in several Brazilian music styles, including samba, choro, coco, capoeira, and bossa nova.
The pandeiro has a tunable drumhead, and its rim holds metal jingles (platinelas) that are cupped. These jingles create a clearer and shorter sound compared to those on a tambourine. The drum is held in one hand, and the other hand strikes the drumhead to make sound. Players often use the thumb, fingertips, heel, and palm of the hand to create typical pandeiro patterns. The instrument can also be shaken to produce sound, or a finger can be run along the drumhead to make a drum roll.
Medieval instrument
The word pandeiro was once used to describe a square drum with two layers of skin, sometimes containing a bell inside. This instrument is now called adufe in Spain and Portugal.
The term pandeiro (called pandero in Asturian) is still used in parts of Galicia, Asturias, and Portugal to describe the square-shaped drum. The round drum with small metal pieces is called pandeira in Galicia and pandeireta in Portugal.
Players
Some of the most well-known pandeiro players today include Paulinho da Costa, Nanny Assis, Airto Moreira, Marcos Suzano, Cyro Baptista, Zé Maurício, and Carlinhos Pandeiro de Ouro.
Other important pandeiro players include Scott Feiner, who introduced the pandeiro to jazz music, and Milt Holland, a Los Angeles-based studio percussionist and drummer who traveled widely to collect and study different types of ethnic percussion instruments.
Artists like Stanton Moore use the pandeiro in new ways by tuning it to sound like a bass drum with jingles, attaching it to a stand, and adding it to the modern drum kit. Others, such as Sule Greg Wilson on the Carolina Chocolate Drops album Genuine Negro Jig, use the pandeiro together with a tunable bodhran, which is also mounted, and play both with brushes to create drum kit sounds. They also use the instruments as hand-held tools, as they were originally intended.