Tabor (instrument)

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Pipe and taborers, from the 13th Century illuminated manuscript, Cantigas de Santa Maria

Tabor, or tabret, refers to a portable snare drum played with one hand. It has been used in the military as a marching instrument, and has been used as accompaniment in parades and processions.

The tabor is most widely known as accompaniment for the fife and other small flutes, and most famously as the percussive element in the "pipe and tabor" one man band configuration. The tabor is beaten on the snare side.

In Spain, a deep drum is used for a tabor by pipe and taborers, and in England a shallow tom tom is sometimes used, although medieaval icons of pipe and tabor usually display a large shallow tabor similar in shape to a bodhran.