THE PIPE AND TABOR 109 



should be held, and this, curiously enough, is one 

 of the best views of what I hold to be the proper 

 grip for the taborer's pipe. 



The tabor is still much as it was in Fra Angelico's 

 day (judging from the angel above referred 

 to), and indeed in earlier times, as shown in the 

 piping angel in Lincoln Cathedral. We can 

 see what a drum-maker calls the ropes and 

 braces^ for tightening the parchment ; the snares 

 are also shown in many early drawings of tabors. 

 These are piece* of gut or of horse-hair, stretched 

 across the drum-head, which add a spirited rattle 

 to its tone. Why the first edition of the Dictionary 

 of Music went out of its way to say that the tabor 

 had no snares I cannot guess. 



In many of the mediaeval drawings the artist 

 is shown beating his drum on the snare side. I had 

 fancied that this was only one more instance of the 

 bad drawing of musical instruments, but when I 

 saw the careful work of Luca della Robbia, in which 

 the tabors are all beaten on the snare side, I 

 could no longer doubt. I was, however, glad to 

 find in a French account' of the Provengal 3-hoIed 

 pipe or galoubet, that this custom survives. In 

 Luca della Robbia 's work a single snare-cord is 

 shown instead of four to six catgut lines as in 

 modern drums and this is also true of the Provencal 

 instrument. So that both the characteristics that 

 seemed strange to me in Luca's tabor survive in 

 Provence. 



^ Mr. Galpin says that they are found on an ancient Egyptian 

 drnrn. 



* Mahillon's Catalogue, iii.. p. 377. 



