Thread: Help with instrumentation

First time poster here....
I'm not a percussionist by trade. I'm a trained Trumpet player (Juilliard BM '93 MM '95) that had a career change. Anyway, I'm now teaching in public schools. My midde school chorus is singing "Riu Riu Chiu" this year, and we're using the Kalenda Maya recording http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzGQU5VMPdI as our sort of mojo inspiration. Now, I'm covering the tamborine part and another student is doing finger cymbals (not in the recording) but I was wondering what all of you thought would be a good "tambor" type drum to emulate what's being played? I've tried various drums I already have on hand (djembe, darbuka, frame, etc) and they're just not quite right. Keep in mind the school budget is zip, so I'm funding this myself. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

You should be able to scare up a double headed tom tom of some sort for little or no money...there are millions of drumsets out there. The computer I'm using has its speakers disconnected so I can't listen to your youtube link, but I used to have that Kalenda Maya recording and I vaguely remember that it sounded like a two headed drum with no snares...they probably used a rope tensioned drum with natural skin heads, but a modern floor tom should give you the sound you want.