This paper summarizes some results obtained in the last few years for the modeling of nonlinear vibrating instruments such as gongs and cymbals. Linear, weakly nonlinear and chaotic regimes are successively examined. A theoretical mechanical model is presented, based on the nonlinear von Kármán equations for thin shallow spherical shells. Modal projection and Nonlinear Normal Mode (NNM) formulation leads to a subset of coupled nonlinear oscillators. Current developments are aimed at using this subset for sound synthesis purpose.