A name applied to various long-necked, fretted, plucked lutes of the Middle East and Central Asia.
The existence of the lute in Mesopotamia (ancient Iraq) dates from the Akkadian era (3rd millennium bce). It later became popular in Babylon; contemporary reliefs depict its small body and long, thin neck. al-Fārābī (d 950) devoted a large part of his Kitāb al-mūsīqī al-kabīr (‘Great book on music’) to the tunbūr al baghdādī (Baghdad tunbūr; known also as tunbūr al mizānī). His reference to its ‘pagan’ ligatures suggests a pre-Islamic history. According to him, the Baghdad tunbūr was distributed south and west of Baghdad, while the Khorasan tunbūr was found in Persia (see Arab music, §I, 3(ii)). This distinction may account for the modern differentiation between present Arab instruments and other types of tanbūr found throughout northern Iraq, Syria, Iran and Turkey. The ancient Baghdad tunbūr had five equidistant divisions on the neck. The strings could be divided into 40 divisions, but only the first five are likely to have been used. The theorist Safī al-Dīn (d 1294) based his analysis of scale on al-Fārābī’s first tetrachord division of 17 pitches on the Khorasan tunbūr (see Arab music, §I, 3(ii)). During the Ottoman period several types of tanbūr were reported in large Arab towns during the 18th and 19th centuries. The tanbūr sharqī, tanbūr kabīr turkī, tanbūr buzurk, tanbūr bulghārī or tanbūr baghlama were observed by Villoteau in Cairo at that time. These varieties have since disappeared in Arab centres, giving way to the buzuq (see Arab music, §I, 5(ii)).
Terminology presents a complicated situation. Nowadays the term tanbūr (or tambūr) is applied to a variety of distinct and related long-necked lutes used in art and folk traditions. Similar or identical instruments are also known by other terms. Saz (Persian: ‘instrument’) is applied in the Caucasus, Turkey, northern Syria, western Iraq and south-eastern Europe (also tambura). In western and northern Iraq, Turkmen people distinguish three sizes of lute: the large diwan saz, the medium baghlama and small jora. The terms Bağlama and saz are used somewhat interchangeably in Turkey, applied to a long-necked lute of folk traditions; the tanbur (distinguished as the ‘great’ tanbur) is a larger instrument of art music. In Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut, the buzuq is an urban instrument. In northern Iraq the terms chambar and jumbush were familiar until the first part of the 20th century. In Iran and Central Asia two other terms distinguish long-necked lutes derived from the Khorasan tunbūr: Dutār (‘two strings’) and Setār (‘three strings’). A further terminological complication is the use of words related to tanbūr for instruments that are not long-necked fretted lutes, e.g. Tambūrā (Indian long-necked, fretless, plucked drone lute) and Tanbūra (bowl lyre found in Iraq, Egypt, Sudan and elsewhere).
In Syria and Iraq the tanbūr varies from 40 to 120 cm in length (for illustration see Syria, fig.3). The wooden soundbox is usually of mulberry, walnut or white beech, carved from a single piece or carvel-built (constructed of several sections of curved wood). Modern performers may use a half-gourd or metal container for the soundbox. Most instruments are predominantly pear-shaped, but turnip-shaped and spherical ones are not unusual. The soundboard of resinous wood may be oval, rectangular, rhombic or trapezium-shaped; the Turkmen tanbūr lacks soundholes, while the buzuq and Kurdish tembûr have openings, openwork rosettes or perforations spread irregularly over the surface. The long thin neck is fitted with about 10–24 adjustable gut or nylon frets. The Kurdish tanbūr normally has 14 frets, while Turkmen and Arab instruments have more. The pegbox may extend from the neck or be a separate piece fixed to it; pegs are of wood or bone. Strings are arranged in single, double or triple courses (e.g. 2:1, 2:2, 3:2, 3:3:3, 3:3:1 etc.), plucked with the fingers or a plectrum made from half a razor blade, a piece of plastic or a quill. The range is from two to two and a half octaves, with various tunings (4th, 5ths, 6ths or octaves). On a tanbūr with two courses, only the upper-pitched is fingered continually; the lower-pitched course, often one string only, is used as a drone.
In rural communities of northern Iraq and Syria, the tanbūr is played solo to accompany love songs and epic tales at private gatherings. It is also played outdoors, solo or accompanied by a rhythmic instrument, at festivals and important events of the life cycle. The Turkmens of Kirkuk use a related instrument called the sāz in traditional ensembles with spoons and membranophones. The Shabak and Sarlia sects of northern Iraq respect the instrument greatly and use it to accompany secret sacred ceremonies and praises sung to Ali and the 12 imams.
Another form of tanbūr (rendered as tembûr in Kurdish orthography) is associated with the Ahl-e Haqq sect in Kurdish areas and in Lorestan, Iran. Lightly constructed, it is 80 cm long and 16 cm wide, with a pear-shaped resonator of mulberry wood (in one piece or carvel-built), a wooden soundboard and a neck of walnut wood. Two steel strings (or three, as the highest string is often doubled) are tuned a 5th, 4th or sometimes a 2nd apart. 14 gut frets are arranged chromatically in a quasi-tempered scale, giving the open strings a range of a 9th. Playing technique resembles that of the Khorasan dotār, but all five fingers of the right hand are used, producing a characteristic continuous tremolo (shor). Reserved solely for sacred music, it has a distinctive repertory, forming one of the most secret and inaccessible musical traditions of the Middle East. (See Kurdish music, §5; for illustration see Iran, §III, 2(iv), fig.3.)
In Turkey the tanbur, sometimes called tanbur kebir türki (‘great Turkish tanbur’), is played solo and in ensembles for classical suites (fasıl). It has a virtually hemispherical carvel-built body, covered with a thin soundboard of resinous wood. The very long neck has up to 48 gut frets; six to nine strings run in courses, tuned with wooden pegs. It is played with a tortoiseshell plectrum or, less commonly, a bow (then known as yayli tanbur).
The tanbur of Afghanistan is associated with urban popular music (see illustration; see also Afghanistan, fig.3a). Its resonator is usually carved from a single block of mulberry wood; sometimes a gourd is used. The wooden soundboard has small soundholes arranged in decorative patterns. The neck is massive and hollow, with no pegbox. There are usually six strings running from medial and lateral tuning-pegs inserted in the head, and a variable number of sympathetic or drone strings with tuning-pegs on the side of the neck. The steel strings are secured at the proximal end to a bone post inserted in the base of the resonator; the first two, tuned in unison, provide the melody. Frets are of gut, nylon or wire, tied round the neck; their number and arrangement varies from diatonic to chromatic. The instrument is sounded with a thimble-like metal plectrum worn over the forefinger of the right hand, which is usually supported over the soundboard by the thumb and third finger. The main stroke is the upstroke, with the finger moving in towards the palm. The instrument is held vertically with the resonator resting in the lap of the player. Sometimes the player strums all the strings. On some instruments the shortest sympathetic string is raised by a protuberance on the bridge for the technique known as sīmkārī (see Rabāb, §5(i) and Dutār).
The Central Asian tanbur is used in art music. In Uzbekistan and Tajikistan it is made from three pieces of mulberry wood (forming the neck, resonator and soundboard) and is shaped very differently from other tanburs. It has three metal strings, two tuned in unison and the third tuned to a 4th or 5th. The melody is plucked on the higher string with a brass plectrum (nokhunnâkhun: ‘fingernail’) fitted onto the index finger; the other strings act as drones. Variants (known as setār, panjtor, shashtor) used in folk music have four, five or six strings, with the use of double courses. Nowadays one or two extra drone strings are frequently added. The gut frets are wound around the neck so the player can obtain ornamental oscillations of up to a semitone, known as nala (‘lament’). In the city of Bukhara, prior to the Soviet period, it was common for singers to pluck the tanbur while they sang, and to use a bow during instrumental interludes between verses. In western China the Uighur tanbur is a similar instrument; relatively long, with five strings (double courses used on the unison strings).
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SCHEHERAZADE QASSIM HASSAN, R. CONWAY MORRIS, JOHN BAILY, JEAN DURING/R