The baglamas or baglamadaki (μπαγλαμαδάκι), a long necked bowl-lute, is a plucked string instrument

Plucked string instrument

Plucked string instruments are a subcategory of string instruments that are played by plucking the strings. Plucking is a way of pulling and releasing the string in such as way as to give it an impulse that causes the string to vibrate...

 used in Greek music; it is a version of the bouzouki

Bouzouki

The bouzouki , is a musical instrument with Greek origin in the lute family. A mainstay of modern Greek music, the front of the body is flat and is usually heavily inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The instrument is played with a plectrum and has a sharp metallic sound, reminiscent of a mandolin but...

 pitched an octave

Octave

In music, an octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music", the use of which is "common in most musical systems"...

 higher (nominally D-A-D), with unison

Unison

In music, the word unison can be applied in more than one way. In general terms, it may refer to two notes sounding the same pitch, often but not always at the same time; or to the same musical voice being sounded by several voices or instruments together, either at the same pitch or at a distance...

 pairs on the four highest strings and an octave pair on the lower D. Musically, the baglamas is most often found supporting the bouzouki in the Piraeus

Piraeus

Piraeus is a city in the region of Attica, Greece. Piraeus is located within the Athens Urban Area, 12 km southwest from its city center , and lies along the east coast of the Saronic Gulf....

 city style of rebetiko

Rebetiko

Rebetiko, plural rebetika, , occasionally transliterated as Rembetiko, is a term used today to designate originally disparate kinds of urban Greek folk music which have come to be grouped together since the so-called rebetika revival, which started in the 1960s and developed further from the early...

.

The body is often hollowed out from a piece of wood (skaftos construction) or else made from a gourd, but there are also baglamas with staved backs. Its small size made it particularly popular with musicians who needed an instrument transportable enough to carry around easily or small enough to shelter under a coat. During parts of the 20th century, players of the bouzouki and baglamas were persecuted by the government, and the instruments were smashed by the police.

The name comes from Turkish bağlama

Baglama

thumb|180px|Cura and bağlamaThe bağlama is a stringed musical instrument shared by various cultures in the Eastern Mediterranean, Near East, and Central Asia....

, a similar instrument.