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The term tanbur (Persian
Persian language

name=Persian|nativename=|pronunciation=[f??r'si]|image=|caption=Farsi in Perso-Arabic script |states= Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Bahrain....
: ?????) can refer to various long-necked, fret
Fret

A fret is a raised portion on the neck of a stringed instrument, that extends generally across the full width of the neck. On most modern western culture instruments, frets are metal strips inserted into the fingerboard....
ted lutes originating in the Middle East
Middle East

File:GreaterMiddleEast1.pngThe Middle East is a region that spans southwestern Asia, western Asia, and northeastern Africa. It has no clear boundaries, often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East....
 or Central Asia
Central Asia

Central Asia is a region of Asia from the Caspian Sea in the west to central China in the east, and from southern Russia in the north to northern India in the south....
. According to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "terminology presents a complicated situation. Nowadays the term tanbur (or tambur) is applied to a variety of distinct and related long-necked lutes used in art and folk traditions.






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Mehmooni2
The term tanbur (Persian
Persian language

name=Persian|nativename=|pronunciation=[f??r'si]|image=|caption=Farsi in Perso-Arabic script |states= Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Bahrain....
: ?????) can refer to various long-necked, fret
Fret

A fret is a raised portion on the neck of a stringed instrument, that extends generally across the full width of the neck. On most modern western culture instruments, frets are metal strips inserted into the fingerboard....
ted lutes originating in the Middle East
Middle East

File:GreaterMiddleEast1.pngThe Middle East is a region that spans southwestern Asia, western Asia, and northeastern Africa. It has no clear boundaries, often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East....
 or Central Asia
Central Asia

Central Asia is a region of Asia from the Caspian Sea in the west to central China in the east, and from southern Russia in the north to northern India in the south....
. According to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "terminology presents a complicated situation. Nowadays the term tanbur (or tambur) 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."

Origins

One study has identified the name "tanbur" as being derived from pandur, a Sumerian
Sumerian language

Sumerian was the language of ancient Sumer, spoken in Southern Mesopotamia since at least the 4th millennium BC. It was gradually replaced by Akkadian language as a spoken language somewhere around the turn of the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BC , but continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary and scientific language in Mesopotamia...
 term for long-necked lutes. Lutes have been present in Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia is the area of the Tigris-Euphrates river system, along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, largely corresponding to modern Iraq, as well as some parts of northeastern Syria, some parts of southeastern Turkey, and some parts of the Khuzestan Province of southwestern Iran....
 since the Akkad
Akkad

The Akkadian Empire was an empire centered in the city of Akkad Sumerian language: Agade KUR A.GA.D?KI "land of Akkad". ; Biblical Accad) and its surrounding region Akkadian URU Akkad KI in central Mesopotamia....
ian era, or the third millennium BCE.

The tanbur was already in use in the Sassanian period (5th-6th CCE).. In the tenth century CE Al-Farabi
Al-Farabi

Abu Nasr al-Farabi , known in the Western world as Alpharabius , was a Muslim polymath and one of the greatest Islamic sciences and Early Islamic philosophys of History of Iran and the Islamic Golden Age in his time....
 described a Baghdad tunbur, distributed south and west of Baghdad
Baghdad

Baghdad is the Capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate, with which it is also coterminous. With a municipal population estimated at 6.5 million, it is the largest city in Iraq, and the second largest city in the Arab World....
, and a Khorasan
Greater Khorasan

Greater Khorasan is a modern term for a geographic region spanning north-eastern Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and north-western Afghanistan....
 tunbur found in Persia. This distinction may be the source of modern differentiation between Arabic instruments, derived from the Baghdad tunbur, and those found in northern Iraq, Syria, Iran and Turkey, from the Khorasan tunbur.

Later the Kurdish tanbur became associated with the music of the Ahl-e Haqq
Ahl-e Haqq

The Ahl-e Haqq or Y?rs?n , are members of a religion founded by Sultan Sahak in the late 14th century in western Iran. The total number of members is estimated at around 1,000,000, primarily found in western Iran and Iraq, mostly ethnic Kurdish people and Lak people , though there are also smaller groups of Lorestan, Azerbaijani people,...
 or "People of the Real", a Kurdish local Ghulat
Ghulat

Ghulat Exaggerators is the adjectival form of Ghuluww Exaggeration, a technical term mainstream Muslims use to describe the beliefs of minority Muslim groups who ascribe divine characteristics to a member of Muhammad's family, generally Ali) or the early companions of the Prophet such as Salman al-Farisi....
 sect similar to a Sufi order, where it is called the tembūr
Tembūr

The temb?r, a fretted string instrument, is a form of tanbur.. It is associated with the Ahl-e Haqq religion in Kurdistan and in the Lorestan Province of Iran....
.. It is currently the only musical instrument used in Ahl-e Haqq rituals, and practitioners venerate tembūrs as sacred objects.

The tembūr measures 80 cm in length and 16 cm in width. The resonator
Acoustic resonance

Acoustic resonance is the tendency of an acoustics to absorb more energy when the frequency of its oscillations matches the system's natural frequency of vibration than it does at other frequencies....
 is pear-shaped
Pear

The pear is an edible pome fruit produced by a tree of genus Pyrus . The pear is classified within Maloideae, a subfamily within Rosaceae. The apple , which it resembles in floral structure, is also a member of this subfamily....
 and made of either a single piece or multiple carvel
Carvel (boat building)

In boat building, carvel built or carvel planking is a method of constructing wooden boats and tall ships by fixing planks to a frame so that the planks butt up against each other, edge to edge, gaining support from the frame and forming a smooth hull....
s of mulberry
Mulberry

Morus or Mulberry is a genus of 10?16 species of deciduous trees native to warm, temperate, and subtropical regions of Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas, with the majority of the species native to Asia....
 wood. The neck is made of walnut
Walnut

Walnuts are plants in the family Juglandaceae. They are deciduous trees, 10–40 meter s tall , with pinnate leaves 200?900 millimetres long , with 5–25 leaflets; the shoots have chambered pith, a character shared with the wingnut but not the hickory in the same family....
 and has fourteen fret
Fret

A fret is a raised portion on the neck of a stringed instrument, that extends generally across the full width of the neck. On most modern western culture instruments, frets are metal strips inserted into the fingerboard....
s, arranged in a semi-tempered
Musical tuning

In music, there are two common meanings for tuning:* #Tuning practice, the act of tuning an instrument or voice.* #Tuning systems, the various systems of Pitch used to tune an instrument, and their theoretical basis....
 chromatic scale
Chromatic scale

The chromatic scale is a musical scale with twelve Pitch es, each a semitone or half step apart. "A chromatic scale is a diatonic scale consisting entirely of half-step interval ," having, "no tonic ," due to the symmetry or equal spacing of its tones....
. It has two steel strings tuned in fifth, fourth, or second interval
Interval (music)

In music theory, the term interval describes the relationship between the pitch of two notes.Intervals may be described as:*vertical if the two notes sound simultaneously...
s. The higher string may be double-coursed.

Types

The Persian name spread widely, eventually taking in;

  • Long-necked lutes used in Central Asian music such as the Dombura and the classical Turkish Tambur as well as the Kurdish tembūr
    Tembūr

    The temb?r, a fretted string instrument, is a form of tanbur.. It is associated with the Ahl-e Haqq religion in Kurdistan and in the Lorestan Province of Iran....
    . Until the early twentieth century, the names chambar and jumbush were applied to instruments in northern Iraq. In India the name was applied to the tambura
    Tambura

    This article is about the Indian fretless Drone_ lute. The New Grove Dictionary of Music also assigns the term to the Eastern European variety of saz: for this see Tamburitza....
    , a fretless drone lute.


  • Similar instruments of East European music including the tambour
    Tamburitza

    The Tamburica or Tamburitza [] , is a family of string instruments popular in the traditional folk music of Croatia , northern Serbia and Hungary....
     and the domra
    Domra

    The domra is a long-necked Ukrainian string instrument of the lute family with a round body and three or four metal strings....
    .


The name also came to apply to several other instruments of different classes including;

  • The tanbura
    Tanbura

    For the Indian long-necked drone-lute see TamburaThe tanbura is a lyre of the Middle East and East Africa which takes its name from the Persian Tanbur via the Arabic language tunbur , though this term refers to lutes....
    , a bowl lyre found in Iraq, Egypt, and the Sudan.
  • In western Europe the name attached itself to drums such as the Tabor
    Tįbor

    T?bor is a city of the Czech Republic, in the South Bohemian Region. It is named after Mount Tabor, Israel, which is believed by many to be the place of the Transfiguration of Christ; however, the name became popular and nowadays translates to "camp" or "encampment" in the Czech language....
     and the Tambourine
    Tambourine

    The tambourine or Marine is a musical instrument of the Percussion instrument family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zils"....


Furthermore, the fretted Tanbur influenced the design of many instruments other than those above, notably;

  • The saz
    Saz

    Saz may refer to:* Baglama* The rap artist Sameh Zakout...
     (Persian
    Persian language

    name=Persian|nativename=|pronunciation=[f??r'si]|image=|caption=Farsi in Perso-Arabic script |states= Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Bahrain....
    : "instrument") is found in the Caucasus
    Caucasus

    The Caucasus or Caucas is a geopolitical region located between Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. It is home to Europe's highest mountain ....
    , Turkey
    Turkey

    Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in southwest Asia and Thrace in the Balkans region of Southern Europe....
    , northern Syria
    Syria

    Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is an Arab-majority country in Southwest Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Israel to the southwest, Jordan to the south, Iraq to the east, and Turkey to the north....
    , western Iraq
    Iraq

    Iraq , officially the Republic of Iraq , is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros Mountains, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
     and Southeast Europe. In Turkey, the terms baglama
    Baglama

    The baglama is a string instrument musical instrument shared by various cultures in the Eastern List of islands in the Mediterranean, Near East, and Central Asia....
     and saz both refer to a long-necked lute used in folk music
    Folk music

    Folk music can have a number of different meanings, including:* Traditional music: The original meaning of the term "folk music" was synonymous with the term "Traditional music", also often including World Music and Roots music; the term "Traditional music" was given its more specific meaning to distinguish it from the other definition...
    . Closely related are the Greek bouzouki
    Bouzouki

    The bouzouki is the mainstay of modern Greek music. It is a stringed instrument with a pear-shaped body and a very long neck. The bouzouki is a member of the 'long neck lute' family and is similar to a mandolin....
     and the buzuq
    Buzuq

    The buzuq is a long-necked fretted lute related to the Greek music bouzouki and Turkish music saz. It is an essential Musical instrument in the Rahbani brothers repertoire, but it is not classified among the classical instruments of Arabic music or Turkish music....
    , an instrument found in urban areas such as Baghdad, Damascus
    Damascus

    Damascus is the capital and largest city of Syria. It is List of oldest continuously inhabited cities and its current population is estimated at about 4,000,000....
    , and Beirut
    Beirut

    Beirut is the Capital and largest city of Lebanon with a population of over 2.1 million as of 2007. Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's coastline with the Mediterranean sea, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport and also forms the Beirut District area, which consists of the city and its suburbs....
    .


  • * The dutar
    Dutar

    The dutar is a traditional long-necked two-stringed lute found in Central Asia. Its name comes from the Persian language word for "two strings", dotar , although the Herati dutar of Afghanistan has 14 strings....
     and setar
    Setar (lute)

    Setar is a Persian music musical instrument. It is a member of the lute family. Two and a half centuries ago, a fourth string was added to the setar, which has 25 - 27 moveable frets....
    , found in Iran
    Iran

    Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran and formerly known internationally as Persian Empire until 1935, is a country in Central Eurasia, located on the northeastern shore of the Persian Gulf and the southern shore of the Caspian Sea....
     and Central Asia, are derived from the Khorosanian tunbur.


See also

Category:Eastern lutes players


External links