Tanbur
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 Woman playing the Tanbur in a painting from the Hasht Behesht Palace in Isfahan, Iran, 1669. |
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| String instrument | |
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| Classification | Plucked |
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The term tanbūr (Persian: تنبور) can refer to various long-necked, fretted lutes originating in the Middle East or Central Asia.[1] 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."[1]
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[edit] Origins
One study has identified the name "tanbūr" as being derived from pandur, a Sumerian term for long-necked lutes.[2] Lutes have been present in Mesopotamia since the Akkadian era, or the third millennium BCE.[1]
The tanbur was already in use in the Sassanian period (5th-6th CCE).[3]. In the tenth century CE Al-Farabi described a Baghdad tunbūr, distributed south and west of Baghdad, and a Khorasan tunbūr found in Persia.[1] This distinction may be the source of modern differentiation between Arabic instruments, derived from the Baghdad tunbūr, and those found in northern Iraq, Syria, Iran and Turkey, from the Khorasan tunbūr.[1]
Later the Kurdish tanbur became associated with the music of the Ahl-e Haqq or "People of the Real", a primarily Kurdish ghulat religious movement similar to a Sufi order, where it is called the tembûr.[4]. It is currently the only musical instrument used in Ahl-e Haqq rituals, and practitioners venerate tembûrs as sacred objects.[5]
The tembûr measures 80 cm in length and 16 cm in width.[4] The resonator is pear-shaped and made of either a single piece or multiple carvels of mulberry wood.[4] The neck is made of walnut and has fourteen frets, arranged in a semi-tempered chromatic scale.[4] It has two steel strings tuned in fifth, fourth, or second intervals.[4][5] The higher string may be double-coursed.[4][5]
[edit] 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 tembûr.[1][5] Until the early twentieth century, the names chambar and jumbush were applied to instruments in northern Iraq.[1] In India the name was applied to the tambura, a fretless drone lute.[1]
The name also came to apply to several other instruments of different classes including;
- The tanbura, a bowl lyre found in Iraq, Egypt, and the Sudan.[1]
- In western Europe the name attached itself to drums such as the Tabor and the Tambourine[6]
Furthermore, the fretted Tanbur influenced the design of many instruments other than those above, notably;
- The saz (Persian: "instrument") is found in the Caucasus, Turkey, northern Syria, western Iraq and Southeast Europe.[1] In Turkey, the terms bağlama and saz both refer to a long-necked lute used in folk music.[1] Closely related are the Greek bouzouki and the buzuq, an instrument found in urban areas such as Baghdad, Damascus, and Beirut.[1]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Scheherezade Qassim Hassan, R. Conway Morris, John Baily, Jean During. "Tanbūr", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell (London: Macmillan, 2001), xxv, pp. 61-62.
- ^ Erkut, Cumhur; T. Tolonen, M. Karjalainen, and V. Välimäki (July 1999). "Acoustical Analysis of Tanbur, a Turkish long-necked lute" (PDF) in Sixth International Congress on Sound and Vibration. Proceedings of the Sixth International Congress on Sound and Vibration vol. 1: pp. 345-352. Retrieved on 2007-06-30.
- ^ Jean During, Spirit of Sounds : The Unique Art of Ostad Elahi (1895-1974), ASSOCIATED UNIVERSITY PRESS, ISBN 9780845348840, ISBN 0845348841
- ^ a b c d e f Scheherezade Qassim Hassan, R. Conway Morris, John Baily, Jean During. "Tanbur", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell (London: Macmillan, 2001), xxv, pp. 61-62.
- ^ a b c d Shiloah, Amnon. "Kurdish music", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell (London: Macmillan, 2001), xiv, p. 40.
- ^ Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary 1977, "Tambourine".
