Tanbur (Persian)

The two-stringed Kurdish/Persian tanbur (aka, tanbour, tambur) is the forefather of all stringed instruments and dates back many thousands of years. The tanbur has a deep pear shaped body with a very long neck. The instrument is traditionally made of Mulberry wood and is fretted with cat guts. The metal strings are fastened with front and side tuning pegs. For many centuries the pear shaped body of the instrument was carved from a single piece of wood. Ever since the 1950s the body of the instrument has been made of bent ribs of mulberry wood, instead of the traditional single piece. The great 20th century tanbur maker Nariman along with the help of Ostad Elahi shaped the modern look of the tanbur.

The tanbur and its name date way back before recorded history. Historians cannot agree about the exact origins of the tanbur, however the first documentation of its existence comes from ancient Babylon. There is also documentation in the form of Egyptian bas-relief sculptures that proves the instrument was in use in the 26th dynasty of Egypt (circa 600 B.C.). The ancient Greeks named it the pandoura.

The name tanbur has unfortunately been applied to dozens of different instruments worldwide creating a great deal of confusion. The instrument is also known to have been used by the Zoroastrians and in the Sassanian courts (AD 200).

Shah Khoshin, a saint of the Ahl-e Haqq helped popularize the instrument during the 12th century. The Kurdish tanbur and its melodies were used in spiritual gatherings or Zekr of the Ahl-e Haqq (a.k.a. Ahl-e Hakk, Ahl-I Haqq) for meditation and chanting purposes ever since the 14th century. Up to the 20th century the instrument was considered so sacred that it was not to be played for people outside of the Ahl-e Haqq jams. Its melodies and modes were so heavily guarded that they were only passed down from master to disciple.

As with the evolutionary theory of punctuated equilibrium, the evolution of the tanbur, its melodies, and the style of playing were also characterized by long periods of virtual standstill, “punctuated" by episodes of very fast development.

File:Tanbur3.jpg

External links

• Tanbur Society for the preservation and propagation of the tanbur.
• Tanbur(CAIS)