The tambouras ( ) is a Greek traditional

string instrument In musical instrument classification, string instruments, or chordophones, are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer strums, plucks, strikes or sounds the strings in varying manners. Musicians play some ...

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

origin. It has existed since at least the 10th century, when it was known in

Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , ''māt Aššur'') was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed as a city-state from the 21st century BC to the 14th century BC and eventually expanded into an empire from the 14th century BC t ...

and

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

. At that time, it might have had between two and six strings. The characteristic long neck bears two strings, tuned five notes apart. It is also similar to the Turkish ''tambur'' and Indian tanpura. Tanbur, a Persian word, is according to some scholars derived from the Sumerian ''pan tur'', meaning "little bow".

History

Origins

It is considered that the ''tambouras ancestor is the ancient Greek ''pandouris'', also known as '' pandoura'', ''pandouros'' or ''pandourida'' (πανδουρίς, πανδούρα, πάνδουρος), from which the word is derived. The ''tambouras'' is mentioned in the Byzantine epic of Digenis Akritas, when the hero plays his θαμπούριν, ''thambourin'' (medieval form of ''tambouras''):

Name

The name resembles that of the Indian '' tanpura'', but the Greek ''tambouras'' is a completely different instrument. Since

modern Greek Modern Greek (, or , ), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the language sometimes referred to ...

words do not have a standard transliteration into the

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the Ancient Rome, ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered except several letters splitting—i.e. from , and from � ...

, the word may be found written in many ways: ''tampouras'', ''tambouras'', ''tabouras'', ''taburas'' etc. Even the final -s may be dropped at the transliteration, since it marks the masculine nominative in Greek. Variations of the word are to be found in Greece: ''tsambouras'', ''tambouri''. The word ταμπουράς comes from Turkish '' tambur'' from Arabic ''ṭanbūr'' or Persian ''tunbūra''.

Type

The ''tambouras'' is a long-neck fretted instrument of the lute family, close to Turkish '' saz'' and the Persian '' tanbur''. It has movable frets that permit playing tunes in the Greek traditional modes (equivalent of the ''makams'' of

Arabic music Arabic music () is the music of the Arab world with all its diverse List of music styles, music styles and genres. Arabic countries have many rich and varied styles of music and also many linguistic Varieties of Arabic, dialects, with each countr ...

and the ''ichoi'' of Byzantine music). It was also known as Pandouris, Pandoura and Fandouros in the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the ...

. When the ''tambouras'' was tempered, it gave rise to the ''

bouzouki The bouzouki (, also ; ; alt. pl. ''bouzoukia'', , from Greek , from Turkish ) is a musical instrument popular in West Asia (Syria, Iraq), Europe and Balkans (Greece, North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Turkey). It is a member of the long-necked lute fam ...

'', which is, in fact, a recent development of the ''tambouras''.

Gallery

Image:Greek musical instruments.jpg, Display of Greek tamboura at the right (the inst. left is a tambur). Image:Makriyannis tambouras.JPG

References

Notes

Sources

*Anogeianakis, Foivos. ''Ellinika Laika Mousika Organa''. Athens: Melissa, 1991 (2nd Edition). *Grapsas, Nikos. ''Tambouras. Methodos Didaskalias''. Athens: Nikolaidis, 2007. *Jeffreys, Elizabeth. ''Digenis Akritis. The Grottaferrata and Escorial Versions''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. {{Greek musical instruments Greek musical instruments String instruments