{{short description|Greek traditional string instrument}} {{Infobox instrument | name = Tambouras | names = | image = Vrakoforos Tabouras.jpg | image_capt = Greek playing ''tambouras'', 18th-century painting | background = String | classification = Plucked | hornbostel_sachs = | hornbostel_sachs_desc = | inventors = | developed = | range = | related = * Bağlama (Turkey) * Baglamas (Greece) * Bouzouki (Greece) * Buzuq (Lebanon) * Chonguri * Dangubica * Pandura * Panduri * Samica * Šargija * Setar * Tambura * Tamburica * Tar (lute) | musicians = | builders = | articles = }}
The '''tambouras''' ({{langx|el|ταμπουράς}} {{IPA|el|tabuˈras|}}) is a Greek traditional string instrument of Byzantine origin.<ref name=Para>{{citation|title=Paradosiaká: Music, Meaning and Identity in Modern Greece|series=SOAS musicology series|author=Eleni Kallimopoulou|publisher=Ashgate Publishing|year=2009|isbn=978-0-7546-6630-1|pages=50 & 53}}</ref> It has existed since at least the 10th century, when it was known in Assyria and Egypt. At that time, it might have had between two and six strings. The characteristic long neck bears two strings, tuned five notes apart.<ref name=trad>{{Cite web|title=Traditional Stringed Instruments of Greece|access-date=2010-03-28|url=http://www.helleniccomserve.com/stringintruments.html}}</ref>
It is also similar to the Turkish ''tambur'' and Indian tanpura.<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Stringed Instrument Database: Index|url=https://stringedinstrumentdatabase.aornis.com/|access-date=2023-03-29|website=stringedinstrumentdatabase.aornis.com}}</ref>
Tanbur, a Persian word, is according to some scholars derived from the Sumerian ''pan tur'', meaning "little bow".
==History==
===Origins=== {{see also|Lute#History and evolution of the lute}} 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''):
{{cquote|Και αφότου αποδείπνησεν, εμπαίνει εις το κουβούκλιν<br/> και επήρεν το θαμπούριν του και αποκατάστησέν το.
When he had finished his meal, he entered his chamber<br/> and picked up his ''tamboura'' [''thambourin''] and tuned it.|||''Digenis Akritis'', Escorial version, vv. 826–827, ed. and transl. Elizabeth Jeffreys}}
===Name=== The name resembles that of the Indian ''tanpura'', but the Greek ''tambouras'' is a completely different instrument. Since modern Greek words do not have a standard transliteration into the Latin alphabet, 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''.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Combined Search|url=https://www.greek-language.gr/greekLang/modern_greek/tools/lexica/search.html?lq=%25CF%2584%25CE%25B1%25CE%25BC%25CF%2580%25CE%25BF%25CF%2585%25CF%2581%25CE%25AC%25CF%2582&sin=all|access-date=2023-03-29|website=greek-language.gr}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|date=2013-12-16|title=tamboura: definition of tamboura in Oxford dictionary (American English)|url=http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/american_english/tamboura|access-date=2023-03-29|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131216103339/http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/american_english/tamboura |archive-date=2013-12-16 }}</ref>
===Type=== The ''tambouras'' is a long-neck fretted instrument of the lute family,<ref name=Para/> 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 and the ''ichoi'' of Byzantine music). It was also known as Pandouris, Pandoura and Fandouros in the Byzantine Empire.<ref name=trad/> When the ''tambouras'' was tempered, it gave rise to the ''bouzouki'', which is, in fact, a recent development of the ''tambouras''.<ref>{{citation |title=Performance and Production|volume=11|series=Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World: Volume II: Performance and Production|author=John Shepherd|work=Continuum|year=2003|isbn=978-0-8264-6322-7|page=68|access-date=2010-03-16|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pJvzEzjahkQC&q=Tambouras+movable+frets&pg=PA411 }}</ref>
==Gallery== <gallery class="center"> File:Tambouras and fingerhole trumpet, Byzantine Empire, 11th century AD.jpg|11th century A.D., Byzantium. Tambouras and fingerhole trumpet. Image:Greek musical instruments.jpg|Display of Greek tamboura{{citation needed|date=August 2010}} at the right (the inst. left is a tambur). Image:Makriyannis tambouras.JPG </gallery>
==See also== * Tambura * Tamburica
==References==
===Notes=== {{Reflist}}
===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}}
Category:Greek musical instruments Category:String instruments