Kurdish tanbur ( ku, ته‌مبوور, translit=Tembûr) or tanbour a

fret A fret is any of the thin strips of material, usually metal wire, inserted laterally at specific positions along the neck or fretboard of a stringed instrument. Frets usually extend across the full width of the neck. On some historical instrume ...

ted

string instrument String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner. Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the ...

, is an initial and main form of the tanbūr instrument family, used by the

Kurds ug:كۇردلار Kurds ( ku, کورد ,Kurd, italic=yes, rtl=yes) or Kurdish people are an Iranian ethnic group native to the mountainous region of Kurdistan in Western Asia, which spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Ir ...

. It is highly associated with the

Yarsan Yarsanism, Ahl-e Haqq or Kaka'i ( ku, یارسان, translit=Yarsan or ; fa, اهل حق, ar, كاكائي), is a syncretic religion founded by Sultan Sahak in the late 14th century in western Iran. The total number of followers of Yarsanism i ...

(Ahl-e Haqq) religion in Kurdish areas and in the Lorestān provinces of

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

. It is one of the few musical instruments used in Ahl-e Haqq rituals, and practitioners venerate the tembûr as a sacred object. Another popular

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

instrument used together with the tembur is the Kurdish daf, but that's not sacred in Yarsan spirituality and

Jam Jam is a type of fruit preserve. Jam or Jammed may also refer to: Other common meanings * A firearm malfunction * Block signals ** Radio jamming ** Radar jamming and deception ** Mobile phone jammer ** Echolocation jamming Arts and entertai ...

praying ceremony. Nowadays tembur is played all over Iran, but Kurdish tembur is mainly designed and has been for centuries in the

Hawraman Avroman or Hawraman, ( ku, هه‌ورامان, translit=Hewraman, fa, اورامان) is a mountainous region located within the provinces of Kurdistan and Kermanshah in western Iran and in north-eastern Kurdistan Region in Iraq. The main part o ...

region in the provinces of Kermanshah Province, Kurdistan Province and Lorestan. The more traditional and accepted temburs originate from the cities of

Kermanshah Kermanshah ( fa, کرمانشاه, Kermânšâh ), also known as Kermashan (; romanized: Kirmaşan), is the capital of Kermanshah Province, located from Tehran in the western part of Iran. According to the 2016 census, its population is 946,68 ...

Sahneh Sahneh ( fa, صحنه; also Romanized as Şaḩneh and Sehneh; also known as Sahna) is a city in and the capital of Sahneh County, Kermanshah Province Sahneh County ( fa, شهرستان صحنه) is located in Kermanshah province, Iran. The ca ...

and

Gahvareh Gahvareh ( fa, گهواره; also Romanized as Gahvāreh; also known as Gavāra and Gawareh) is a city and capital of Dalahu County, Kermanshah Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 4,708, in 1,147 families. The city is populate ...

. Tembur is locally called ''tamur'', ''tamureh'', ''tamyarah'' or ''tamyorah'' (تَمیُرَه ، تَمیرَه ، تموره, تمور) there. The Kermanshah tembur should not be confused with saz also called tembûr in Kurmancî Kurdish. The tembûr measures 90 cm in length and 16 cm in width. The

resonator A resonator is a device or system that exhibits resonance or resonant behavior. That is, it naturally oscillates with greater amplitude at some frequencies, called resonant frequencies, than at other frequencies. The oscillations in a resonator ...

is pear-shaped and made of either a single piece or multiple carvels of

mulberry ''Morus'', a genus of flowering plants in the family Moraceae, consists of diverse species of deciduous trees commonly known as mulberries, growing wild and under cultivation in many temperate world regions. Generally, the genus has 64 identif ...

wood. The neck is made of

walnut A walnut is the edible seed of a drupe of any tree of the genus ''Juglans'' (family Juglandaceae), particularly the Persian or English walnut, '' Juglans regia''. Although culinarily considered a "nut" and used as such, it is not a true ...

wood and has 13 or 14

s or, arranged in a semi- tempered

chromatic scale The chromatic scale (or twelve-tone scale) is a set of twelve pitches (more completely, pitch classes) used in tonal music, with notes separated by the interval of a semitone. Chromatic instruments, such as the piano, are made to produce the ...

(one of the only middle eastern musical instruments not

microtonal Microtonal music or microtonality is the use in music of microtones—intervals smaller than a semitone, also called "microintervals". It may also be extended to include any music using intervals not found in the customary Western tuning of tw ...

). The tembûr employs three metal strings that the first course is double. The melody is played on the double strings with a unique playing technique of strumming the right hand with each finger separately when motioning the hand upwards from the position beneath the strings.

Notable players

* Ostad Elahi * Ali Akbar Moradi *

Sohrab Pournazeri Sohrab Pournazeri is an Iranian musician and composer. He plays Kamancheh and Tanbour. Career Sohrab Pournazeri currently plays with Shams Ensemble which was established in 1980 and is focused on Persian classical music. Pournazeri's primary pe ...

* Seyed Khalil Alinezhad *Farid Elhami

References

Sources

* Necked bowl lutes Kurdish musical instruments Sacred musical instruments {{lute-stub sv:Tembûr

Notable players

See also

References

Sources