The ''yaylı tambur'' is a bowed long-neck

lute A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck (music), neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted. More specifically, the term "lu ...

from

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

. Derived from the older plucked ''mızraplı tambur'' variant of the

Turkish tambur The is a fretted string instrument of Turkey and the former lands of the Ottoman Empire. There are two variants, one of which is played with a plectrum (''mızraplı tambur'') and the other with a bow ('' yaylı tambur''). The player is call ...

, it has a long,

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 inst ...

ted neck and a round metal or wooden soundbox which is often covered on the front with a skin or acrylic head similar to that of a

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and in modern forms is usually made of plastic, where early membranes were made of animal skin. ...

. The instrument is held vertically, with the soundbox resting in the player's lap or between the calves or it can be worn on a strap. The bow is grasped sideways, with the little, ring and middle fingers pressing on the horsehairs, while the thumb and index fingers hold the rightmost wooden edge of the bow or it can be held overhand like a Cello Bow to allow for more expressiveness. The leftmost strings of the instrument unite into a single course to form a doubled-string which is tuned to a unison that is lifted slightly from the bridge. This is where all melodic playing takes place. The rest are sympathetic strings numbering from 4 to 6 which are tuned to the octave, fifth and/or fourth of the main doubled-string. Due to the special nature of the instrument, the neck behaves as though it was unfretted despite the ordinary placement of numerous frets (anywhere from 24 to 34 or more to the octave). That is to say, the fingers can press down on unfretted parts of the neck to achieve the same effect as stopping the frets. This allows the glissandi and portamenti to be executed flawlessly which constitute the primary characteristics of the yaylı tambur. Moreover, the frets can be moved about depending on the tastes and choices of the player to achieve correct intonation of a given

makam Maqam, makam, maqaam or maqām (plural maqāmāt) may refer to: Musical structures * Arabic maqam, melodic modes in traditional Arabic music ** Iraqi maqam, a genre of Arabic maqam music found in Iraq * Persian maqam, a notion in Persian class ...

. Dr. Ozan Yarman has proposed an alternate 24-tone tuning and fretting for the tambur that he has applied to his own instrument, which replaces the Arel-Ezgi-Uzdilek tone-system in use for Turkish Art music while also relying on the same array of accustomed microtonal accidentals to notate. CumbusTanbur of DrOzanYarman

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* Turkish musical instruments Bowed string instruments Drumhead lutes Necked bowl lutes Necked lutes Turkish words and phrases Instruments of Ottoman classical music Instruments of Turkish makam music Turkish inventions {{lute-stub

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