The Foundations of Tambura

Series Summary

The tambura, named after the Tambura River in Romania, is a Bulgarian stringed instrument more commonly known as a lyre. The tambura originated in the Serbia, Croatia area centuries ago and is still used to play traditional Slavic folk music. There are several different types of tamburas. Some have three strings, some have four. There are some tamburas that have double strings. All of them look basically the same. They have a long neck with a deep, gourd-like body.

In this free video series, watch as expert tambura player teaches how to play the tambura. Learn how to tune and hold the tambura, how to practice and how to different fingering techniques. The tambura can be used for both entertainment and meditation. So watch these easy step by step music lessons and start playing today.

Video Transcript

"Welcome to the foundation segment of the tambura. I'd like to talk first a little bit about the history and then we'll go over the parts of the instrument. The tambura was first seen in Indian music about 2,000 years ago. The stringed instruments were formed or created as part of the vocal tradition. Passing along old, old scriptures, vocally rather than in written form. So let's talk about the parts of the instrument. The tambura is made up, generally, of a neck and a gourd. And the neck is made of wood, it's hollow and at the head of the neck are four tuning keys that are wound with the four strings. One for each string. And, as we come down the neck, to the gourd which creates the volume of sound as a sound box. Just show you some of the beautification of the instrument. This is handcrafted and you can actually see at the base of the gourd, that it really is a gourd. You can even hear the dust rattling around inside if you get close enough. The hand carving and the inlay. As you come further down the neck, you will notice the bridge and the fine tuning keys. Once you've tuned the basic range of notes on the strings, you use these fine tuning keys to bring the notes into better resonance. You may also note that there are some threads going underneath each of the strings. And these threads create the resonating sound and you move these threads according to creating that resonating sound just by sliding the thread. And we'll get more into this later. I just wanted you to hear the difference on the string without resonance and than with resonance. That's without and there's with the resonance. So it has a very different sound once the resonating starts. And that's the sound that you think of when you hear the tambura. Because this instrument originated in sacred music, the instrument itself is considered sacred as long as it's played right. And we'll talk more about that later."