A mandolin is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of eight strings. A variety of string types are used, with steel strings being the most common and usually the least expensive. The courses are typically tuned in an interval of perfect fifths, with the same tuning as a violin. Also, like the violin, it is the soprano member of a family that includes the mandola, octave mandolin, mandocello and mandobass.
The bağlama or saz is a family of plucked string instruments and long-necked lutes used in Ottoman classical music, Turkish folk music, Turkish Arabesque music, Azerbaijani music, Bosnian music (Sevdalinka), Kurdish music, and Armenian music. It is played in several regions in the world such as Europe, Asia, Black Sea, Caucasus regions and many countries including Syria, Iraq, Iran and Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is commonly used by the ashiks.
The bouzouki is a musical instrument popular in Greece. It is a member of the long-necked lute family, with a round body with a flat top and a long neck with a fretted fingerboard. It has steel strings and is played with a plectrum producing a sharp metallic sound, reminiscent of a mandolin but pitched lower. It is the precursor to the Irish bouzouki, an instrument derived from the Greek bouzouki that is popular in Celtic, English, and North American folk music. There are two main types of Greek bouzouki: the trichordo (three-course) has three pairs of strings and the tetrachordo (four-course) has four pairs of strings. The instrument was brought to Greece in the early 1900s by Greek refugees from Anatolia, and quickly became the central instrument to the rebetiko genre and its music branches. It is now an important element of modern Laïko pop Greek music.
The cümbüş is a Turkish stringed instrument of relatively modern origin. It was developed in 1930 by Zeynel Abidin Cümbüş as an oud-like instrument that could be heard as part of a larger ensemble.
Tamburica or tamboura refers to a family of long-necked lutes popular in Southeast Europe and Central Europe, especially Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, and Hungary. It is also known in Burgenland, Austria. All took their name and some characteristics from the Persian tanbur but also resemble the mandolin and guitar in the sense that its strings are plucked and often paired. The frets may be moveable to allow the playing of various modes. The variety of tamburica shapes known today were developed in Serbia and Croatia by a number of indigenous contributors near the end of the 19th century.
Iovan Tsaous (1893–1942), was a Greek musician and composer of rebetiko songs from Pontus. His real name was Yiannis Eitziridis or Etseiridis. He played the saz.
The Irish bouzouki is an adaptation of the Greek bouzouki. The newer Greek tetrachordo bouzouki was introduced into Irish traditional music in the mid-1960s by Johnny Moynihan of the folk group Sweeney's Men, who retuned it from its traditional Greek tuning C³F³A³D⁴ to G²D³A³D⁴, a tuning he had pioneered previously on the mandolin. Alec Finn, first in the Cana Band and subsequently in De Dannan, introduced the first Greek trichordo (3 course) bouzouki into Irish music.
The buzuq is a long-necked fretted lute related to the Greek bouzouki and Iranian and Turkish saz.
Plucked string instruments are a subcategory of string instruments that are played by plucking the strings. Plucking is a way of pulling and releasing the string in such a way as to give it an impulse that causes the string to vibrate. Plucking can be done with either a finger or a plectrum.
The çifteli is a plucked string instrument, with only two strings, played mainly by the Albanians of northern and central Albania, southern Montenegro and parts of North Macedonia and Kosovo.
The term Tanbur can refer to various long-necked string instruments originating in Mesopotamia, Southern or Central Asia. According to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "terminology presents a complicated situation. Nowadays the term tanbur is applied to a variety of distinct and related long-necked lutes used in art and folk traditions. Similar or identical instruments are also known by other terms." These instruments are used in the traditional music of Iran, Iraq, India, Armenia, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Turkey, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan.
The baglamas, plural baglamades) or baglamadaki (μπαγλαμαδάκι), a long necked bowl-lute, is a plucked string instrument used in Greek music; it is a smaller version of the bouzouki pitched an octave higher, with unison pairs on the four highest strings and an octave pair on the lower D. Musically, the baglamas is most often found supporting the bouzouki in the Piraeus city style of rebetiko.
The Byzantine lyra or lira was a medieval bowed string musical instrument in the Byzantine Empire. In its popular form, the lyra was a pear-shaped instrument with three to five strings, held upright and played by stopping the strings from the side with the fingertips and fingernails. The oldest known depiction of the instrument is on a Byzantine ivory casket, dated to circa 900–1100 AD, preserved in the Bargello in Florence. Modern variants of the lyra are still played throughout the Balkans and in areas surrounding the Black Sea, including Greece, Crete, Karpathos, Albania, Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Croatia, Italy, Turkey and Armenia.
The cura is a plucked string folk instrument from Turkey. It is the smallest and highest pitched member of the bağlama family of instruments. It is found in nearly every region of the country with varying exact dimensions, tunings, playing techniques, and names including dede sazı,parmak cura,üç telli cura,bağlama curası, and tanbura curası. The two other members of the bağlama family are the larger tambura and the largest divan sazı, which are one and two octaves lower than the cura, respectively.
Greek musical instruments were grouped under the general term "all developments from the original construction of a tortoise shell with two branching horns, having also a cross piece to which the stringser from an original three to ten or even more in the later period, like the Byzantine era". Greek musical instruments can be classified into the following categories:
The Phandar is a traditional Vainakhish three-string plucked instrument from Chechnya and Ingushetia in the Northern Caucasus.
The Kemençe of the Black Sea is a Greek and Turkish traditional musical instrument. It belongs to the category of stringed bowed musical instruments. It has three strings, usually tuned to perfect fourths, usually tuned B-E-A. It is the pre-eminent musical folk instrument of the Greeks of Pontus. It seems to have been invented during the Byzantine years, between the 11th and 12th centuries. The instrument is made of different types of wood.
The tambura is a stringed instrument that is played as a folk instrument in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, North Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey. It has doubled steel strings and is played with a plectrum, in the same manner as a mandolin.
Saro Tribastone is an Italian composer, guitarist and performer of Mediterranean instrumental music who expresses his love for his homeland in Sicily through his compositions and performances of acoustic music.
