Tanbur: Afghanistan musical instrument

The term tanbur is a long-necked string instrument that emanated from Central Asia and Southern Asia. Today the term tanbur is linked to a variety of distinct and related long-necked string instruments that are being used in art and folk traditions in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

Elsewhere, a study has revealed that tanbur is been derived from pandur which is Sumerian term which means long-necked lutes. It has also been revealed that tanbur has been in existence in Mesopotamia since the era of Akkadian, the third millennium BCE.

A small figure have been discovered in Susa that has been in existence since 1500BCE and in hands of one of them is seen a tanbur-like instrument. The rocks near Mosul that which been in existence since 1000BCE shows some image of tanbur players. All through the Sassanid period and in the late Parthian era, playing tanbur was very common because the word tanbur is used in middle Persian and Parthian language

Al-Farabi in the 10^th CE century described two tanburs found in Persia as a Baghdad tanbur distributed south and west of Baghdad and the second as a Khorasan tanbur. This distinguishing feature may be the source of modern differentiation between the Arabic musical instrument that are derived from the Baghdad tanbur and the musical instrument that are found in northern Iraq, Syria and Turkey from the Khorasan tanbur.

As the Persian name continued to spread widely, it eventually took in long-necked string musical instrument used in Central Asian music such as dombura and the classical Turkish tanbur and also Kurdish tembur. This was so until the early 20^th century when the names chambar and jumbush were being applied to musical instruments in northern Iraq. In India it was known as tanpura, a fretless drone lute. Tanbur travelled through Al-Hirah to the Arabian Peninsula and in the early islam period it travelled to the European countries. In Greek it was named Tanbouras and was named Tampura in Russia, it became domra on reaching Siberia and was renamed to dombra when it got to Mongolia and also is called pandura/bandura as it got to Byzantine Empire and through the Byzantine empire it travelled to the rest of the European countries and was called pandura, mandura, bandura, etc. After, the Iranian tanbur became connected with the music of Ahl-e Haqq.

In the recent days, the afghan tambur which measures 80cm in height and 16cm in breadth, pear-shaped resonator, produced of either a single piece of multiple carvels of mulberry wood, the neck manufactured from walnut and possesses fourteen frets, arranged in a semi-tempered chromatic scale and possessing two steel strings tuned in fifth, fourth or second intervals and whose higher string may be double coursed is played mainly in the North of Afghanistan, Mazar Sharif and Kabul. Afghan tanbur formally has wider hollow neck and gourd-like body, but nowadays they seem to look more like Herati dutar, but the body outline is rounder and the neck is decorated and is separate and has three courses of metal strings. The music can come with singing and dancing or playing classical ghazal.