Panduri: Georgia musical instrument

The panduri is a traditional three-string plucked musical instrument of Georgia. The musical instrument is common in all the regions of the eastern Georgia. The musical instrument is commonly used to accompany solo heroic, comic and love music and dance.

source of picture: hangebi.ge

The frets on the musical instrument are often made of wood inlaid in the fingerboard, normally seven frets to an octave, but chromatic fretting can also be seen on the musical instrument. The body of the panduri is often produced more in the shape of a spade, less usually with a parallel sided end block. The body of the instrument is traditionally constructed from a single block of wood, but staved construction was also used.

The three stringed version of the musical instrument is tuned; g-a–c' or e-b-a' while the two-stringed version of the musical instrument is tuned; d-c'.

The panduri is a three stringed lute that is from the highland and lowland regions of the eastern Georgia, often performed by strumming, and usually for choral and rhythmic support of vocal melody. The musical instrument is of two kinds in the country: the first is the traditional folk panduri that typically has seven frets. The second version is the chromatic panduri that has the same tonal division as a guitar and can produce all the half-steps of the tempered western scale. An analogous musical instrument is found in Chechnya, where it is called “pondar, ponder, pander or pandur.