Play Tanbur online
A string instrument used in classical Turkish music, with a long fretted neck and a round bowl.
Dizi
On a keyboard, the keys A S D F G H J K play the eight pitches of the scale.
We welcome your ideas.
Turn your phone sideways or switch to full screen to see the instrument larger.
Keyboard keys
Add it to your home screen as a separate app: opens with one tap and works offline too. Free.
Keyboard: the up and down arrows select a course, Space or Enter plays it, plus and minus move the selected course's mandal by one comma.
Tap or swipe on the right side; tap the labels on the left to select a course. No sound on iPhone? Turn off silent mode.
Mandals
Lower or raise each pitch one comma at a time with the mandal levers. The setting applies to every course that has no setting of its own.
Course mandal
Tune a single course separately from the pitch setting. Courses you don't adjust follow the pitch setting.
About the Tanbur
In brief
- Family: Plucked string instrument (long-necked, fretted lute family)
- Origin: Ancient tambur tradition; the Turkish tanbur took its present form in the 18th century
- Body and materials: Hemispherical bowl of thin staves (usually 17–23); spruce soundboard 2–3 mm thick
- Neck: About 1 m long (100–110 cm) and very slender
- Strings: Today usually seven (three pairs and a single bass string); eight-string models also existed
- Frets: Gut or nylon frets tied to the neck, placed according to makam intervals
- Playing: With a long tortoiseshell plectrum with a V-shaped tip; the bowed type is called yaylı tanbur
- 16th–17th centuries: Mentioned in Revani's İşaretname; Evliya Çelebi's account suggests that in his day the tanbur was more popular with the public than the oud[1, 2, 3]
Getting started: types, sizes, tuning
- Dimensions: The body is about 35 cm in diameter, the neck about 1 m, and the string length usually 104 cm.
- Frets: The neck has about 60 frets; the player can add or remove frets if needed.
- Strings: The eight strings are in pairs; the lowest steel pair is tuned to yegâh.
- Difference from the bağlama: It is accepted in a single size and a single tuning; it has no düzen (tunings) as the bağlama does.
- Sensitivity: The neck can bend over time under string tension; a slight sinking of the soundboard, however, is considered a sign of maturity.[1, 4]
History
A long-necked fretted instrument regarded as the symbol of classical Turkish music. From the 17th century it became a leading instrument of court and tekke (Sufi lodge) music; Tanbûrî Cemil Bey brought it to its most brilliant period in the early 20th century.
Construction
It consists of a hemispherical body built from staves, a thin wooden soundboard and a very long, slender neck. The frets tied to the neck are placed according to the comma intervals of makam music; usually seven strings are fitted, three pairs and one single.
How it's played
It is played with a long plectrum of tortoiseshell or plastic. A variant called the yaylı tanbur is played with a violin bow.
Useful while you practice
Project notes
- Pitch system: Arel-Ezgi-Uzdilek pitches are shown on a scale dividing the octave into 53 equal parts (the Holder comma, ≈22.6 cents), a close approximation of the theory's Pythagorean-ratio pitches. Each pitch is computed as its letter position plus the mandal shift; reference A4 = 440 Hz.
- Interval abbreviations: B = bakiye (4), S = küçük mücenneb (5), K = büyük mücenneb (8), T = tanini (9), A = augmented second (12–13 commas).
- Sound: real kanun recordings, retuned to comma precision for each pitch. With the synthesis option, each course is generated as three slightly detuned strings.
- Mandals: per-pitch tuning is the default; any course can also be tuned separately. Makam presets are per pitch.
- Known limitations: pitch names are referenced to Rast (G); makam presets are awaiting expert review.
Frequently asked questions about the Tanbur
How do I play the virtual tanbur?
No installation is needed in the browser. In the realistic view, the long tanbur neck lies horizontally across the screen, and the pitches appear as finger positions on the string; you play by tapping or sliding your finger. On the keyboard, A–K plays the first octave and Q–U the second. Since the neck is long, turning your phone sideways or going full screen makes playing easier.
How are the pitches set according to the makam on the virtual tanbur?
On a real tanbur, the frets are tied to the neck according to makam intervals, and the player chooses the fret the makam calls for. The virtual tanbur makes this choice for you: when you choose a makam from the makam strip, only that makam's pitches are laid out, with their comma values, for two octaves starting from its tonic. The tonic and dominant are marked in color.
Whose recording is the sound of the virtual tanbur?
The sounds were cut one by one and processed from the “tanbur.wav” recording shared by Xavier Serra on Freesound and played by Hamza Zeytinoğlu (CC BY 4.0). Each pitch is played from the nearest note recording, tuned with comma precision. Until the recordings load, synthesized sound plays; you can switch to the “Synthesis” option whenever you like.
Can I practice taksims and peşrevs on the virtual tanbur?
Yes. If you choose the tanbur in the “Play it yourself” step of the “Learn this piece” section of a piece in the sheet music archive, the virtual tanbur opens with the piece's makam. To practice taksim, you can read the makam's seyir on its makam page and move through the tonic, dominant and asma karar pitches one after another on the virtual tanbur.
Sources
- TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi
- Wikipedia
- ozanyarman.com
- DergiPark