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Folk Dance Federation of California, South, Inc.
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In Instruments of the Balkans 1, I started to cover the long-necked folk lutes of the Balkans and give a short thumbnail sketch of how some of the people who inhabit the region came to settle there. In this article I will touch on some more of these instruments and the people who use them.
The tamburas that are used by the Bulgarian and Macedonian peoples are apparently derived from older Turkish models, probably the nearly obsolete bozuk saz and Ćifte telli. The bozuk saz is now played almost exclusively by Turkish Kurds and is a direct descendant of the older Persian Khorasani-i-tanbur. However, the Slavic peoples of the balkans did not leave them alone, but restrung and retuned them to suit themselves. It is my conjecture that when the Bulgars arrived from their Central Asiatic homeland, they brought the ancient komuz with them. The komuz is a long-necked lute related to the Turkish saz family and still to be found amongst the Central Asiatic peoples. It has only two strings and in its simplest form is tuned in fourths – G C. The oldest form of tambura that still survives in the Rhodope region has two courses of double strings and also tuned in fourths – A D. This is only one step above the komuz and possibly reflects the original tuning, if not necessarily the original construction of the instrument.
Although the Rhodope instrument still carries archaic Turkish characteristics: T-shaped pegs, two on top of the neck perpendicular to the face, and two at a 45-degree angle from the face along the left side. String used as a primitive string guide against the nut. Two small holes, one in the middle of the face and one along the left side of the body. It is clearly ancestral to the more developed Macedonian tambura. The Macedonian tambura still shows a kinship with the archaic Rhodope model, but the Bulgarian tambura has evolved to the point that little of the original form survives, it has developed a raised fingerboard with fixed metal frets, three and sometimes four courses of double strings, a modern machine-operated peghead, and a style of playing quite different from the earlier style of droning one course while playing melody on the main string.
The Jugoslav tamburica family was descended from a type of tambura resembling the Macedonian type. The first was the brač, then the others were developed to fill out the four-part harmonies that the music required. In time they took on the form of guitars except for the brass berde (large stringed instrument), and small prim (high-pitched stringed instrument) which still retain the original outline.
In Greece, the bouzouki was developed from the bozuk saz rather recently, taking on the mandola body only about the turn of this century. An early form is almost extinct in Albania, but does survive and is the 1870s Greek model. Like the Bulgarian tambura, it has evolved to the point that little of the original form or style of playing has survived in modern bouzouki music.
In Albania, the clearest evidence of Turkish ancestry is found in the çifteli and sharki. The çifteli is from Turkish çifte telli (a pair of strings) and sharki is from the Turkish sarki (song). The çifteli has only two strings usually tuned G C but the second string can be retuned so it will be in unison, seconds, thirds, fourths, or fifths. It is fretted in a fixed microtonal scale without accidentals. In Albania, the frets are fixed metal, but in Jugoslavian Kosovo they use tied wire frets.
The sharki resembles the çifteli except that it is larger and tuned quite differently. It has five strings tuned FF &#nbsp;C &#nbsp;GG. The style of playing is unusual and is similar to the Turkish aşiksaz style. The player strokes all strings at all times, using the thumb to dampen the F strings when the G strings are open. The thumb also is used to play on the F strings when the scale requires an A or partial flat. In Albania, it is fretted with metal frets in a western scale unlike the çifteli, but in Kosovo it is tuned to the same microtonal scale as the çifteli.
Both the çifteli and the sharki have the archaic small hole in the center of the face and the small hole in the left side of the body. Both have primitive pegs atop the peghead perpendicular to the face and at a 45-degree angle along the left side. In Albania they are lightly decorated with burn patterns along the edge of the face and smoothly finished. In Kosovo they are highly decorated on the face, body, and neck with deep burns and are not usually finished but left in white wood.
I hope these articles have helped sort out the confusion that some people have expressed to me about the string instruments in the Balkans, and perhaps I may go into more detail about some of them in the future for those who have an interest.
Printed in Folk Dance Scene, December 1985