Instruments

The tamburitza has three parts: the body (korpus), the neck and the head. The body is chiseled out of the wood of a maple tree, sometimes also from ash, walnut, willow, pear, cherry or plum trees, and more rarely one can even find a body made from turtle shell. Nowadays some tamburitzas, especially those with larger bodies, are not carved out at all, but rather made from thin curved wood. The body, then, can have either a pear or guitar shape. The body is covered with a thin plank of soft wood (spruce, fir, or cedar), which is called the soundboard (tahta). Part of the soundboard is usually protected by hard wood (walnut or ebony), which protects it from the movement of the pick. On the soundboard there are sound holes – anywhere between 8 and 24. Newer tamburitzas usually only have one larger hole in the center. The neck of the tamburitza (handle) is long as a rule. Along the upper side, which is usually covered with a darker, thicker board, the pick up  is attached, which frets or corners are nailed to (used to be wound) crosswise. Frets are made of steel wire (previously from string). They mark the place where pressure from the fingers shortens the string and changes the tone. The frets of the first tamburitzas were arranged by untimed tuners, while on the newer ones by timed ones, usually chrome, or occasionally diatonic (in which case the frets only reach halfway up the neck from the bottom side for full notes and from the top side down to the halfway mark for half notes). The head of the tamburitza has a cone or curled shape at the end. Pegs are attached to the head. Rather than the original wooden keys, today a mechanism for winding the strings is fixed to the head, which is suitable for the curved head. Between the head and the neck there is the nut with a hollow cut out for each of the strings. The strings are attached from the pegs over the nut, along the neck and body, to where the bridge is located with cut-outs for the strings. The strings are secured at the base of the body from underneath around hooks.

The number of strings ranges from 2 to up to 169, but the most common tamburitzas have 4-6 strings. They can be tuned to the same note (single-note tamburitzas) or to 2, 3, 4 or more notes, and in fourths(4 strings – two double and two single strings tuned in quarters, or one double and three single strings also tuned in quarters), fifths (three double strings tuned in fifths), or even in tercets or seconds. The strings are strummed by hand or with a pick. The length of the tamburitza popularly crafted is between 45 and 115 cm. The most common tamburitzas are from 70 to 95 cm long, but very small instruments (37 cm) also exist, and in tamburitza orchestras also very large tamburitzas are used (140-200 cm). The original shape of the tamburitza is preserved in Bosnia, but elsewhere the shape varies and the tamburitza is called by different names according to its size. The different shape and size of the tamburitza depends on its role in the tamburitza ensemble.