Instruments

According to Buddhist mythology, the first tamburitza was created by the god Tamburu, the protector of music and musicians.

The tamburitza is a stringed folk instrument that we can strum and twang. It is a traditional and not autochthon cultural product of the southern Slavs and other peoples of the Balkans. It is related to the Russian balaljajk, the Ukrainian bandur, the Italian mandolin, the Spanish guitar and other similar instruments which all come from Persia (modern-day Iran). The first historical sources regarding the existence of an instrument similar to the tamburitza are more than 5000 years old – that of the Asir tamburitza, which is very similar to our tamburitza.

The tamburitza evolved from a stringed instrument that was known in ancient Mesopotamian cultures. A picture of the instrument, with its long neck and small pear-shaped body, was found carved in a stone from the third century. Preserved drawings in Tebi, Egypt also speak of the predecessors of the tamburitza. From these pictures it is not clear whether these long-necked lutes (science calls them spear lutes) already had frets or not. This type of lute also appeared later among the Greeks and Romans with the title pandora.

The name tamburitza comes from the Persian word t-n, which means string. The Persian title denbar and Arabian tambur come from the same root. The Arabian theorist Alfarabi in the tenth century mentioned various types of tamburitzas and listed the order of frets on the Baghdad tamburitza.

In the evolution of the lute, we can differentiate between two types of lutes: the short-necked and the long-necked lute, from which all instruments related to the tamburitza originate. Arabians brought the short-necked lute to Spain, Sicily, and southern Italy. From it, the guitar evolved in Spain; in Italy, the mandolin. From the long-necked lute, which was also brought to Italy by the Arabians, the colascione, an instrument very similar to the tamburitza, originated. It held its own all the way up until the 18th century, when the mandolin pushed it to the background. The long-necked lute came to the Balkans with the Turks as the tamburitza, to Bulgaria as the pandura, to the Ukraine as the bandura, and to Russia as the balalajka and domra, which is likewise called the tambura in some Tartar regions.

Although we can find the tamburitza in places amongst Bulgarians, Greeks and Albanians, this instrument is most at home in the Balkans, primarily amongst Muslims, from whom the tamburitza was gradually accepted by neighbouring peoples and the inhabitants of the surrounding countries.

The exact time of arrival of the tamburitza on the Balkan peninsula from its original homeland is unknown. Some believe that the southern Slavs came to the lands they inhabit today with the tamburitza prior to the 13th century. Others are certain that the Turks brought it with them just over 500 years ago. In his school for the tamburitza, dr. Josip Andrić says that it came to the modern-day area 1300 years ago with the ancient Slavs. Similar opinions have found support in the chronicles of the Byzantine writer Teofilakta Simokate from the seventh century, who writes that on the border of Byzantine Empire, three Slavs were captured – but instead of carrying weapons they bore stringed instruments. We can connect the arrival of the tamburitza in its current area with the appearance of various peoples who moved to and settled the new region and who, along with their weapons, brought pieces of their cultural heritage, including clothing, habits, oral literature, poems, dance and some instruments. Communal life of the different peoples in the same territory brought an intermingling of influences and an enrichment of spiritual creativity as the cultures accepted certain habits, beliefs, styles of clothing, poems and songs from each other, and began to use the same instruments.

The oldest preserved written historical document regarding the tamburitza in its present-day territory comes from the year 1551 and speaks about tamburitzas in Bosnia in the travelogue of N. Nicolae, who was the escort to the French consul in Turkey.

We can certainly conclude that Bosnia was the ancient center of the folk tamburitza. With the migration of the Šokc and Bunjevc peoples from Bosnia, the tamburitza, brought to Slavonia and Bačka, became the most distinctive folk instrument of Slavonia and Vojvodina in the 18th and 19th centuries. After Slavonia and Bačka the tamburitza also spread to Kosovo and Metohia, Macedonia, Lika, Kordun, Slovenia, Zagorje, Medjimurje and part of southern Hungary.

The oldest preserved tamburitza is from the middle of the 19th century. It has a small body (23 cm), a long neck (46 cm), head (26 cm) with ten pegs for ten strings. The total length of this tamburitza is 95 cm. With Macedonians, Albanians and Bosnians, the tamburitza of today has kept its original oriental shape with its robust body, extremely long neck and sharpened head with pegs in front and on the side. In Slavonia and Bačka its shape has undergone some important alterations: the neck is shortened, the shape of the head is winding, and the strings sound very different. Under the influence of the guitar, the once pear-shaped form has changed to a double pumpkin shape, so that the tamburitza is straying further and further away from the original historical tamburitza.

Just as there were differences in faiths, languages, and everything the various peoples brought with them to the present-day territory where the tamburitza is played, so also were there various instruments until time and musical practice settled the form, size, sound and type of the modern tamburitzas.

tamburitza SAMICA

In the time of the Turks the tamburitza was one of the most popular instruments of Bosnian janizaries (elite Turkish guards), who played it as soloists (“samci”), hence the tamburitza’s name,  samica. This tamburitza has two strings. We can still find this kind of tamburitza today, primarily in Slavonia, Lika and Vojvodina, and the people still call the tamburitza samica. Sometimes other names are used for this tamburitza: dangubica, razbibriga, tikvara or podpalac. These names refer to the appearance, method of playing, or the mood it creates for listeners or for the musician who plays on it. The tamburitza samica is just one of the stages of evolution of the tamburitza, and it itself likely changed and evolved, as each player was usually also the maker of his own samica. It has the basic shape of a pumpkin that is split down the middle in two identical halves. Normally it is made by the musician himself, in the size that most suits his hands and voice. The parts of the samica are the body, neck, head with a tuning mechanism and strings, which are strung over the nut and bridge.