Tamur

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Tamur ( Russian тамур ), also Pandur (пандур), a two-stringed nave loud that the people of the Avars in the Russian republic of Dagestan is played mostly for vocal accompaniment. The plucked instrument belongs to a group of lute instruments with a narrow body that are common in the Caucasus under similar names , including the pondur in Chechnya and the panduri in Georgia . The agach kumuz in Dagestan is a long-necked lute that is identical to the tamur and has three to four metal strings.

Origin and Distribution

The oldest evidence of long-necked lute dates back to the 2nd millennium BC. In Mesopotamia two- to three-stringed instruments, of which it is not known whether they had frets , were always plucked with a pick in the right hand. The name pandur comes from the Sumerian pan-tur , which means "small bow". The development of the lute had the advantage over the harp that it was smaller and lighter and could also be played while marching. The word is made up of pan , the name for the bow harp widely used in western Asia, and tur , "small". Tur still occurs in the Georgian language as tar, thir or tul in the same meaning. With pandur , pandura is related to the ancient Greek lute and pandora . Franzis Galpin traces the name tunbūr , corresponding to Persian tanbūr , to pandur , which first appeared in Arabic literature in the 7th century for a musical instrument . The word context of tanbūr includes a series of long-necked sounds in a wide area between the Balkans in the west ( tambura ), northern Afghanistan ( dambura ), southern Pakistan ( tanburo ) and India ( tanpura , tandura ). The Georgian panduri is related in form and language to the Armenian pandura . Chechen pondur is not only a long-necked lute with a slightly different shape than the tamur , but is also the general name for a musical instrument in Chechnya.

Design

The tamur has a narrow body that tapers elegantly towards the neck and forms a long trapezoid when viewed from above , i.e. it ends with a straight edge at the bottom. In the upper third, the body is deeply bulbous and tapers towards the lower end in the side view. Some instruments don't end straight like a board, but fork-shaped with several prongs. Traditionally, the body of the tamur is cut out of a block of linden wood. The wooden ceiling is flat and perforated with a few small holes in different positions. The two strings run over a bridge that is loosely placed on the top to the lateral vertebrae at the end of the straight neck. The fingerboard has frets. According to the Chechen pondur, some modern instruments are equipped with three metal strings and pegs with a tuning mechanism like the guitar . The Avars sometimes differentiate the two-stringed tamur from the similarly shaped agach kumuz ( agatsch komus or agach komuz ) with three to four strings. Among the Darginers , the agach kumuz is also called kumuz for short , corresponding to komuz , a name for long-necked lutes widely used in Central Asia.

Style of play

The musician plucks the strings individually with his right hand or produces chords if he strikes them all at the same time, and shortens the strings with his left hand on the fingerboard. The main vocal music of the Avars and most of the other 30 different peoples in Dagestan is the recital of a mostly male solo singer who accompanies himself on a plucked lute. The Avars also use the spiked fiddle chagana and the frame drum chchergilu instead of the tamur to accompany singing . The narrative singing tradition, in which heroic stories and historical events are recited using short melodic phrases, is related to that of the Azerbaijani bard Ashyq and the Turkish aşık . The typical songs sung by men are called kalul kutschdul and consist of a frequently repeated melody to reproduce the story. Another melody phrase frames the narrative text as an introduction and conclusion.

The Darginers, the second largest ethnic group in Dagestan, also focus on male singing. Like the Kumyks and Lesgier, they accompany him with the long-necked chongur (related to the Georgian chonguri ) or the agach kumuz . The equally used tone scales and the rhythm with a typical alternation of 6/8 and 3/4 time show the musical affinity of the Dagestani ethnic groups.

literature

  • Tamur. In: Laurence Libin (Ed.): The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. Vol. 4, Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 2014, p. 705

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wilhelm Stauder: The music of the Sumer, Babylonier and Assyrer. In: Bertold Spuler (Hrsg.): Handbuch der Orientalistik. 1. Dept. The Near and Middle East. Supplementary Volume IV. Oriental Music. EJ Brill, Leiden / Cologne 1970, p. 195
  2. ^ Francis W. Galpin: The Music of the Sumerians and their Immediate Successors, the Babylonians and Assyrians. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1937, p. 35
  3. ↑ See J.-C. Chabrier: Ṭunbūr. In: The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition . Volume 10, Brill, Leiden 2000, p. 625
  4. ↑ Laurence Libin, 2014, p. 705
  5. ↑ Atlas of Plucked Instruments. Middle East: Dagestan: agach komus
  6. ↑ Andrea Kuzmich: The Bards & Ballads of Dagestan. February 25, 2014
  7. ↑ Manašir Jakubov: Caucasus. 5. Dagestan. In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present . Sachteil 5, 1996, Col. 25-27