Whether the saz and bouzouki are distinct from the tamboura

Musical instruments
, ,
1

Although the relationship between the tambura and the saz has been discussed before, and significant research has been carried out into how the tambura evolved into the bouzouki, I decided to start this thread to share my opinion on the relationship between the saz and the tambura, and also to ask you more experienced members for some further information about the early bouzouki (although I suspect there aren’t many sources from that period; then again, I don’t know—perhaps someone knows something, whereas I certainly don’t (yet)).

As we know, the saz originated from the tambura. And it is clear that (as has also been said in other threads) they have a similar construction philosophy, which is why it is very easy and common for people to sell sazes as tamburas, since less experienced people in particular are unable to spot the differences and distinguish a genuine tambura from a saz that someone has labelled a tambura and sold as one. The truth is that I have never personally held a tambura (or a saz) in my hands, nor do I know whether genuine tamburas are still commercially available. But based on what I have heard, seen and read, I have come to the conclusion that, essentially, the saz is also a tambura—or, more precisely, an eastern version of the tambura. If someone in the Byzantine Empire who knew about tamburas had picked up a saz, they would probably have said that it was a tambura, since minor (and even more significant) differences between instruments did not matter particularly much at the time. In the same way, even more recently there was no bouzouki, half-bouzouki, tzoura and so on. If someone knew the bouzouki, then to them it would be a bouzouki, a small bouzouki (they might even have called it a half-bouzouki), an even smaller bouzouki, and once it reached the size of a baglamas, it would have become sufficiently different for them to call it something else (a baglamas). The same applies to the tambura, even if it has a larger body and a sound hole on the side. It is essentially a tambura, just slightly different, even if the Turks call it a saz. In any case, if I am not mistaken, during the Byzantine period the word tambura generally referred to the group of tambura-like instruments—in other words, to the various forms of the tambura (I don’t think there were standard dimensions and so on back then). And I believe that nowadays, too, we should be a little more flexible with these names.

I would also like to raise a related question here—one that I think is a little difficult to answer given the available evidence:
When did the bouzouki start being called a bouzouki? When did the tambura become sufficiently different to be called a bouzouki? Was it when frets were added? When equal-tempered frets were added? When metal strings were introduced? When? Or did people at some point simply start calling tamburas-bouzouki tamburas? And what about the name “gonato”? What did it originally refer to? If anyone can answer these questions, it would help me clear a few things up in my mind.

Also, if anyone who knows about tamburas and sazes has anything more to say about their similarities or differences, please do so, because I know very little and therefore can’t really add anything further.

I really appreciate your patience if you sat down and read the whole post!

3 Likes
2

The tambouras used in music schools came into being as an instrument in the 1980s. It is a Turkish saz, originally made by Turkish craftsmen to order from Greece. The sound hole on the front rather than on the side was simply intended to provide a distinguishing feature that would justify describing it as a separate — and indeed Greek — instrument.

The aim was to create an instrument that could reproduce the intervals of the musical modes with relative ease, as prescribed by Byzantine music theory, so that it could be used in the newly established Music Schools of the time. And indeed, the number and arrangement of the frets differ slightly from the more usual numbers and arrangements found on Turkish saz instruments. Yet they differ even more from anything that had ever existed in the Greek tradition, since cantors do not play instruments, while folk musicians do not follow Byzantine intervals, but rather the intervals of their own locality.

The old traditional Greek tambouras was not “one” instrument; it was a general name covering a multitude of local variants with different sizes, proportions, numbers of strings, tunings and playing techniques. The same was true of Turkish saz instruments in earlier times. The saz instruments underwent compulsory standardisation and regularisation, and I do not know what traces of their former diversity have survived, whereas the tambouras instruments died out and disappeared, with the sole exception of an instrument from Crete that was not called a tambouras (but was one!). It was usually called a bouzouki or boulgari, and today we call it a boulgari. The boulgari survived thanks to one person alone, Foustalieris, who was fortunate enough to make recordings and also to become involved with younger musicians such as Leonidas Lainakis and Ross Daly, who were interested in preserving his knowledge.

The multitude of former local variants of the instruments that, in today’s terminology, we call saz instruments when referring to Turks and tambouras instruments when referring to Greeks is a small part of the broader multitude of variants of a general instrument type which, insofar as it is of more immediate relevance to us, covers the entire Balkans and the Near East, but which in broader terms extends across more or less the whole of the Old World.

6 Likes
3

I agree with what you’re saying, and I have to agree, since it is the objective truth. And this is where things get complicated. As I said, the saz is essentially a tambura (given that “tambura” is really a term encompassing a group of similar instruments), and what we nowadays think of as the tambura is actually the saz (the saz in its now-standardised form, which we have deliberately altered only minimally, making changes that have no real significance—for example, putting the hole in the soundboard). Generally speaking, what’s happening is ridiculous! The instrument we present as the tambura and consider to be a Greek instrument is actually the standardised Eastern version of the Greek (Byzantine) tambura. Ultimately, the saz is a tambura, but the modern tambura is a saz!

4

Why is that ridiculous, my friend? The violin in Turkey is called keman. But we know it’s the same thing. I don’t see a problem :slightly_smiling_face:

1 Like
5

I call it ridiculous, because the instrument we present as a tambouras and boast about for its Greekness is actually its Turkish form. We have to admit that, although the family of tamboura-type instruments originated in Greece (and the surrounding areas), we have now embraced its Turkish version (the saz). Of course, this may have happened because it was mainly the saz that survived, while the other tambouras instruments—with a few exceptions, such as the boulgari—fell out of use. That is why, as far as we can, and using the limited sources available to us, we should revive other Greek forms of the tamboura as well (a difficult undertaking, of course, but perhaps something can be done).

6

I’m confused. Who says it was created in Greece, and where is this strictly Greek version of the instrument that we supposedly can’t play? Pericles also explained to you that it isn’t a specific type of instrument, but a more general name. So how do we conclude that identifying it with the saz isn’t historically accurate?

2 Likes
7

In general, there is a belief that the tambouras is Greek (as is also evident from its compulsory teaching in music schools, which basically teach the saz). The tambouras (as we have reiterated on other occasions) is a group of instruments that developed to a great extent in Greece. The saz is one type (among many) of tambouras, and probably the most widespread in Greece. What I mean is that it is somewhat odd that the Greek versions of the tambouras are not used as much in Greece (there are so many that we will probably never be able to learn about them all) as its eastern version, the saz. Of course, we cannot deny the Greek (in part) origins of the saz, nor its Turkish character.

8

“Tambouras” is a generic name, but depending on the period and place, it may refer to a specific tambouras. For example, in Greece today, when used on its own it usually refers to the school tambouras, and probably never to the bouzouki—which is, of course, perfectly properly a “tambouras” in the general sense as well. “Saz” works similarly: it can be used generically, but today it usually refers specifically to the saz instruments of the present day, which probably took elements from various earlier ones: a tendency towards larger sizes across the board; short-necked and long-necked varieties; double rather than quadruple mourgana strings; and perhaps the vertical magkies from the old short-necked type; as well as a standard triple kantini, perhaps taken from the aşık saz.

9

Read this post

My friend, this will certainly offer you something. Read others as well, elsewhere—there are countless ones. You will realise what you have already understood and expressed, in a way:

The instruments called pandoura, tamboura, tambouras, tamburi, saz, bouzouki, ikitelli, karadouzeni, liogari / yogari, boulgari, tzivouri, kavouras and gonato (and there are other similar names too) are all related to one another and belong to the family of long-necked lutes. They all developed from an instrument referred to in an ancient text from the 4th century BC as the “Trichordon” (Τρίχορδον), whose homeland was Mesopotamia.

5 Likes
10

The compulsory instrument at the Corfu music school is the mandolin. It does indeed have a centuries-old tradition on the island, but I don’t think anyone debates its Greekness.

I’m not saying that Greece was historically excluded from the development of tambouras-type instruments. I’m saying that there was never a pan-Hellenic standardised form of the instrument that differed from what exists in Turkey.

2 Likes
11

I’ve read the post you mentioned, Mr Niko. It actually shed light on various areas for me (including, to some extent, the points I’m making)! Generally speaking, what I’ve understood from reading this, as well as other discussions on the forum, is that the names of instruments did not previously refer to standardised instruments. There were significant variations. Nowadays, as we said, these names refer to specific instruments — representative ones, I would say. In the end, this creates confusion, since many instruments were identified by several names, whereas now a few instruments are identified by some of those names. Ultimately, what once denoted a family of instruments now denotes a single instrument, which was previously identified by another name. In this particular case, they are all drum-like, and that is what matters above all. Now, whether there have been back-borrowings of instrument names, and whether we have ended up with an instrument similar to the various ones we had, is not particularly important, but neither can we disregard it entirely.

12

That is wrong. The tambouras, as a general term for long-necked lutes, developed throughout the eastern Mediterranean basin, and not only there.
To me, the term tambouras is an arbitrary term that was „invented“ to refer to the instrument used in music schools. What is ridiculous about that?

Where does that conclusion come from? That we regard the tambouras as a Greek Byzantine instrument? It was an instrument common throughout the Byzantine Empire, not a Greek one.
You have things very confused in your mind and accept as irrefutable truths opinions that have no historical basis.
I would suggest that you read Stavros Kourousis’s books From the Tambouras to the Bouzouki, first and second editions, to clear up quite a few of your questions.

2 Likes
13

My opinion, which I may well base on whatever information I have managed to acquire, but which is nonetheless still a personal opinion, is very close to Anonymous’s. Indeed, we have christened a Turkish instrument a Greek tambouras, despite the fact that there really was a Greek tambouras.

I think the whole story of the school tambouras came about more or less as follows:

a. It is widely known that people used to play tambouras all over Greece. It is, moreover, an instrument stereotypically associated with the klephts and the Revolution. The bouzoukia and the baglamas became mingled with Makrygiannis’s tambouras.

b. In Chrysanthos’s Mega Theoretikon, one of the most fundamental theory books on Byzantine music, there is a reference to chanters using the tambouras to learn how to produce intervals correctly with their voices. In other words, as a learning tool, not as a musical instrument. Which tambouras? There is also a drawing in the book which looks more like an Ottoman tanbur, and a strange tuning is given which I do not think is attested anywhere else.

c. Music schools are established. Music lessons are divided into two basic directions: Greek (or “traditional”? I am not sure about the terminology) and European music. As far as Greek traditional music was concerned, the only thing that was ready to be taught at any time—because it had already been taught for generations—was Byzantine music. It had its theory, its notation, its methodology, everything. Folk traditional musics—demotic music, rebetiko and whatever else—did not have such a teaching tradition. They relied on oral transmission and, to a considerable extent, on self-teaching and learning by ear. But there would be no point in continuing something like that within the framework of an organised school.

d. The only person—or at any rate the principal one—who had, up to that point, taught Greek traditional music methodically and in an organised manner was Simon Karas. Simon Karas had developed the theory that traditional Greek music is like a coin with two faces: on one side, Byzantine music, methodical and organised, and on the other, demotic music, much freer but sharing its basic musical elements with Byzantine music. Karas organised every modal phenomenon (roughly speaking, every “dromos”) of the demotic tradition according to the system of the Byzantine Echoi. He taught the two in parallel and as complements to each other.

Karas’s whole concept was fundamentally ingenious. However, when it came to the final practical details, there were certain shortcomings which neither he nor anyone else detected. One of these concerned the intervals: if a demotic melody develops according to all the rules of the First Echos, for example, and the intervals of the scale are not tempered, that does not automatically mean that they are the same as those of the Byzantine First Echos. The possible untampered arrangements of intervals are infinite (in the strict mathematical sense of the word “infinite”), and each individual local tradition has more or less fine-tuned its own choices. Here the vu is played a hair lower; in the neighbouring village, a hair higher. Very often, in fact, the intervals differ even between instruments in the very same village, including instruments that are playing together (with each one playing its own vu)!

All this was ignored both by Karas and by the music schools. Certain specific values were established for each interval, shared by both Byzantine chant and demotic songs. And an instrument was created on which you could play them without having to “have them inside you” beforehand, precisely so that you could learn them. The tambouras—the modified saz—was particularly well suited to this task for several reasons: first, the frets are visible. You play it first and then hear it, unlike, for example, the violin, where you have to know in advance what the interval you are struggling to play should sound like. Second, its use had been legitimised by Chrysanthos. Third, it came with glorious credentials of Greekness.

Thus, the school tambouras became established as the compulsory instrument-tool for the entire traditional section of music schools. The corresponding compulsory instrument for the European section is the piano. Violinists, oboists and flautists all learn piano. Violin players, lyra players and so on learn tambouras, and it helps them to achieve the (school-approved) correct intervals on every other instrument or with their voices—above all, of course, in their ears and minds.

3 Likes
14

Exactly. That’s what I meant by taking liberties. We’re going to call this instrument a tambouras, and it will do the job for us. Is there a problem if it’s a modified saz? Not for me. It’s a tool for a specific job.

15

But in reality, neither he nor anyone else could have done so: we are talking about minute differences in intervals, something that the general concept of Eastern music treats with considerable tolerance. Yes, the singer in the other ensemble at the village festival in the same village was probably working with different intervals. But this does not confuse anyone; it is accepted as part of the game. When the three hierarchs who made the first written record of the theory of ecclesiastical music designed their „tambouras“ and assigned it those specific intervals, they knew that each performer would vary them as they saw fit, and this still bothered no one.

I must admit that Karas did not share this view. On the contrary, he would say, „These are the intervals, as I wrote them on the board, and this is how you will pronounce them.“ Vasilis Smanis, however, one of his leading associates, took a freer approach, and the two coexisted at the school. When I once tried to find out which of the two approaches was more correct and asked my own teacher about it, I received the answer that I adopted at the time and that you are reading now.

16

Generally speaking, this is what I have to say about all of this:
To begin with, my wording at the start was partly mistaken, since on the one hand I essentially wanted to compare the student tamboura with the saz, while on the other hand — and this was more accurate — I wanted to take the tamboura as a more general concept. In the end, we arrive at the conclusion that the saz is a form of tamboura, which I would wrongly say is used so widely in Greece, since it is an Eastern instrument. Although, well, it is convenient… I simply would have preferred us to use a more Greek form.
Also, I do not consider the tamboura to be an exclusively Greek instrument. I consider it a Byzantine instrument; earlier, I expressed an opinion that was not my own, but one that has been voiced by others.
As for the student tamboura, my opinion is that its manufacturers and users ought to make it clear that it is essentially a saz (if this is not already done), and it should not be regarded as a standard tamboura.

17

An enlightening related undergraduate dissertation:

1 Like
Ταμπουράδες και πρώιμα μπουζούκια - Πηγές πληροφοριών
Συζήτηση για το λήμμα ΙΚΙΤΕΛΙ
Παλιοί ταμπουράδες καππαδοκίας
18

The tambouras, like another 10–15 similar instruments, is unequivocally an instrument of Eastern Mediterranean music, a region stretching from western India to the Balkans.

1 Like
19

Does it differ from the saz? And I’m not talking only about its appearance (where the sound hole is).
Pericles wrote this:

So there is variation within the family of tamboura-type instruments, as there was in the past as well.

The variation—or, if you prefer, the diversity—from one region to another was so great that it did not allow us to arrive at a clearly defined Greek form of the instrument.
We do not even know whether this modified saz existed in its present form in the past,

20

The “fuzziness” of traditional instrument nomenclature has at least two aspects:

On the one hand, the same instrument may be given different names in different places, or the same name may refer to one instrument in one place and another instrument elsewhere. The perspective of the person using the words also plays a role here — whether they are speaking from closer up or from further away. For example, no one in Crete or Karpathos speaks of Cretan or Karpathian lyras; they simply say “lyra”. But when you adopt an outsider’s perspective, you might say, “The Cretan lyra has such-and-such similarities to the Karpathian one and these-and-those differences from the Thracian one.” At the same time, the Pontians call the Pontian lyra “lyra” too, even though it is a completely different organological type. And that’s without even mentioning what the ancient Greeks called a lyra (there is no connection whatsoever, not even the remotest, with what is called a lyra today).

In this context, there used to be local names such as “tambouras”, “boulgari”, “bouzouki” and so on for various local variants of the tamboura. (While there was also the bouzouki itself, known as “bouzouki”!)

On the other hand, there is also a distinction between a specific and a general name. Internationally, organology recognises a very broad type of instrument called the “long-necked lute”, which includes all tambouras, all saz, all bouzouki-like instruments and countless other instruments around the world, including the Indian sitar and others even more distantly related. In Greece, however, those of us with a minimum understanding of organology who are not operating within the strict academic framework of a course, publication, conference and so on also use the term “tamboura-like instruments” — or even simply “tambouras” — for this same family of instruments. This is informal usage. Sometimes it is very useful for communication; at other times, it only makes things more confusing.

1 Like