Tambouras / Saz

In its general sense, tambouras is the Greek name for a wide family of long-necked string instruments, but it also names a specific Greek traditional instrument of that family. It descends from the ancient Greek pandoura and is an ancestor of related lutes such as the Turkish saz; it is thought to have been revived mainly in Byzantine times. The Byzantine epic of Digenis Akritas mentions the hero playing a 'thambouri', the medieval form of the tambouras:

"And after he had dined, he went into the vaulted room and took his tambouri and tuned it."

These instruments have a rounded, hollow body and a flat soundboard, with or without a sound hole. They usually have three courses of strings (single, double or even triple), and can be more than a metre long. From the ancient pandoura, by the 19th century the tambouras had acquired fixed frets and become today's three-course bouzouki.

In recent years interest in the old tambouras has been growing in Greece. Because the traditional Greek tambouras is low in pitch, it is not often the lead instrument in an ensemble; it usually accompanies the lead instrument (lyra, violin, flute and others). Yet the tambouras is essentially a solo instrument. As it is not tuned in equal temperament, it is not suited to playing chords, and it is not used in rebetiko or popular song. It is considered the ideal instrument for studying Byzantine scales.

In Greece the saz and related instruments were, and still are, known as 'tambourades', although the modern saz is quite different from the Greek tambouras. Similar instruments are found almost all over Asia: in Iran (setar, tar, tanbur, dotar), Afghanistan (tar), Azerbaijan (tambur, dotar, Azeri tar), Armenia (tar), Syria (buzuk) and, under many different names, in the Balkans.