Talk:Pandura

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[edit] Cleanup

I don't believe that the article should be split up into sections based upon individual references/sources (e.g. "Encyclopedia Britannica", "Dictionaries"). It should be one, coherent article that draws from its various sources throughout. There are also separate sections for "Turkish view", "Iranian/Kurdish view", etc. and I wonder whether these refer to the same instrument, or similar instruments (compare Tanbur, Tambura) — I'm not sufficiently familiar with the subject to decide this myself. I also suspect that the sections drawing from various music dictionaries should be checked for copyvios. For now I have cleaned up some formatting issues, added a "See also" section and added categories. Thanks, -- Gyrofrog (talk) 19:41, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

P.S. For what it's worth, most of the text in this article had been pasted into the tanbur article. I have reverted this, and added "See also" links to this article and tambura instead. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 19:50, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

I also put the merge tag. Since it's the same instrument which apparently spread from India westwards all the way to Balkans, I suggest reorganization so that

  1. There's a main article named (whatever), explaining general issues. Maybe Tambura or Tanpur, respecting the Indian origin (if it's of Indian origin), or whatever is English common usage (but I can't find one at the moment).

The tanbur family didn't originate in India, and didn't even show up there until relatively late in its history, during the period of the Turkic and Iranic invasions. The original Sumerian pantur, the Egyptian long-necked lute of hieroglyphic record, the Greek pandoura, the Roman pandura, the numerous European offshoots of the pandura, the Iranian tanbur later adopted by Arabs, Turks, Africans, and Indians, each ought, properly, to receive its own article. Yes, they are all descended from the Sumerian pantur, and that ought to be mentioned somewhere in each article, but to merge such a diverse set of lutes, with varied histories and very diverse modern outcomes into one article on no other basis than their common ancestry and/or the etymology of their names makes little sense. David Russell Watson

  1. The article should have several sub-sections per country/culture, with links to country-specific names and articles, where called for. Apparently, the traditions, types, name variations and the music played with the instrument differ across cultures, and each deserves its own. Compare Tambura#Croatia and Serbia -> Tamburitza.

I'm willing to do some work on it, but we should decide what should be the "main" name. Duja 08:14, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

When I saw your edit summary, I thought "we don't need to merge these, in fact they should probably be split up further." But now that I've read your comments, I see we were thinking along the same lines: one general article, with links to the articles for each individual instrument. So, I say you have a good plan. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 15:58, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Hello, I added some inside information on the Indian bits (tanpura/tambura) a few days ago and hope this helps. martinspaink@yahoo.com

I oppose the idea of a merger. Right now the article is very bare-bones, (and I plan to contribute greatly to the information on the Bulgarian tambura) and I can thus understand why the idea of consolidation seems appealing. Perhaps merging the articles would be an acceptable intermediary step, but as more information is added, these separate intruments should have separate articles, linked by a disambiguation page. This poses the problem of finding a location for the information concerning the relationship between the instruments, but I believe that topic deserves its own article as well. -- Liesel Hess
Actually, I think we are all proposing a similar idea. My idea for the general article was to describe the instrument in general, and as you described, point out the relationships between these instruments. The article wouldn't have much more than that (but a bit more info than the usual, stand-alone disambiguation page); rather, it would direct readers to separate articles about the individiual instruments. (e.g. "See main article: Bulgarian tambura"). The bulk of the text would go in the individual articles. I'm not sure how much help I would be with all this, as I don't know much about the various instruments (that's what led me here in the first place). -- Gyrofrog (talk) 17:59, 7 March 2006 (UTC)


I believe that these articles should be split for numerous reasons. First of all, an Indian tanpura looks totally different from a turkish tambura. Tamburas look rather like bouzoukis, and tanpuras look similar to a sitar. Secondly, the roles in music for a tambura and a tanpura are very different. Tamburas are used for melody and solo playing, but tanpuras are exclusively drone instruments, where the open strings are plucked repeatedley in time to create a sonic resonance field. Tamburas have developed around central and eastern europe, however tanpuras are exclusive to india. They did not develop from a similar line of instruments. I have seen both of these instruments being played, and the only thing very similar is the name. Thank you.

[edit] Copyright violations

Well, we don't have to worry about cleaning up the "Macedonia" section (see previous "Cleanup" discussion). It was copied from here and so I've removed it from the article. The same editor who included this text also added numerous possibly unfree images to the article. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 21:37, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

The Turkish section was copied from here and I've removed the text. While it's a government website, it has a copyright notice, and I'm not sure whether works of the Gov't of Turkey are in the public domain. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 21:52, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
The "Body of Tambur" section was copied from here and I've removed the text. For that matter, the website in question credits someone else for the text. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 22:01, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

I believe that these articles should be split for numerous reasons. First of all, an Indian tanpura looks totally different from a turkish tambura. Tamburas look rather like bouzoukis, and tanpuras look similar to a sitar. Secondly, the roles in music for a tambura and a tanpura are very different. Tamburas are used for melody and solo playing, but tanpuras are exclusively drone instruments, where the open strings are plucked repeatedley in time to create a sonic resonance field. Tamburas have developed around central and eastern europe, however tanpuras are exclusive to india. They did not develop from a similar line of instruments. I have seen both of these instruments being played, and the only thing very similar is the name. Thank you. Oh wait, I'm sorry, I meant to put this in the article above

[edit] Pandoura is ancient greek, not Persian.

This whole article is wrong. The Tanbour, Tanbur, Tambur is Persian/Kurdish (middle east) and the "Pandoura" is ancient Greek. I have played the Tanbur for 20 years and do not believe there is any person alive who plays the ancient Greek Pandoura (at least for the past 2000 years). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnyajohn (talk • contribs) 20:25, September 19, 2006

Can you please provide some references for this claim, per the policy of Wikipedia:Verifiability? --Elonka 19:59, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

A good source of information about it would be: J.W. McKinnon "Pandoura" in New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments Vol 3 pg 10 ed S. Sadie (Macmillan Press, London 1984).

I do not think these articles should be merged, as these are two separate instruments from two contries with two very different structures of music.

[edit] Point of clarity

As an encyclopaedia it would seem appropriate to distinguish between things which, though bear the same name, are essentially different things serving different purposes. In the case of the Tanpura, I see absolutely no reason why the Indian version (which is arguably the most famous of all versions) is not only cited at the bottom of the page, but is also not given its own page to fully explore not only the physical parameters of the instrument itself, but perhaps more importantly, its role in the composition, and in the education of up-and-coming artists who, play it on stage to gain stage experience and assist the master. There is a lot of potentially valuable cultural and sociological data which is missing here and need inputting by an expert in the field.218.219.228.234 07:49, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] section on Tanpura (tambura) Indian Classical Music

Again I undertook some extensions and intended clarifications. Tell me if I'm cramming to much info in it. cordially, (Martinuddin 16:50, 12 July 2007 (UTC))


Idem dito Martinuddin (talk) 13:34, 29 December 2007 (UTC)


I searched for TANPURA and got the TAMBURA page, and the bulgarian instrument, first. it would be better if a search for tanpura took one to that page. there is some confusion as the bulgarian spelling is the same (tambura) but the instruments are very different. i appreciate all the hard work that goes into wiki, so I'm not complaining, only trying to be helpful.

Bifftar (talk) 01:31, 18 February 2008 (UTC)