Pambur

The Pambur

Pambur is a custom "improvised" instrument, sitting on the verge of traditions or even outside of tradition. Its construction was driven by instinct, my interests and my capabilities as a luthier at the time, with no exact foreplanning. Maqam music of the eastern Mediterranean tradition and the sounds of early European music drove the design of the instrument.

The name Pambur is a portmanteau of the pandura and the tambour/tamboura. Two words associated with two- or three-stringed instruments of different traditions throughout history, from Mesopotamia to the Mediterranean and the Balkans.

Construction

It has the body of an early type of Bouzouki, called pre-war, which is a bowl type body like the lute. Nylon (PVF) strings, mostly tuned in D-A-D, like the Bouzouki, but single courses. The bridge is floating, built in a manner resembling the Baglama (Saz). It has a wenge fretboard, and uses thin fishing line for the frets, like the Baglama. It's not equal tempered. It has "big" and "small" tones and semitones, to accommodate perfect fifths and fourths, and they are movable, allowing both maqam music and early music repertoire to be played, but also some experimental tunings.

For playing I mostly use a soft guitar pick, rotated 90 degrees to simulate the depth of the lavta sound.

Music

I will soon upload some recordings of the instrument.