A story about tamburitza

1. A story about tamburitza

2. When…
• The tamburitza is a stringed instrument primarily associated
with the northern part of Croatia that shares many features
with the Russian balalaika, the Ukrainian bandura and the
Italian mandolin. The tamburitza became popular in the 1800s,
and today it is a traditional feature of Croatian folk music.
• The tamburitza has six strings which are played in pairs. The
strings are tuned as A, D, and G. Playing music that covers
more than one octave requires a great deal of skill because the
fingers must move swiftly up and down along the neck of the
instrument.
• The bridge is not glued to the body, but can be moved to make
minor adjustments to the tuning. The resonance of the double
strings give the tamburitza a loud voice that can be heard
clearly even over the stomping of feet on a dance floor.

3. THE ORIGIN
• The origin is most commonly thought to be introduced from the Turks
by way of Bosnia between the 14th and 16th century.
• Although, others believe that the tambura was introduced by the
Persians.
• It wasn't until the 19th century that tamburitza gained popularity
during several nationalist movements against the Austro-Hungarian
Empire.
• Many societies such as Croatian, Slovak and Czech, used national folk
songs and dance as an "expression of their national identity".
• During this time, the first Croatian tamburitza ensemble was created
by Pajo Kolarić in 1847

4. AND IT CONTINUED…
• The popularity of Croatian tamburitza continued to
grow and even developed into professional working
ensembles throughout the 19th century and into the
20th.
• Tamburitza became so popular that newsletters
began to circulate Croatia and neighboring countries
that shared interest in the instrument.
• Then in 1941, the first radio station in Croatia
(located in Zagreb) that's basis was tamburitza was
created and named the Croatian Radio-Television
Tamburitza Orchestra.
• Croatian Tamburitza continues to be popular in
Croatia and in other parts of the world where the
Croats settle.

5. Tunes…
• The songs played by tamburitza are very light hearted and mainly
about love and the villages the ensemble is from.
• All musicians in the ensemble dress in ethnic Croatian clothes. The
dances are also fun, fast, and exciting to watch.
• Also, during early 20th century ethnomusicologist Professor Vinko
Žganec, began to write down Croatian folk songs which in the past
were not written, but passed down from generation to generation.

6. Its main parts
• Tamburitza consists of three parts body, neck and head.
• The body (resonance box) is the hollow part of the
Tamburitza, which serves for the resonance and thus to
reinforce the sound developed by string which is too weak
to be used on itself.
• The basic form of the body was pear-shaped to the center
of the last century and was built by scooping out the log.
• Today mostly are built in the form of guitar and even the
smallest of it, the Bisernicas, have partial and not
scooped out resonance box.
• The reason for it lays in stronger sound, in addition,
numerous possibilities of influencing the tone color by the
selection of the wood.
• And also the building with gluing is much easier than
scooping.

7. Neck and the head
• Neck is the narrow and long part, which
connects the head and the body. On the
upper, flat side, federations (prečnice, krsnice,
pragovi) are lined up on the grip-plate, which
serve for changing of tones, if the strings are
pressed to them during the oscillation.
• The head (čivijište) before usually had the
course-sharpened form, which can be found
still with some Bisernicas. However the snail
form got the supremacy. On the head are
either eddies for tension of the strings or the
tension extension, fastened directly in the
wood.

8. Here they are:

9. Samica
• Samica probably came to Slavonia with the Šokci from Bosnia and
has spread later into other areas of the Panonia level (Baranja,
south Hungary ), into a part of the Bilogora, into Kordun and Lika
(„kuterevka“, dangubica…) and parts of western Bosnia .
• This small rural pulling instrument of modest development, but very
alive in the hands of a good player, is predecessor of all systems,
which developed with us.

10. Samica: part of tambura
ensemble
• Two pairs of the strings are tuned in the interval by quart of d2-a1,
or as required by the singer in dancing (particularly the female
voices) even a whole tone more highly, thus e2-h1. Retuning with
wooden eddies run fast and simply if the Samica is really alone the
company or all completely alone.
• With the interesting technique of playing, where strings with fingers
of the left hand, tuned the same, are separated, the Samica player
attains four-voiced chords in lively moving, and with the different
striking of the emphasis with the right hand he completes the
rhythm, which requests to the more alive dance. In the more recent
time the Samica is included in the Tamburitza ensemble more
frequently therefore the work of the right hand changed during
playing

11. Two-voiced Quint system
/Farkaš/
• Mijo Majer, Slavko Šeper, Franjo Kuhač and Milutin Farkaš
(Križevci, 1865 - 1923) are responsible all for forming the two-voiced
system of tuning, but the system got its name after the main
promoter, M. Farkaš. After this system to the 1940's of the last
century all four strings on Bisernicas and the Brač were tuned in
unison: Bisernicas d2 and Brač d1.
• The federations on the one-voiced Tamburitzas to g were lined up in
half-tones and from g in diatonic. More exactly said, on the lower
strings apart from g the tones of the G major were put on, while half-
tones were on the upper strings

12. Tambura, bisernica, tamburitza, bajs: in
Slavonia; mandolina: in Dalmatia /only
one to the left/
mandolina