Cümbüş
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The cümbüş (
The cümbüş is shaped like an American banjo, with a spun-aluminum resonator bowl and skin soundboard. Although originally configured as an oud, the instrument has been converted to other instruments by attaching a different set of neck and strings.[2] The standard cümbüş is fretless, but guitar, mandolin and ukulele versions have fretboards. The neck is adjustable, allowing the musician to change the angle of the neck to its strings by turning a screw.[3] One model is made with a wooden resonator bowl, with the effect of a less tinny, softer sound.[4]
Origin of the maker and the name
The word cümbüş is derived from the Turkish for "revelry" or "fun", as the instrument was marketed as a popular alternative to the more costly classical oud.
Rising and falling with social tides
After the Turkish War of Independence Zeynel Abidin Cümbüş wanted to create a new instrument to embody the ideals of peace, an instrument for the masses. He switched his company from dealing with arms to manufacturing musical instruments for "the support of peace through music." In a meeting with Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey, he showed one of his new inventions. It was "an inexpensive instrument easy to transport and hard to break, capable of playing both Eastern alaturka music and, with a quick change of removable necks, Western alafranga music as well." It was a modern instrument for a modern country.[1]
The cümbüş was inexpensive and was bought by people who couldn't afford a more expensive instrument; as a result, his dream of the masses accepting it was marginalized. The instrument became a folk instrument of the poor and of ethnic minorities in Turkey, including
Turnaround
Beginning in the mid-1990s, more people started to take up the instrument again at Armenian and Jewish
Present-day
Cümbüş Music is still an active company in Istanbul and manufactures a wide range of traditional Turkish instruments.
Models
The Cümbüş Company in Istanbul, Turkey manufactures several different models. They include:
- Cümbüş: tuned like an oud, short neck, fretless, six courses of strings, 34 inches long overall
- Cümbüş Extra: like the standard cümbüş but has wooden resonator instead of metal
- Cümbüş Saz: tuned like the a bağlama, long neck, tie-on frets, three courses of strings, 40 inches long overall
- Cümbüş Cura: tuned like the bağlama, but higher pitched as a cura saz; three courses of strings, 29 inches long overall
- Cümbüş Tambur: tuned like the Turkish tambur, also spelled tanbur; super long neck, three courses of strings, 51 inches long overall
- Cümbüş Bowed-Tambur: tuned like a Yaylı tambur, played with a bow
- Cümbüş Guitar: fretted, tuned like a guitar, six strings, 34 inches long overall
- Cümbüş Banco: fretted, small, tuned like a mandolin four courses of strings 23 inches long overall
- Cümbüş Ukulele: fretted, small, tuned like a ukulele, four strings, 21 inches long overall
- Cümbüşmisen: Cümbüş-shamisen hybrid. like the japanese counterpart
- Kokyuumbüṣ: tuned like a kokyū, a cümbüş bowed tambur.
Tuning
Standard cümbüş
The cümbüş has its own tuning, but can be tuned the same as an oud.[1]
- Cümbüş: AA2 BB2 EE3 AA3 DD4 GG4
Use in Western popular music
- David Lindley played a cümbüş with Ry Cooder in the soundtrack of Paris, Texas.[6]
- Then I Close My Eyes". It can also be heard on the album opener "Castellorizon". He also used the instrument to play the same parts on the subsequent tour, performances of which can be seen and heard on the DVDs Remember That Night and Live in Gdańsk.
- Stone Temple Pilots guitarist Dean DeLeo played a cümbüş on the album Shangri-La Dee Da on the track "Regeneration". It can be heard during the chorus.
- Smokey Hormel played a cümbüş on Tom Waits' Mule Variations.[3]
- The Hollies' "Stop Stop Stop"
- Guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Eenor played a modified tambur-cümbüş (Jim Bush) for Les Claypool's side project Colonel Les Claypool's Fearless Flying Frog Brigade on "Shattering Song" (Live Frogs Set 1) as well as on "The Buzzards of Green Hill" (Purple Onion).
- PiL (Public Image Ltd.),[citation needed], continues to play it with The Mekons as of 2018[citation needed], and recorded it with Blabbermouth in 2019.[8]
Turkish area musicians
- Gevende - cümbüş is played by band member Okan Kaya
- Udi Mısırlı Ibrahim Efendi - Jewish late/post-Ottoman ud-ist and composer
- Selahattin Pınar - early 20th-century tanbur player
- Ercüment Batanay - mid-20th-century yaylı tanbur player
- "Kazancı" Bedih Yoluk and son Naci Yoluk - 20th-century folk musicians from Urfa
- Cahit Berkay - in the 1960s "Anatolian rock"; folk-rock hybrid band Moğollar (especially bowed tanbur)
- Yurdal Tokcan - classically trained ud-ist
- Ara Dinkjian - Armenian-American fusion musician
- Mor ve Ötesi
See also
- Banjo guitar
- Banjo mandolin
- Banjo ukulele
References
- ^ a b c d e f g Eric Ederer, The Cümbüş as Instrument of “the Other” in Modern Turkey
- ^ "The Stringed Instrument Database". Archived from the original on 18 December 2011. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
- ^ a b "Tom Waits Fan Club Library". Retrieved 20 February 2018.
- ^ Zeynel Abidin Cümbüş manufacturers, Cumbus Extra Archived August 12, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Bey - Turkish title". Retrieved 20 February 2018.
- ^ a b c Rootsworld artilcle: Cümbüş means fun, Birger Gesthuisen investigates the short history of a 20th century folk instrument.
- ^ "Eric Ederer: Cümbüs". ericederer.com. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
- ^ "Blabbermouth: Hörspiel". Dirter Promotions. 2019. Retrieved 2019-12-03.
External links
- The cümbüş manufacturer's website (in Turkish)
- Pictures of a 1934 cümbüş and a story about a trip Ederer took to the cümbüş factory
- History of the Cümbüş
- Dromedary - American world music group that features the cümbüş
- Jack Campin's page with photos and technical description
- Eric Ederer's ethnomusicological site, with info on the cümbüş' history