A story about tamburitza

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Here they are:

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.

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

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

Tambura, bisernica, tamburitza, bajs: in Slavonia; mandolina: in Dalmatia /only

one to the left/

mandolina