Kamancheh and Barbat

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Musical Guide: Assignment 6
A Kamancheh is an Iranian string instrument considered standard in Turkmen, Georgian, Armenian, Persian, and Azerbaijani music. However, the instrument has a slight variation in its structure. Users play the strings with a variable-tension bow. The term kamancheh means “little bow” in Persian. Kamancheh has a long neck that includes a fingerboard with the shape of a truncated inverse cone for convenient bow moving (Shajarian 45). Although the traditional kamanchehs comprised of three silk strings, modern instruments contain four metallic strings. Kamanchehs comprise of highly ornate inlays and curved ivory tuning pegs. Besides, the body has a low bowl-shaped resonating chamber made from wood and covered with skin membranes. The term kamancheh is derived from the words “bow” and “arc,” and kaman is an ancient spiked fiddle and part of the Asian bowed instruments. Currently, the tool stretches from North Africa to China. Classical kamancheh from Iran has a spherical shape, with its bridge resting on the surface of a soundbox covered with animal skin membrane. The users hold the instrument vertically while the bow moves horizontally from one string to the other.
Barbat was a Central Asian lute familiar in Greater Iranian with a Persian origin. The instrument is carved from a single piece of wood, such as a wooden and neck soundboard. As a skin-topped instrument, the Barbat is ancestral to the wood-topped biwa and oud. Although the ancient Barbat disappeared, Iran luthiers have recreated it in the contemporary world while referring to historical images. The current Iranian Barbat is similar to the oud despite variations in having a long neck, mall body, and ra...