Roman Turovsky wrote: >>As regards the developement of the neapolitan mandolin, it is a shame that >>its relationship with > the Greek Bouzouki isn't the other way around as >>then history would be so much simpler ! The >>Greek Bouzouki is obviously derrived from Turkish instruments which came >>from Arabic >>tradition. >> >> >There is no such thing as "Arabic" instrumental tradition. Arabs assimilated >it from the conquered. >Buzuki and all tanbur type instruments were common in the Mediterranean >basin long before there were Arabs. The same thing goes for Turks. > > > Can't deny it. There were Turks long before there were Arabs :-) but they weren't in Turkey
Nor, I suspect, were the instruments in the Med basin. They seem to originate somewhere further east, possibly in northern India, Punjab, or even the other side of the mountains in central Asia. The tanbur family, in name and type, seems to follow the course of westwards migration and language dissemination. David To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
