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#1
02-09-2015, 06:35 PM
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Croatian Tamburica
In my last role with my current company I was working in Europe quite a bit and ended up building a strong relationship with our leadership team in Croatia. I have traveled there on many occasions and really enjoy the country and its people. During my last visit (handover of the project almost a year ago) the team presented me with an amazing gift. They gave me a hand built Tamburica from the Varaždin area. I believe it is a Prim. I have been swamped at work this last year so have not had any time to spend on it. I am about to have a couple of days off and thought I would pull it out.
Does anyone have any knowledge or good resources in English for this type of instrument (including tunings, chords, tabs, on-line tutorials, etc.)? Thanks in advance for any help.
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Brandon "Life has no limit, if you're not afraid to get in it"-Mason Jennings 
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#2
02-10-2015, 08:52 AM
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No resources, but we knew a virtuoso Tamburica player... The late Tommy Kellum. He used to play at our club with the owner and his wife as the "Gravois Gypsies", and of course had his own "real" band as well.
Guy was a fantastic player. As far as technique, this is in the mandolin family of instruments, and is played very similarly, with lots of single-note lines and tremolo passages. If you have a Croation society around anywhere, that's a possibility.
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#3
02-10-2015, 09:49 AM
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Here is some info and a few interesting web sites
The pear-shaped body is carved from one piece of wood. The back is flat. The top end of the front (and sometimes also a bit of the lower end) is usually inlayed with a darker coloured wood (or just varnished in a darker colour). The frets are made of U-shaped metal and in a kind of diatonic scale inlayed in the neck (there is no fingerboard). It has a small round soundhole. The tuninghead is often in a sideways curl (made famous by Mr. Stauffer and Mr. Fender). It may have 4 separate tuning machines from the back, or more traditional : 4 wooden pegs from the front, paired and standing a bit sideways. The strings run over a loose wooden bridge on the front to 4 screws at the edge of the body. The larger instruments may have two double metal strings, the smaller dangubica has often four single strings. For the tuning it does not matter : bb e'e', or : a a d' d', or something similar. Playing is usually with the finger(s), strumming all strings together and mainly fingering only the first string(s). The instrument with 4 single strings is more twangy, because than you hear three free drone strings. The instrument is usually played solo in folk music, not as part of an orchestra. http://www.croatianhistory.net/etf/akordi.html -Chords and lyrics http://www.croatianamericanweb.org/p...ng-artists.php http://tamburicafest.com/en/ http://www.croatianhistory.net/etf/folk.html
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70 Giannini Craviola x 2 74 Giannini Craviola x 3 72 Giannini Craviola 12 string 91 Taylor K15C Koa
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#4
02-10-2015, 04:29 PM
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I really appreciate the responses Bikewer and Craviola. I will peruse some of the links provided in the next couple of days. Also, I will try to post some pics of my Tamburica when I get a little more time.
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Brandon "Life has no limit, if you're not afraid to get in it"-Mason Jennings
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#5
02-16-2015, 06:57 AM
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I finally finished up with work and am on vacation now. I hope that I can squeeze in some time with the Tamburica. I thought it would be fun to post some pics in the mean time
    
__________________
Brandon "Life has no limit, if you're not afraid to get in it"-Mason Jennings
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