The saz or bağlama, a generic name for long-necked lutes in Turkey, plays an important role in the Turkish musical culture. It forms the core of all folk musical ensembles and orchestras and is a popular instrument in the arabesque, entertainment, and pop music. It is the instrument par excellence in Turkish music education and in the religious rituals of the Âlevi and Bektaşi. The saz or bağlama can also be heard as a solo instrument on international concert stages. Acknowledging the instrument’s unique place in Turkey, The Turkish Long-Necked Lute Saz or Bağlama, an updated and revised edition of the Dutch book Turkse Langhalsluit of bağlama, mainly focusses on its cultural and historical background while briefly discussing various saz or bağlama types and their construction, tuning, and playing techniques.

‘Tanbûr Long-Necked Lutes Along the Silk Road and Beyond’ explores the origin, history, construction, and playing techniques of tanbûrs, a musical instrument widely used over vast territories and over many centuries. The diffusion of the tanbûr into the musical cultures along the Silk Road resulted in a variety of tanbûrs with two or more, occasionally doubled or tripled courses, a varying number and variously tuned frets, each having its own characteristic sound, playing technique, and repertory. Since the last century, tanbûrs spread beyond the Silk Road while new versions continue to appear due to changing musical and tonal demands made on them. Similar or identical instruments are also known by other names, such as saz or bağlama, dotâr or dutâr, setâr, dömbra, and dambura.

The Ottoman Tanbur provides a detailed study of the history of this long-necked lute-like instrument, its role in Ottoman music, construction and playing technique. Tanburs are played in the art, Su fi , and folk musical traditions along the Silk Road and beyond. In Turkey, the name tanbur is mainly used as a name for the long-necked tanbur of Ottoman art music, the Ottoman tanbur. The origin and early development of the Ottoman tanbur is, notwithstanding its importance, still not fully understood due to the absence or scarcity of literary and iconographical sources, while well-preserved Ottoman tanburs are rare or non-existent. The book explores the political and cultural-historical conditions that contributed to the development of a distinct Ottoman Art music (Osmanli san'at musikisi) in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the central place given to the tanbur. Thereafter, Ottoman art music and the Ottoman tanbur suffered from official neglect until the end of the Ottoman Empire in 1918 and even rejection after the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923. This situation changed after the foundation of the first Turkish music conservatory in 1975 at the Istanbul Teknik UEniversitesi (ITUE). The revival of Ottoman art music since the 1990s resulted in a rehabilitation of Ottoman art music and of the Ottoman tanbur whose days had seemed to be numbered.