Kemenche

Kemenche is a Persian word which derived from the word keman (= bow, curve)" and suffix -che (gives "small" meaning) means "little instrument played by bow". Kemenche has a narrower body and its shape is more rectangular (bottle shaped). The Black sea kemenche player plays while standing. On some parts of Asia and Europe you can see some instruments very similar to Turkish classical kemenches with different names like LYRA in Greece, GADULGA in Bulgaria, and REBAB in some Arabic countries. But it is interesting that either in Asia or in the other parts of the world you cannot find an instrument which has similar shape with Black sea kemenche. So we can say that it only belongs to Black sea region, Black sea people, and everybody originally comes from this part of Anatolia. We have chosen Kemenche because we see it as our cultural instrument and try to teach it our children.