Banduria

Banduria is a plucked string instrument belonging to the family of Spanish Lute. It is traditionally played with shell or horn plectrum, although currently it is common to use plastic plectrums.

Banduria is a flat body musical instrument, pear-shaped, with a Neck and a Headplate with twelve strings (six pairs): of these six are made of gut and six are gimped, although modern Banduria usually has the first two metallic pairs and gimped the last four pairs. Gimped strings may have the soul of steel or nylon.

Banduria is used in choirs and popular music. Despite what is generally thought, it is also used to interpret academic music.

Physically it is very similar to the Lute or the Zither, although smaller, and because of the flat shape of the box it has a great similarity with the Guitar.

The Banduria, which is used in many styles of folk and popular music, was known in 16th-century Spain and traveled to Latin America; it is still used in Peru. It is known as the mandurria in the Balearic Islands of the Mediterranean Sea. A descendent of the Banduria is the bandola, a teardrop-shaped lute of Central and South America.