ਤੂੰਬੀ

What does tumbi mean in Punjabi?

ਤੂੰਬੀ (tumbi) is Punjab's high-pitched one-string folk instrument, made of a wooden stick fitted with a gourd resonator and a single metal string. Its sharp, twanging pluck is the signature sound of Punjabi folk songs and the backbone of modern bhangra music. The folk singer Lal Chand Yamla Jatt made it famous in the modern era.

How the tumbi is played

The tumbi is a wooden stick with a gourd shell mounted on it as a resonator. A single metal string runs over a small bridge across the gourd to a tuning peg at the end of the stick. The player strikes the string with a continuous flick and snap of the first finger, which gives the instrument its bright, ringing twang.

From village songs to world music

The tumbi was popularised in the modern era by the folk singer Lal Chand Yamla Jatt (1914-1991). Through the 1960s, 70s and 80s, singers like Kuldeep Manak, Mohammed Sadiq, Didar Sandhu and Amar Singh Chamkila made it central to Punjabi folk music, and Sufi singers such as Saeen Zahoor play it too. Then the tumbi travelled the world: Panjabi MC's "Mundian To Bach Ke" carried its twang onto the UK charts, and Timbaland put it on Missy Elliott's 2001 hit "Get Ur Freak On".

Why is the tumbi sound so easy to recognise?

Because it is one high-pitched metal string plucked again and again, its bright twang cuts through drums and voices. Once you have heard it carrying a bhangra track, you never mistake it for anything else.

Who made the tumbi famous?

The folk singer Lal Chand Yamla Jatt popularised the tumbi in the modern era, and later singers including Kuldeep Manak and Amar Singh Chamkila carried it into mainstream Punjabi music.