Kamancheh

This article is about the Iranian kamancheh. For the related but different Pontian Greek, Turkish or Armenian instrument see Kemenche.

Kamancheh (also kamānche or kamāncha) (Persian:کمانچه‎‎), is an Iranian bowed string instrument, used also in Armenian, Azerbaijani, Turkish, and Kurdish Music and related to the rebab, the historical ancestor of the kamancheh and also to the bowed Byzantine lyra, ancestor of the European violin family. The strings are played with a variable-tension bow: the word "kamancheh" means "little bow" in Persian (kæman, bow, and -cheh, diminutive). It is widely used in the classical music of Iran, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kurdistan Regions with slight variations in the structure of the instrument.