One suggests that it descended from the kopuz, a string instrument still in use among the Turkic peoples of Central Asia and the Caspian region.

[2] The most common tonewood veneers used for rib-making are mahogany, flame maple, Persian walnut, Mecca balsam wood (Commiphora gileadensis), Spanish chestnut, Greek juniper, mulberry, Oriental plane, Indian rosewood and apricot.

The soundboard (Göğüs) is a rotund thin (2.5–3 mm) flat three-, two- or single-piece plate of resonant wood (usually Nordmann, silver or Greek fir).

This circular plate measuring about 30 to 35 cm in diameter is mounted on the bottom wedge and the heel with simmering glue and encircled with a wooden ring.

A soundhole is either wanting or consists of a very small unornamented opening (mostly in historical specimens), giving the instrument its peculiar sonority.

The yaylı tambur is held vertically on the knees, as opposed to the regular one where the neck is maintained horizontal to the ground at all times.

[6] A Turkish musical theory written in the beginning of the 18th century by the famous Kantemir Pasha -first an Ottoman citizen of Polish-Moldavian origin, then voivode of Moldavia- elucidates for the first time the proper intervals to use.

The first virtuoso to claim renovation was Tanburi Büyük Osman Bey who broke with his father Zeki Mehmed Ağa's technique to present his own.