The Bandura is a Ukrainian stringed instrument typically played by plucking. The back of the bandura is traditionally carved from solid wood but modern banduras are now produced with fiberglass backs. The soundboard is a type of spruce and the planks and bridge is made from hard woods.

There are 4 main types of banduras that can be found today:

The Folk or Starosvitska Bandura
These instruments typically have some 20-23 strings and are hand-made, with no two instruments being exactly the same.

The Kyiv-style bandura
These are the most common banduras in use today in Ukraine. They have 55-65 metal strings tuned chromatically through five octaves.

The Kharkiv-style bandura
These instruments are primarily made by craftsmen outside of Ukraine. These popular banduras are strung either diatonically (with 34-36 strings) or chromatically (with 61-65 strings).

The Kyiv-Kharkiv Hybrid bandura
Is a hybrid between the Kyiv and the Kharkiv banduras.

The term bandura is generally thought to have entered the Ukrainian language via Polish, either from Latin or from the Greek pandora or pandura, although some scholars feel that the term was introduced into Ukraine directly from the Greek language.

A person who plays a bandura is called a bandurist.

Check out this video of a bandura to hear how it sounds:

Another David Foster song. This one’s featuring Will.i.am, Bono, Faith Hill, Seal, Mary J. Blige. The song is called “America’s song”. Just in time for the inauguration of our new president Barrack Obama.

One thing that bothers me about this is hearing Bono and Seal singing the lyrics “Our America..” when the truth is- they’re not really Americans. They could’ve put a better cast to sing this song but other than that it sounds great. It’s David Foster after all. Whatever song he touches becomes a big deal. Enjoy!