The bağlama is believed to be a synthesis of historical musical instruments in Central Asia and pre-Turkish
Anatolia. It is partly descended from the Turkic
komuz. The
kopuz, or
komuz, differs from the bağlama in that it has a leather-covered body and two or three strings made of sheep gut, wolf gut, or horsehair. It is played with the fingers rather than a plectrum and has a fingerboard without frets.
Bağlama literally translates as "something that is tied up", probably a reference to the tied-on frets of the instrument. The word bağlama is first used in 18th-century texts. The French traveler Jean Benjamin de Laborde, who visited
Turkey during that century, recorded that "the bağlama or tambura is in form exactly like the cogur, but smaller." He was probably referring to the smallest of the bağlama family, the cura.
According to the historian Hammer, metal strings were first used on a type of komuz with a long fingerboard known as the
kolca kopuz in 15th-century
Anatolia. This was the first step in the emergence of the çöğür (cogur), a transitional instrument between the komuz and the bağlama. According to 17th-century writer
Evliya Çelebi, the cogur was first made in the city of
Kütahya in western Turkey. To take the strain of the metal strings the leather body was replaced with wood, the fingerboard was lengthened and frets were introduced. Instead of five hair strings there were now twelve metal strings arranged in four groups of three. Today, the cogur is smaller than a medium-size bağlama.
