{"id":5870,"date":"2026-03-26T00:15:04","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T07:15:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/the-war-diaries.com\/?p=5870"},"modified":"2026-03-26T00:21:03","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T07:21:03","slug":"5870","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/the-war-diaries.com\/?p=5870","title":{"rendered":"The Transcendence of the Tanbur"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Playing the tanbur in Qamishlo (al-Qamishli), Kurdistan (Syria)\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/oDV-_hiCHJE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>New York- <\/strong>Yes, I&#8217;m doing another quick tanbur post. In all my years traveling across Iraq and Syria as a reporter and analyst, there was a lot of downtime while waiting in limbo for access to this or that story or scoop. In such often nerve wracking circumstances I&#8217;d find myself doing a lot of frustrating sitting around . Akin to watching a pot boil. Yet in Kurdistan, inevitably a friend of a friend would start strumming a beautifully crafted tanbur which would have the effect of forcing me to sit still, be present in the moment, and reframe my present. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sure I still was anxiously waiting to get to the front but I was in the Middle East. Away from home and flourishing. And with that I was immersed in the sounds of an Indo-Iranian language coupled with its music that had the power to lift the imagination out of the stolid doldrums of boredom into the lyrical undulations of the Zagros mountains. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/the-war-diaries.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IMG_0971-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-5872\" srcset=\"https:\/\/the-war-diaries.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IMG_0971-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/the-war-diaries.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IMG_0971-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/the-war-diaries.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IMG_0971-150x112.jpg 150w, https:\/\/the-war-diaries.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IMG_0971-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/the-war-diaries.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IMG_0971-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/the-war-diaries.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IMG_0971-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/the-war-diaries.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IMG_0971-560x420.jpg 560w, https:\/\/the-war-diaries.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IMG_0971-260x195.jpg 260w, https:\/\/the-war-diaries.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IMG_0971-160x120.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New York- Yes, I&#8217;m doing another quick tanbur post. In all my years traveling across Iraq and Syria as a reporter and analyst, there was a lot of downtime while waiting in limbo for access to this or that story&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-p\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/the-war-diaries.com\/?p=5870\">Read more &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5872,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Transcendence of the Tanbur - The War Diaries<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/the-war-diaries.com\/?p=5870\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Transcendence of the Tanbur - The War Diaries\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"New York- Yes, I&#8217;m doing another quick tanbur post. In all my years traveling across Iraq and Syria as a reporter and analyst, there was a lot of downtime while waiting in limbo for access to this or that story&hellip;Read more &rarr;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/the-war-diaries.com\/?p=5870\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The War Diaries\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-03-26T07:15:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-03-26T07:21:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/the-war-diaries.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IMG_0971-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"derekhenryflood\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"derekhenryflood\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/the-war-diaries.com\/?p=5870#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/the-war-diaries.com\/?p=5870\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"derekhenryflood\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/the-war-diaries.com\/#\/schema\/person\/df810a7fcaa4910f9fc2513a3de68ff8\"},\"headline\":\"The Transcendence of the Tanbur\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-03-26T07:15:04+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-03-26T07:21:03+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/the-war-diaries.com\/?p=5870\"},\"wordCount\":175,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/the-war-diaries.com\/#\/schema\/person\/df810a7fcaa4910f9fc2513a3de68ff8\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/the-war-diaries.com\/?p=5870#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/the-war-diaries.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IMG_0971-scaled.jpg\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/the-war-diaries.com\/?p=5870\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/the-war-diaries.com\/?p=5870\",\"name\":\"The Transcendence of the Tanbur - 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