Bowed strings · the origin
Yaybahar
Strings, springs and two membrane chambers. Bowed like a cello, it fills a hall without a single watt of electricity.
Invented by Görkem Şen · Istanbul · Patented 2012
One instrument.Another world.
The Yaybahar is a fully acoustic instrument — strings, coiled springs and membranes, nothing electronic — that sounds like a synthesizer from another century.
As heard in Prehistoric Planet— score with Hans Zimmer's team · and in the work of Max Richter
Vibrating stringsTwo long strings, played with a bow or fingertips.
Coiled springsCarry the vibration — the bridge between worlds.
Membrane resonatorsTwo drum chambers where the sound blooms.
Anatomy of the Yaybahar
How it speaks
The Yaybahar is an entirely acoustic instrument. When the strings are bowed, their vibration travels down long coiled springs into two membrane drums — and the membranes answer with a deep, cavernous voice that listeners describe as electronic, ancient and alive at once.
No electricity. No processing. What you hear is a room-sized spring reverb, played live.
Patented 2012 · Istanbul
The Spring Family
Three instruments, one physics
The Yaybahar was the first. From the same principle — spirally wound strings and springs feeding membranes — a whole orchestra is growing.
Percussion
DarbBahar
Coiled springs connected to drum heads: a single beat rolls out like distant thunder. Built in many sizes for the orchestra.
Voice & echo
ShanBahar
The first mechanism that acoustically multiplies any sound in the air around it — one voice becomes a cathedral choir.
As heard in
The people who chased this sound
“I wanted the landscape to have a voice of its own… something that felt abstract, alien and other. In my research I came across the Yaybahar; there is only one, built by Görkem Şen in Istanbul. We headed up there to record it.”
“The Yaybahar plays a big role in the overall soundscape of Prehistoric Planet. We had Görkem record major themes throughout the score… it immediately made the orchestra sound more unique and otherworldly.”
“The sounds resonate the way an electronic instrument would — like a synthesizer — but in a very unearthly, strange way.”
“It's really something to behold — and sounds stunning, with an ancient quality of tone… this combination of delicate and ancient.”
Prehistoric Planet — 2× Hollywood Music in Media Awards winner, 2022 · Yaybahar is taught at MIT's Design Across Scales and studied in books, theses and children's stories worldwide.
The Spring Orchestra
An orchestra that has never existed before
Yaybahars of every size, thunder-rolling DarbBahars and a choir of ShanBahars — a new acoustic language between east and west, past and future.