it's good isn't it? I saw that a few months ago, i meant to post it here. watch the other videos too, the one about yayli tanbur is great, also the klasik kemence.

Actually a lot of players just use 6 strings now, i've heard it done more and more, makes the sound less complicated, more open for ornamentation, for "classical" playing, if you will.

Alihan is the guy who served me when I was there! terrific bloke.

I was just in melbourne at the shop that imports them, they have a huge new supply of stuff from zeynel abidin, including cumbus ouds/sazes/mandolins, and cumbus darabukas.
Unfortunately, all the strings rust up during shipment over here and have gone bad. Also, a lot of hte cumbus are in bad shape, the necks are out of alignment, need settting up. I nearly bought the mandolin though, I tried 5 and found a really good one......next time i'll grab it.