Harutin Tamburi

Tanburi Arutin (, ) was an 18th-century Ottoman Armenian musician and traveler who visited Afshar Iran under Nader Shah.

Biography His birth and death dates are unknown. He refers to himself in the text as the "little tanbur player Arutin" , however "little" here might mean second of his name (as carrying the name of his grandfather). Arutin was an Ottoman Armenian musician, most likely active during the first half of the 18th century. In addition to Armenian, was a native speaker of Turkish, probably based in Istanbul. He was one of the earliest documented users of Armeno-Turkish alphabet.

In 1736, Arutin participated in the Ottoman delegation to Iran, led by Mirahor Mustafa Paşa, His travelogue was printed in Venice in 1800 under the title History of Tahmaz Ghuli with Armeno-Turkish alphabet, published through the efforts of the Mekhitarist Congregation of San Lazzaro.

Arutin was the author of a lost music treatise that was rediscovered and brought to scholarly attention by Armenian musicologist Nikoghos Tahmizian. The text, titled Manual of Oriental Music is one of the earliest known Turkish-language music manuals, composed in the Armenian script. According to Tahmizyan, the treatise represents a critical moment in the formalisation of Eastern musical theory, bridging oral tradition and systematic notation. The Manual includes: over 100 modal phrases drawn from the Iranian and broader Near Eastern modal tradition, descriptions of modal structures (ladic-tonal frameworks) and their melodic contours, discussions of intonation, improvisation, and performance technique and notational systems based on ligatures and symbolic rhythmic signs.