Tar (string instrument)

The tar (Persian: تار [t̪ʰɒːɹ], lit. 'string') is a long-necked, waisted instrument in the lute family, used by many cultures and countries in the Middle East and the Caucasus, including Iran, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Georgia, Tajikistan, and Turkey.

It was originally known as the chahartar (چهارتار) or chartar (چارتار), which translates into Persian as 'four-stringed'. This is in accordance with a practice common in Persian-speaking areas of distinguishing lutes on the basis of the number of strings originally employed.

Beside the chartar, these include the dutar (دوتار; 'two-stringed'), setar (سه‌تار; 'three-stringed'), panjtar (پنج‌تار; 'five-stringed'), and the shashtar (شش‌تار; 'six-stringed').

It was revised into its current sound range in the 18th century and has since remained one of the most important musical instruments in Iran and the Caucasus, particularly in Persian music, while Azerbaijani music uses the Azerbaijani tar. It's the favoured instrument for radifs and mughams.

The most easily identifiable feature is the double-bowl shaped body carved from mulberry wood, with a thin membrane covering the top. The membrane is of stretched lamb-skin in the Persian tar, or the pericardium of an ox in the Azerbaijani (or Caucasian) tar. The fingerboard has twenty-five to twenty-eight adjustable gut frets. The Persian tar has three double courses of strings and a range of about two and one-half octaves. The Caucasian tar has 11 strings in five paired courses plus a bass drone.

The long and narrow neck has a flat fingerboard running level to the membrane and ends in an elaborate pegbox with six/11 wooden tuning pegs of different dimensions, adding to the decorative effect.

It has three courses of double "singing" strings (each pair tuned in unison: the first two courses in plain steel, the third in wound copper), that are tuned root, fifth, octave (C, G, C), plus one "flying" bass string (wound in copper and tuned to G, an octave lower than the singing middle course) that runs outside the fingerboard and passes over an extension of the nut. Every String has its own tuning peg and are tuned independently.

The Persian tar used to have five strings. The sixth string was added to the tar by Darvish Khan. This string is today's fifth string of the Iranian tar.