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Dutar, tanbour and their varieties (setar, chahartar, panjtar, sheshtar), 
had a small pear-shaped body and a long neck with frets, on top of which pegs 
were fixed. 
Saz and dongar had longer body in comparison with tanbour.
The lower part of the rud had rounded shape, and was covered with leather 
membrane and its upper part was elongated and slightly widened in the middle 
part. The body tapered gradually and passed into a long neck. Its top was bent 
in the form of loop. The sound was gotten from four catgut strings or silk 
strings with the help of plectrum. 
Arghanun puts together especially rubab, barbat, chang and tanbour.
The body of ganun had triangle shape. It had 8 strings (consisted from 
three chords) and they were tuned up according to the melody. 
On the rectangular body of nuzha, thin wooden resonator holes were 
fixed, and 27 paired strings were stretched along its length. Single strings of 
different lengths were located between them on the left and right parts. The 
total number of the strings was 108. When playing the nuzha or ganun, they 
used the fingers of both hands. 
The instrument mughni combined the construction of rubab and nuzha. 
“Six pins were located in the upper left part of the neck and three pins at its 

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lower right side.  39 strings were stretched over the wide sounding board and 
fingerboard. 
Sheshkhana invented by Rzaaddin Shirvani had the head bent back. Its 
fingerboard was longer in comparison with the oud and the upper part of its 
body was covered with fish bladder. 
Sheshtay with big pear-shaped body existed in three types differing from 
each other by the length of the fingerboard and the presence of the resonating 
strings at the upper part of the sounding board. 
Ozan in comparison with other stringed instruments, had longerer body, 
two-thirds of which were covered with leather. 
Sometimes short burdon string was also fixed to the instrument.  The double-
stringed dambour was scoop shaped with three or four prongs on its end. 
The choghur with pear shaped and truncated body as well as the long neck 
had the head similar to the tar. 
The instrument chehesdeh with 8 or 9 strings was characterized with a 
large, slightly elongated body.
Musical instrument of the dulcimer type had the leather sounding board 
and 24 strings also called chang. 
Santur was a trapezoidal box. 96 metal strings passed over the sounding 
board, with one end they were attached to the knock pins, and other ends were 
attached to metal pins. Three chord strings were based on the moving stands. 
They were playing it with sticks with curved ends.   
Kamancha was consisted of a relatively small body, round neck, a more 
elongated and shaped ends compared to the modern examples, which were 
serving as a base. For two strings of the instrument, hair from the horse’s tail 
or silk threads was used. Later it became four string instrument.  
Chaghane –  a bowed stringed instrument with four strings had a large 
pear-shaped body, a wooden sounding board and a long tip, which rested onto 
the floor during the performance.
Chaghanag –  a three stringed bowed instrument had a long neck and a 
round body.
Wind instruments (aerophones)
Ney represented a long tube of small diameter. The size of the small pictures 
did not allow the artist to show the holes in the body but by the position of 
fingers we can assume that there are few holes, and they are located at the 
lower part of the instrument. 

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Nay  was usually made of reeds, but the professionals used its wood 
varieties - white and black nay. White nay (nayi-sefid) is a straight hollow tube 
with the length of 75-80 cm, it had 8 holes on the front side and one hole at the 
rear side. Black nay (nayi-siyakh) or mizmar was more advanced.  Its length 
was a half length of the white nay. A cane buzzer was inserted into body with 
7 holes. The instrument was equipped with a circular plate for supporting the 
lips.
Zourna (surna) was shorter than the black and white nay, so very high-
pitched sounds were gotten from it. The size of it was superior to modern 
species and it had 7 holes and wide bell. 
The sounds of neyche-balaban and tutek are soft and gentle, and in 
contrast with zourna, were straight tubes.
Musigar is a multi barelled flute, consisting of tubes (up to 20) of different 
lengths, connected to each other in ascending order - from the shortest to the 
longest tube. During the performance, the tool is positioned vertically up by 
the open ends of the tubes and held up by one hand for the lower end, and by 
the other hand for the narrow part. The open ends of the tubes contacted with 
the lips of artists. 
The brass tubes of argan were arranged in rows, and long tubes with a low 
sound were fixed above them.  Behind the tubes were the bellows for blowing 
an air. The bellows were pressed by left hand and with the fingers of the right 
hand were pressed the big buttons located at the tubes, and access to the air 
was opened, and thus obtained the sounds of different ranges.
Karanay was a straight tube, and gavdum (bent tube) is a tube bent in two 
parts and gets thickened in the form of ring in 4 and 7 parts. Their presence 
indicates that the bodies of the instruments are not whole things. Karanay and 
gavdum did not have any holes. In most cases, the instrument was held by 
one or two hands and the bell was up but the lips of the musicians touched the 
mouthpiece. 
The bronze nefir was twice shorter than karanai. It could extract just three 
sounds. Longer nefirs were called boru, and the trumpet bent in the shape of 
horn called shakh-nefir. 
Another signal bugh mouthpiece was usually made of the baked clay. 
Sheypur was a straight copper pipe with an expanded end of the funnel.
Nayi-khik was a wineskin, where two fixed tubes with buzzer had 
cleft reeds. During the playing, an air was forced into the bellow. Now this 
instrument is called tulum. 

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Membrane instruments (membranophones)
Def has the form of a round wooden rim, the skin is stretched on one side. 
5 small round plates are inserted at an equal distance from each other around 
the rim. They beat by the fingers of both hands on the membrane.
Small rings were fixed instead on the rim of daira, and bells were fixed on 
gaval. Rings and bells were absent in mazhar. 
The body of naghara was made of wood and had a shape of cylinder. Goat 
skin was used as membranes. Big nagara was called davul. 
Dohul represented a broad wooden rib of cylindrical shape, and the leather 
was stretched on both sides. The height of dohul exceeds its diameter. During 
the playing, a belt attached with two ends to the body of the instrument, were 
tossed over his shoulder, and the sound was extracted with the help of two 
wooden sticks on both membranes. One of the sticks had a rounded end. 
Tebil with the shape of cylindr was made of copper or bronze and the skin 
of wolf was stretched on the open side of it. They played it with two sticks. 
Tebil-baz or teblak-baz had a relatively small bowl-shaped body and the 
leather was stretched on the open side of it. The instrument was attached to the 
right side of the saddle of a horse. On the signal of the tebilbaz, the hunting 
falcons were unhanded. 
Dumbek was made of potter’s baked clay, iron and wood in the form of 
elongated large pots with open bottom ends. During the play, it was held under 
the arm and beaten on the deck of the leather by hand. 
Dumbul is an elongated barrel with a handle. 
Kus or kos was made of copper and was similar to the European kettledrum. 
In order to get more moderate sound, it was covered with net of belts. They 
beat the membrane with two sticks wrapped with cloth. 
The double-body gosha-naghara was similar to kus by its appearance and 
material but their bodies were much smaller. Both bodies were connected fixedly. 
They beat the membrane of jifti-kos (double kos) with two sticks, the ends 
of which were retroverted. 
The body of tabira narrowed in the middle. During the play, it was held 
under the arm and beaten by belt on the membrane. 
Self-sounding instruments (idiophones)
Zeng was a bell in the size of a fist, it was made of copper, bronze and 
other metals in the form of a truncated cone and a tongue of the bell was fixed 

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at its inner part. Its small variety was called zingirov  and  cheres,  and big 
variety was called chan and deray. 
Khalkhal was a gold or silver bracelet and small bells were attached to its 
upper part. 
Qumrov or qimro looked like a small hollow brass ball, inside of which 
there was two or three round stones or lead pellets. 
Sinj  is two copper plates with handles, zil  (castanets) represented its 
miniature species and was put on the thumb and middle finger. 
Lagguti  consisted of two separate flat bars of rectangular shape with 
different sizes. They played it with two sticks. 
Qashigek is two spoons connected inside with a rope and small metal 
pieces were placed in the space between them. 
Shakh-shakh consisted of two convex round wooden boards, which were 
fixed with a rope on one or two ends of the wooden handle.
Kasa is a bowl with a wide top. During the play, the bowl was filled with 
water in different levels, and they got different range of sounds by beating with 
sticks. 
Tesht represented a shallow copper basin with a wide open side. 
Safail is an instrument in the form of two wooden sticks. Two metal hoops 
with iron rings and small bells strung on them were fixed on the rings with the 
help of the iron hinges. The sticks were located inside the hoop. 
The staff of the kaman was bent in the form of a bow and metal plates, 
rings and small bells were strung on its bowstring. 
Agiz-gopuz was forged from iron rod in the form of horseshoes with 
elongated ends and a steel tongue was stretched between them. 
According to miniatures, when it was solo performance, they used saz, 
rubab, chang, ney, dohul and tebil-baz. In most cases, barbat, chang, rud 
and rubab were played together. A duet where arghanun-chang, chang-def 
(khanende holds it in hand), oud-def, tanbour-def, setar-def, rud-def, ney-def, 
karanay-gavdum. In ensembles, they used instruments such as: oud, rud, def 
and gaval; oud, kamancha and def; ney (two), def (two) and daira; musigar, def, 
dohul and tabira; musigar, def and gaval; musigar, gaval and tabira; karanay, 
gavdum, zourna and gosha-naghara.
During the folk performances, the participants played gashigek which they 
strike against each other; zingirov and qumrov  were at the waist of masgarachi 
(a clown) and khalhals were on the feet of dancers [4]. 
In order to inspire warriors and intimidate enemies, as well as in peacetime, 
they played wind instruments (karanay, nay, gavdum, sheypur, mizmar, 

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zourna, musigar, nefir), membrane instruments (kus, tebil, dohul, tabire) and 
idiophonic instruments (sinj, cheres, zeng, kaman, deray).
Until recently, they played just 17 musical instruments out of 88 musical 
instruments which were common in medieval Azerbaijan. Due to the efforts 
of Majnun Kerim, Abbasgulu Najafzade and Mammadali Mamadov who were 
restoring lost musical instruments, some of those instruments (ozan, gopuz, 
chang, barbat, rubab, Shirvan tanbour, rud, nuzha, chagane, choghur, santur, 
kus, alvah, arqanun) were returned to everyday life. 
New kinds of kamancha, balaban, santour and lagguti were created, tar 
and kamancha were reconstructed, chang, balaban and zourna were improved. 
In addition, Gasim Gasimov created new instruments: jura-oud, sina-oud, 
vel-oud, yek-tar, zil-saz, zulfar;  Mammadali Mammadov – Karabakh kaman, 
oud-men, ay-ulduz, irs, Azerbaijan, ramish, sevgililer, electrical kamancha, 
Alijavad Javadov – sumsu-balaban, tulek, neyvari, zumzume, zourna-balaban, 
Fikret Guliyev – fitar, Famil Qurbanov – bas-kaman, Musa Yagubov – double-
necked kamancha, Ihtiyar Seyidov –  palmar ney,  Nakhchivani tanbour, 
Mahmud Salah – shesh-kaman, shergi-tar, Adil Khalilov – buta.
A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT OF GLOBAL IMPORTANCE
The  tar is the most popular musical instrument among the Azerbaijani 
people. Its shape, which is different from the other stringed instruments, 
immediately attracts attention.
The pleasant and colorful sounds coming from the strings of the tar please 
the ear and captivate people. It is certainly explained by the perfection of the 
construction, specifically the presence of twisted steel and copper strings that 
convey all nuances of the popular tunes and especially, mughams. 
This is graphically proved by the presence of five frets on the instrument’s 
neck that correspond to the lineup of mughams, and of a bass string that is used 
only for performing of them. The wide range, distinct sounds, melodiousness, 
special registers, the possibility of performing of polyphonic chords and 
virtuoso passages, lengthy dynamic sound rises and attenuations, colorful 
decorations and gradations of shades – all of them allows the tar to be used as a 
solo, accompanying, ensemble and orchestra instrument. But nonetheless, the 
tar is a recognized instrument of solo mughams when the performer’s mastery 

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and the technical capabilities of the instrument manifest themselves in full. 
The tar conveys the feelings, mood and dreams of a person and especially, 
discloses his soul vividly and fully. 
Tar means a “string” or “thread” in Persian [14,63]. This word was usually 
used to describe instruments of the same type that differ from each other only 
by the number of strings, for example, the first changing syllable in the words 
like yektar, dutar, setar, chahartar, panjtar and sheshtar, means numbers (from 
one to six). It is difficult to explain why the root of this word was chosen to 
name a many-stringed instrument, which is the tar. Most likely, the name of 
the tar was derived from the simplification of the word “gimtar” (gim – sound, 
tar/dar – tree), which means a “sounding tree” [25]. It is interesting that the 
name of the many-stringed (up to 16 strings) instrument - the tanbour, which 
is popular in Central Asia, is based not on the number of strings, but on the 
sounds (“tan” means a heart and bur means “to pull” in old Greek language).
Structurally, only the Pamirs rubab is regarded to be close to the tar; 
according to another version, the tar is regarded as some sort of a hybrid of 
the tanbour and oud [86]. Earlier sources put forward the version that the tar 
was formed from the setar or geychek [53, 85], which are widespread in Iran. 
But the pear-shaped body of the setar and the presence of a wooden sounding 
board instead of a leather sounding board contradict this conclusion. The 
double body is typical of the geychek which, unlike the tar, has a short neck 
and a head folded backwards. Moreover, a bow is used play this instrument. 
Given all this, it is possible that the tar migrated from the Caucasus i.e. from 
Azerbaijan [2,28]. The tar became most popular in Azerbaijan since XVIII 
century. 
Historically, the tar was widespread in a relatively small area confined to 
Azerbaijan and Iran. It had five strings (two white, two yellow and one bass 
string), a big and deep bowl, while 27-28 frets were tied on its long neck. Since 
the instrument is heavy, the performers held it on their knees or under their 
breast when they played it.
In the 70s of XIX century, the tar was reconstructed by the outstanding 
performer and native of Karabakh, Mirza Sadig Asadoglu (1846-1902), who 
was popularly known as Sadigjan because the listeners who admired his 
performance could not help exclaiming “jan!” or “Sadig jan!”. Initially, he 
increased the number of the strings up to 18 and then confined himself to 13 
strings – two three-chord strings at the bottom, double and single bass strings 
in the middle and two double ringing ones in the upper part of the fingerboard, 
leaving 22 frets on the neck. To avoid the neck bending, it is fastened to the 

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special spacer on the body, and a wooden strut is installed inside the spacer. 
Moreover, Sadigjan reduced the thickness of the body and straightened its 
sides, thus expanding the upper part of the body and increasing the strength 
of the sound. The lighter instrument could now be held on the breast. This 
suddenly boosted the performance of the tar [17]. Gaining popularity in such a 
structure, the tar quickly spread to the whole Caucasus, Turkey’s Kars Province 
and Central Asia. The five-stringed tar continues to be used in Central and 
Southern Iran. At the turn of the 20th century, the Iranian musician Gholam 
Hossein Darvish-khan (1873-1926) added a sixth string to it [85]. But the 
reconstructed tar, which was called the “Azerbaijani tar” [2], became more 
common in Azerbaijan from the last quarter of the 19th century. In 1929, the 
number of the strings was reduced to 11 in order to secure more stable tuning 
for the instrument.
After the heated debates of the 20s and 30s of the last century on the issue 
of preserving or refusing of the tar [37], the genius Azerbaijani composer 
Uzeyir Hajibeyli managed to protect it among the instruments with uniformly 
tempered 12-tone pitch [39] and thus ensured that it was included in the note 
folk, opera and symphonic orchestras. Thanks to this, the tar classes began to 
be opened in special secondary music schools and conservatoires. 
The main components of the tar are the body (chanag), the spacer (ich 
gol), the butt (kup), the neck (gol), the head (kalla), pins (ashikh), thresholds 
(parda), stands (kharak) and strings (sim). The total length of the instrument 
varies between 830 and 890 mm.
The body of the tar, which acts as a sounding board, is elongated and 
convex with dents on the sides and consists of two halves – big and small 
bowls. Masters figuratively say that the big and small bowls play the role of 
the “heart” and “kidneys”. The sound increases in the heart, and going through 
the “navel” (the zone of transition from the big to the small bowl), is filtered 
in the kidney. The body resembles the number eight from above. The body is 
made from one piece of mulberry tree.
The long neck is flat from the upper facial side and round from the bottom. 
In order to facilitate the movement of the left hand while playing, the neck 
gradually becomes narrow towards the top. The core of a nut tree is used to 
make the neck.
The body and neck are attached to the peg-shaped butt that is made from a 
mulberry, apricot or nut tree.
The head is shaped as a narrow and deep box which is open from the front, 
upper and lower sides and has round and figured (often star-shaped) cuts on 

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the sides. Three big pins (with a round head) and three small pins (with a flat 
head) are attached to it from the top, while three big ones are attached from 
the opposite side. They are made mainly from pear. Such pins “sit” very well 
on the head.
The spacer from pine wood has a square shape. One of them rests on the 
lower part of the body from inside, while the other end rests on the end of the 
neck. It does not allow the neck to bend downwards, upwards or sideways 
(chengel).
The heart membrane of cattle (except for the buffalo) or sheatfish breast 
skin is pulled on the open side of the body – the sounding board (uz), which 
acts as a sound resonator.
Twenty two frets are tied across the neck at certain distances from each 
other. This number of frets corresponds to the sound pitch of the tar which 
covers one and a half octave and is consisted of 22 phases. The main sound 
pitch of the tar creates the gamma of 17 phases which is characteristic of the 
Azerbaijani music. They are made from a sheep’s small bowel which gives the 
instrument gentle sounding. In the recent period, the bowel has been replaced 
with catgut or capron thread. Because of this, the tar has started sounding 
rougher, but the frets have become stronger.
A big stand is placed in the center of the sounding board of the big bowl, 
while a smaller stand is placed on the lower part of the body. A threshold is 
placed at the place where the head and the neck are connected, while small 
additional stands are placed on the upper edge of the neck in its middle part. 
Their purpose (except for the lower stand) is to keep the strings over the body 
and the neck at a certain height and at a distance from each other.
The tar has 11 metal strings of various degrees of thickness. The lower 
double thin white, yellow and bass (kok/dam) strings are regarded as the main 
ones and play the tune. The nextred red thick bass (bam kok, pitch strings) 
string is used for enriching the sound and chords. Above the bass strings, there 
are two pairs of white strings – zang, jingana (ringing strings), and they are 
almost twice as shorter. Like the pitch string, they do not hug the neck when 
you play, but play the role of resonance, ensuring cadence with a certain pitch 
between phrases and sounding of the mugham endings.
The main strings (two white and two yellow ones) and ringing strings 
are wound around the big chips and the bass strings – around the small 
ones. Such an order of tightening of the strings helps the performer to find 
very quickly the chip that corresponds to this or that string while tuning the 
instrument.

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The strings are sounded with the help of a plectrum (mizrab) in the form of 
a tooth. It is made from the bark of a cherry tree, bone, bull’s horn and ebonite 
(previously, from copper or gold).
The body, neck, head and chips are decorated with special national patterns 
from mother-of-pearl and colored bones (previously, silver and gold were used 
for this purpose). Such tars are normally called “sadafli tar”. It is worth noting 
that apart from playing an aesthetic role, the fanciful designs in the front of 
the instrument’s neck also play a functional role, indicating the location of the 
frets on the neck.
The tars made by the Azerbaijani masters have repeatedly been displayed 
in Turkey, Iran, India, France and Holland. Some of them are kept in the 
world’s leading museums.
The tar is played in the sitting position. The tar is held near the upper part 
of the breast in a horizontal position and slightly pressed by the wrist of the 
right hand, while the lower part of the body is positioned slightly lower than 
the right shoulder of the performer. The plectrum, which is located between the 
thumb and index finger of the right hand, is hit against the strings in the middle 
of the big bowl of the body. At this moment, three fingers (index, long and ring 
fingers) press the strings against the frets in certain places, producing various 
sounds, while the thumb holds the neck of the instrument. While performing 
mughams, the experienced performers also use their little finger on the part of 
the neck closer to the body. The instrument can also be played with the fingers 
of the left hand that touch the strings in pizzicato technique.
Various plectra (mizrab) marks and techniques are used for playing: hitting 
with the plectrum from above, below, above and below, or vice versa, at a high 
speed from above and below, always from above, below and above, moving 
of the fingers on the string, shaking of the instrument, vibration, glissando, 
playing near the small bowl or closer to the big stand.
In order to emphasize the individual episodes of the pieces of music and 
convey them in a more colorful fashion, the experienced musicians also use 
other marks of plectra (ruh/rukht, chahar, chirtig, alif, gosha-mizrab, gulriz, 
zangi-shutur, etc.) [16]. The tar also provides other techniques for getting of 
dynamic shades: khun or khum, hal mizrab, narin mizrab, etc. 
Depending on the particularities of the use of the fingers of the left hand, 
they have different names: “adi barmag” (an ordinary finger), “surusdurme bar-
mag” (a sliding finger), “dartma” (twitching),“lal barmag” (dumb finger), etc.
The double white, yellow and ringing strings are tuned in unison to a 
certain pitch, i.e. have a permanent lineup. The three bass strings (dam and 

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pitch strings) between the yellow and ringing strings have a variable lineup, 
i.e. depending on the mugham that is being performed or the modal basis of the 
piece, they are tuned to various pitches. In this case, every bass string forms a 
system characteristic of mugham or its sections in the form of the organ point 
or harmonic background.
Before playing, a tarist definitely tunes his instrument in compliance with 
the tonality of the mugham he wants to perform. The double white and yellow 
strings are tuned first and then, the ringing and finally, the bass strings are 
tuned.
The tar has a range from C in the small octave to G in the twice-accented 
octave, with a solo performance -  to A-flat, A in the twice-accented octave.  
Parts for the tar are written in the mezzo-soprano clef.
The names of the wonderful virtuoso tarists (tarzens) such as Mirza Sadig, 
Meshadi Zeynal, Meshadi Jamil Amirov, Shirin Akhundov, Mirza Faraj, Gurban 
Pirimov, Mirza Mansur Mansurov, Ahmad Bakikhanov, Bahram Mansurov, 
Aliaqa Guliyev, Haji Mammadov, Ahsan Dadashov, Habib Bayramov, Baba 
Salahov and others are known in Azerbaijan and far beyond. Their artistic 
traditions are being continued by the talented young people.
As a solo and accompanying instrument, the tar was one of the first 
instruments included in the expanded ensembles created in the early 19
th
 
century. The tar is an irreplaceable “participant” in the sazanda ensemble 
(sazanda dastasi) which, apart from a tarist, also includes a khananda (a singer 
with a gaval and a player of kamancha instrument. The sazanda ensembles of 
Jabbar Garyagdioglu, Abdulbagi Zulalov, Islam Abdullayev, Seyid Shushinski, 
Zulfi Adigozalov, Khan Shushinski and others were extremely popular in the 
19
th
 century and in the first half of the 20
th
 century [79]. As in the past, the 
mugham trios and ensembles are very popular among the listeners nowadays. 
It would be enough to mention the ensemble of Alim Gasimov whose art is 
admired in many countries of the world.
The tar is the main instrument in the orchestras and ensembles of the 
Azerbaijani folk instruments. The tar also plays a great role during the entire 
performance of the mugham operas. It was skillfully used in the operas and 
ballets, as well as in the music comedies by the Azerbaijani composers who 
allocated special parts for it in the score. 
The tar was first introduced by Gurban Pirimov as a solo instrument 
in pop music, while Haji Mammadov was the first to play the European 
classical pieces, as well as vocal pieces of the Azerbaijani composers to the 
accompaniment of the piano. The tar was played by Ramiz Guliyev in the 

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pop-symphony orchestra of the Russian radio and television and the Academic 
Orchestra of the Russian Folk Instruments in Moscow. 
Haji Khanmammadov was the first to write a concert for the tar with a 
symphony orchestra and then composed four concerts. Five concerts were 
composed by Tofig Bakikhanov and two by Yashar Khalilov.
Their initiative was supported by Zakir Bagirov, Nariman Mammadov, 
Ramiz Mirishli, Firangiz Babayeva, Nazim Guliyev and Kamal Ahmedov. 
The listeners were delighted by the first concert composed by Said 
Rustamov for the tar with an orchestra of folk instruments. Then, three 
concerts for the tar with an orchestra were written by Suleyman Alasgarov 
and Adviya Rahmatova. The similar concerts were also composed by Jahangir 
Jahangirov, Mammadaga Umidov and Yashar Khalilov. “Daimi Harakat” 
(“Eternal Movement”) by Suleyman Alasgarov, “Hezin regs” (“Sad Dance”) 
by Adviya Rahmatova, “Khatira” (“Memory”) by Nadir Azimov and  the 
consert  “Naqshijakhan” by Nazim Guliyev, were written for the tar with an 
orchestra of folk instruments. 
The symphony “Azerbaijan” by Tofig Bakikhanov for the tar and 
symphony orchestra, “Suite” by Shafiga Akhundova, the “Double Concert” 
by Tofig Bakikhanov for the tar and violin with a symphony orchestra, the 
“Karabagname” by Sevda Ibrahimova for the tar  and chamber orchestra, 
“Oda”, “My tar, orphaned without Gurban” elegy-memoir for  voice, the 
tar and string orchestra, “I miss you, Shusha” for the tar, piano and string 
orchestra, “Saginame” by Eldar Mansurov for the tar, two violins, viola 
and cello,  ““Karabakh shikestesi” for voice, tar, kamancha and chamber 
orchestra, “Dushunje”. “Gaytagy” and “Heyraty” by Azer Rzayev for the tar 
with chamber orchestra; “Sonatina” by Firangiz Babayeva for the tar, “Pieces” 
by Elnara Dadashova, “Variations” by Rauf Aliyev, “Pieces” by Nazim 
Guliyev, “Humayun” by Aliya Mammadova for the tar and chamber ensemble, 
“Quartet” by Mammad Javadov for the two tar and two kamanchas, “Dance of 
friendship” by Yashar Imanov for two tars and symphony orchestra, “Quintet” 
by Sardar Farajov for two tars, two kamanchas and a piano, two dances by 
Lala Jafarova for the tar and piano, are of great interest.
“Scherzo” by Suleyman Alaskarov for the tar and piano, “Lyrical Dance” 
by Khalil Jafarov, “March of the Patriots” by Agabaji Rzayeva, “Playbook” 
by Sardar Farajev, the play “Who you forget”, dedicated to Mikail Mushfig, 
“Gyzlar bulagy” ( “Maiden spring”) by Nazim Guliyev, the composition “El 
oglu hay ver  (“Answer, my countryman”) by Tahir Akbar  for the soloists, 
chorus, tar, balaban and orchestra, “Ballad about Karabakh” by Vasif 

AZERBAIJANI MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS FASCINATE THE WORLD
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Allahverdiyev for solo tar, the dances “Naznazy-Capriccio” and “Turajy” by 
Jeyhun Allahverdiyev for the tar, kamancha, balaban, naghara and chamber 
orchestra, “Scherzo” for the tar, kamancha and chamber orchestra,  the dances 
“Shydyrgy” and “Chylgyn” by Hamid Vekilov for the tar, “Sonata” by Kamal 
Ahmadov for the tar and piano, “Song without Words”  by Yasar Khalilov, 
“Alov” (“Flame”) fantasy by Adila Yusifova, “Sonata” and “Concert Piece” 
by Pika Akhundova, the works “March of victory” and “Ballad” by Novruz 
Aydemirli for the tar and piano. 
The tar also plays a great role in the works of the Azerbaijani composers 
written in different genres in the score of the “First Fantasy” by Uzeyir Hajibeyli, 
“Dance of Joy” and “Azerbaijani Suite” by Said Rustamov; “Egyptian Pictures” 
by Jahangir Jahangirov; “Shahnazsayagi”, “Bagchakurd”, “Safikurd” and 
“Gulistan” by Adil Garay, “Sonatina” and “Songs without words” by Suleyman 
Alasgarov, “Lyrical dance” by Vasif Adigozalov, “Chahargah”, “Skerso” and 
“Dance-tokkata” by Hasan Rzayev and “Sonata” by Dadash Dadashov.
Without the tar, the professional Azerbaijani folk music would have hardly 
achieved in its current high level. It was exactly through the tar and closely 
related mugham art that the whole world learnt the essence and specificity of 
the Azerbaijani folk music in all its richness.
As it is known, in the Middle Ages, the oud was regarded as the “king” of 
all the musical instruments. The Azerbaijani people boldly apply this epithet 
to their musical instrument – tar nowadays. The tar is rightfully considered as 
one of the national symbols of Azerbaijan.