The Iranian Tar is a stringed instrument from the Rabab family. It is a double-chested plucked, long-necked lute. Its membrane serves as a soundtable which give the tar a clear and resonant timbre. It has a figure 8 shape, its bowl is carved of mulberry wood, but we also have in our catalogue tars made of walnut. Tar’s fingerboard is interesting in terms of being covered with bone. The twenty-five movable frets dividing the octave into 15 intervals make tar a special instrument. Tar is played in folk music of Iran, used in urban entertainments (motrebi), but it is also associated with art music. Tar possesses the same tonal range with setar and it is more popular than the latter although it has not had a very long history in Iran. We have wide a variety of high-quality and professional tars in our catalogue. They are all hand-made, constructed by the masters who excelled their craft. Our store is the right place to buy a tar at the best value.
Tar Instrument Production and Types
The tar instrument types are divided into four types: the 86–89 cm long solo tar, the 83–86 cm long orchestral tar, the 72–76 cm long student tar and the cura tar.
There are two main groups of wires on the tar instrument. The strings in the first group are used for playing the melody and it consists of three groups of strings, two each. The strings in the other group are called Kök and Zeng, tuned according to the maqam played and enriching the timbre.Tar instrument is one of the reeds developed from Kopuz and its sound width is 2.5 octaves. The body part is knuckled in the middle and has a double bowl.
Three different trees are used for the construction of the tar instrument, which consists of three parts. Mulberry tree is used for the body, hardwood species such as walnut and ebony are used for the stem, and hazelnut tree is used for the head, which is called the head. The hull consists of two boats of different shapes and sizes. The monolithic mulberry tree to be used for these boats is made of trees that have grown in sunlight and are cut in winter in order not to crack during carving and to capture a beautiful sound. After carving, the pericardium obtained from dried bovine animals is stretched over the chest of the boat. The handle is usually made of harder woods such as walnuts. Hazelnut tree is used for the head part called the head.