The Tar [tAr] was the chosen instrument of the great masters of Persian classical music who flouriseh in such abundance between the mid-nineteenth and the first third of the 20th centuries. It has remained no less in favour today.

Il is not known how far back its origins go. According to Jean During it is derived from the Robab [robAb] and appeared in its present form around the middle of the 18th century.

The Tar belongs the lute family. It has a resonating body in the shape of two bowls joined together. They are of mulberry wood. The sounding-board is in the sgape of two hearts joined at the tips. This sounding-board is made of lamb-skin with the bridge placed on the lower, the broader half. The long fingerboard is furnished with twenty five frets of catgut tied round the neck and six (formely five) strings, which every two strings are tuned the same (the 6th string is one octave lower). They are plucked with a plectrum usually made of a brass blade mounted in a small ball of wax. The Tar has a range of about two and a half octaves.

The extremely thin membrane of the sounding-board gives the instrument a brilliant, warm and rich sound quality which blends particularly well with that of the Tombak [tombak].

Some say that Tar was invented by Abu Nasr Farabi, and some say that it is completed by him. Anyway, since the early XIXe century, the Tar is cinsidered as the principal instrument of Persians traditional music.