Description: The dutar is a chordophone who is a member of the long necked lute family it is found throughout Central Asia. In Farsi the name dutar translates as "du" meaning "two" and "tar" meaning "strings". Al Farabi also described the dutar in his writings. A close relative of the dutar is the tanbur-e-khorosan. The dutar is played in folk and Uyghur classical music "On Ikki Maqam" or "the 12 Maqam". The dutar remains a very popular instrument amongst the Uyghur people it is found in many Uyghur house-holds. The dutar is found in several sizes including a small dutar which is tuned in unison.

Anatomy of the Uygur Dutar: The 15 nylon frets tied onto the Uyghur dutar are in a diatonic scale; my specimen of dutar is Uygur. The body of the dutar is constructed from 14 staves of wood built around a frame. The dutar amongst with many Uygur musical instruments are highly ornate with multi-coloured camel bone inlay.

In Afghanistan: The dutar is known as "Dutar-e-chahardah jelau" or more commonly as the Herati dutar. This type of dutar has 14 sympathetic strings the addition of these strings is influenced from the Indian Sitar. Although this instrument likely has originated from the Afghani Tanbur who is still found in Northern Afghanistan. A wide range of musical repertoire is played on this instrument ranging from classical, art-music to film and popular music. The frets of this type of dutar are raised and they are tied on like the Indian sitar. The bridge of this form of dutar has a raised end some Central Asian instruments sport this feature too. In ensembles the dutar is played solo or accompanies vocal, harmonium and percussion. The two stringed dutar is also found and played in Afghanistan.

In Turkmenistan: This type of dutar has a much shorter neck and often the frets are tied on or on the older models of the dutar the frets are hand-carved of the same neck of the wood. And the body is also carved usually from a single-block of wood. Originally this dutar may have used silk strings however in recent times this dutar uses steel strings. In Turkmenistan this dutar is often played to accompany bardic or "epic" singing. In other ensembles the dutar maybe accompanies by other instruments. In Soviet Era Turkmenistan many orchestral forms of this instrument bass to solo have been made.