Tajik Music

Tajik music is the traditional music of the Tajik people of Tajikistan and northern Afghanistan, centred on two art traditions: the courtly *shashmaqam*, a cycle of six modal suites shared with Uzbekistan, and *falak*, the sung poetry of the mountain south. Performance rests on long-necked lutes such as the dutar and setar, the ghijak spike fiddle and the doira frame drum, with solo singing that sets classical Persian verse by poets such as Rumi and Hafez. Village repertories of wedding songs, dance music and epic narration persist alongside the conservatory-taught classical canon maintained in Dushanbe.