Amin Golestani

Amin Golestani is a Tehran-based tar maker and oud player. He belongs to a quieter tradition of Iranian artisans who are also musicians — makers who shape an instrument with the ear of someone who plays it. His own playing on the oud informs how he voices a tar, and the line between builder and musician is never quite fixed.

The tar — a long-necked, fretted lute that anchors the Persian classical, or dastgāh, repertoire — is among the most demanding instruments to build well. Its figure-eight body is traditionally carved from a single block of mulberry, and its sound depends on a soundboard of stretched lambskin: a living membrane that answers the lightest touch of the plectrum and gives the tar its bright, responsive voice. Golestani’s instruments follow this classical construction — a carved mulberry body, a lambskin soundboard, a horn bridge and tailpiece for clarity and sustain, a walnut neck, and a bone fingerboard and nut. His one modern concession is at the tuning machines: geared mechanical pegs in place of traditional friction pegs, giving performers faster, more stable tuning on stage.

What sets a maker like Golestani apart is less a published reputation than the quiet circulation of his work. As with many Iranian luthiers, his presence lives mainly through his own workshop and a handful of international players and specialist dealers rather than through press or encyclopedias. That makes provenance harder to document — yet it is also how much of the finest Persian instrument-making has always travelled: maker to musician, by reputation and by ear.

At Tapadum, Golestani’s craftsmanship reaches players beyond Iran. His Professional Iranian Tar carries the materials and voicing described here, prepared for the stage and protected for the journey.