[2] A terracotta figurine from ancient Merv dating to the 2nd through 4th centuries CE portrays a wandering minstrel bearing an instrument resembling the dutar.
Gullyyev and Rejepova assert that the epic poem Gorkut Ata reveals the names of early medieval instruments, the gopuz, surnaý, bory, and nagara, but concede that information on Turkmen musical culture of the 9th through 15th centuries is virtually nonexistent.
[5] Musician and musicologist Mamed Guseynov, however, notes,...information on musical instruments contained in the works of al-Farabi, al-Kindi, Ibn Sina, Safi al-Din and al-Urmavi (IX-XIII centuries) [allows reconstruction of] the appearance of more than seventy musical instruments that were widely popular among Turkmens at different times.
[3]Belyayev asserted that Turkmen love of music is rooted in the lack of other entertainment options while pursuing a nomadic lifestyle in the broad steppes.
[15] The appearance of dutars playing in ensemble, or performing purely instrumental music, is a relatively recent phenomenon not in keeping with tradition.
[16] Percussion instruments (the tambourine, mainly) are encountered rarely and then primarily in areas heavily influenced by Uzbek musical culture.
[21] Gullyyew and Rejepowa note the influence of Turkmen poet laureate Magtymguly Pyragy on musical form beginning in the 18th century, when, they postulate, bagşy split into two groups, the dessançy (reciters of poetry) and tirmeçi (singers).
In the 19th century bagşy began favoring performance of poetry by Mämmetweli Kemine, Seyitnazar Seydi, Zelili, and Mollanepes.
[25] Belyayev concedes that "to the inexperienced ear [Turkmen music] can seem monotonous and uniform" due to the "figurative severity of the coloration and the absence of any calculation of the external effect.
[26][27] Turkologist Ármin Vámbéry described a bagşy producing "gutteral sounds resembling more the trilling of larks than a human singing."
"[31] Although suppressed by Soviet authorities, since Turkmenistan became independent promotion of Turkmen culture has led to some preservation of these folk songs.
[34] By the end of the 1930s graduates of these institutions began composing European-style music, based on European scales and modes but incorporating Turkmen motifs, among them Weli Muhadow, Daňatar Öwezow, and Aman Gulyýew.
[33] Following the outbreak of World War II, many Russian and Ukrainian composers and musicians were transferred from cities near the front lines to Central Asia, including Turkmenistan, which exerted a strong European classical influence on Turkmen compositions.
European-style operas based on Central Asian themes, such as Shasenem and Garyp, Leyli and Mejnun, and Zohre and Tahir, resulted from these collaborations.
[36] By the 1950s Soviet Turkmen composers had shifted from producing modern orchestral arrangements of traditional epics to paeans to Soviet power, including Bagt kantatasy (Joy Cantata), Kommunistik partiýa hakynda kantata (Cantata about the Communist Party), Lenin barada oýlanma (Thought of Lenin), and Salam Moskva (Hello, Moscow).
The ensemble broke up in 1986, after which some of its former members developed a "synth-heavy Turkmen folk music that combined modulated traditional male vocals with incredibly fast-paced arrangements on drum machines and synthesizers.
"[40] These genres were banned following independence in 1991, when then-President Saparmurat Niyazov prohibited several art forms, including lip-synching, karaoke, ballet, and opera.
The word “dutar” itself is first found in the work “Scientific and Practical Canons of Music”, authored by Zainulabiddin al-Husayni, a Central Asian scholar and musician who lived in the 15th century.
In Turkmen folklore, an ancestral belief posits that Adam, crafted from clay, lacked a soul until the harmonious tunes of the tuiduk, played by Archangel Gabriel, breathed life into him.
Preserving ancient traditions, a ceremonial ritual invites guests to celebrations, where two tuiduk players face each other, elevating their instruments and harmoniously playing in unison.
Shaman bagşy exorcised evil spirits through use of specific instruments, including the dep or deprek, the Central Asian tambourine which descended directly from the Parthian tambourine depicted on rhytons found in ancient Nisa; the jaň, a small bell hung around the neck of the lead sheep in a flock or the lead camel in a caravan; the düwme, miniature tambourines hung on an infant's cradle or stitched to children's and women's clothing to protect them from evil; the üsgülewük, a children's whistle molded from clay in the form of a mountain goat or bird; the gopuz, or Jew's harp, and the şaldyrak, a stick with jingling noisemakers.