SOUNDS OF DUTAR– MELODY OF PEOPLE’S SOUL

The Turkmen national music in the traditional types and forms was created from ancient times by the bakhshi, singers and musicians who played dutar. The most popular dutar is used as the solo, ensemble and accompanying musical instrument. In hands of master bakhshi this unattractive, at first glance, two-stringed chipper tool in a form of pear, can transfer all range of human feelings and worries. The sounds of dutar for Turkmen people always sound as a melody of people’s soul, as the sound of their spiritual world, as a call of native nature. They listened intently to these magical sounds, which carried them into the vast expanses of the great desert, then into the fields of poppies blooming in the spring. The music of the dutar conveyed the flying flight of the heavenly Akhal-Teke horses, the noisy fuss of the Turkmen festive, the whole depth of human love and the suffering of.

Those who had the gift of conquering the souls of the Turkmen by their play on the dutar, the bakhshi enjoyed a special respect and esteem in the society. Folk memory holds the names of such well-known musicians as Sary-bakhshi, Hally-bakhshi, Nobat-bakhshi, Girman-bakhshi, and such korifei as honored worker of arts of TSSR M. Tachmuradov and the people’s artist of TSSR Sahy Jepbarov. Virtuoso -bakhshi, composer, educator and mentor Sahy Jepbarov organized the first instrumental-vocal ensemble at the opened in 1937 Ashgabat Republican House of folk art (RDNT). Being the composer, he created many songs relying on text of Makhtumkuli and lyrics of other Turkmen poets.

Turkmen bakhshi have been and remain the guardians of folk art, passing down from generation to generation the artistic values and traditions created over the centuries. In the bakhshi repertoire, epic tales - epics - have a special place «Gerogly», «Shasenem and Garib», «Leyli and Mejnun», «Zohre and Tahir», «Yusup and Ahmed», «Nejep-oglan», «Gul and Bilbil» and others that are popular and contain pictures of the traditional way of life and the way of life of the people.

The Turkmen people considered that the impression of the dutar music on person, its gentle power are higher that the hard power of arms; this idea was described using the artistic means of literature and cinematography in the novel «Shukur-bakhshi» and cinema and the film “Sostyazaniye” (Competing) based on it. In his book "Music of the World, Music of Friendship and Brotherhood" the President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov addressed to the image of Shukur-bakhshi as an antipode to the solution of problems, "when the ability to win and achieve goals is based not on the power of arms, but on the use of peaceful means." And in this respect, Shukur-bakhshi reflection of mentality of the Turkmen people and the country, which has chosen the neutral status as a way to peace and prosperity.

There is one more important idea in the book of the Turkmen leader, that only through the arts the country can declare itself to be instant and "documentary" recognized in any language, in any culture and in any situation. In this regard, the music of Turkmen dutar is one of the most unique and recognizable phenomena of the Turkmen culture, expressing the national identity and worthy of worldwide recognition.