The term tanbūr (Persian: تنبور) can refer to various long-necked, fretted lutes originating in the Middle East or Central Asia. According to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "terminology presents a complicated situation. Nowadays the term tanbur (or tambur) is applied to a variety of distinct and related long-necked lutes used in art and folk traditions. Similar or identical instruments are also known by other terms."

One study has identified the name "tanbūr" as being derived from pandur, a Sumerian term for long-necked lutes. Lutes have been present in Mesopotamia since the Akkadian era, or the third millennium BCE.

The tanbur was already in use in the Sassanian period (5th-6th century). In the tenth century CE Al-Farabi described a Baghdad tunbūr, distributed south and west of Baghdad, and a Khorasan tunbūr found in Persia. This distinction may be the source of modern differentiation between Arabic instruments, derived from the Baghdad tunbūr, and those found in northern Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sindh and Turkey, from the Khorasan tunbūr.

Necdet Yaşar (Turkish pronunciation: [ˈnedʒdet ˈjaʃaɾ]) or Necdet Yasar in the West (born 1930), is a Turkish tanbur lute player and teacher. A founding member of the Istanbul State Turkish Music Ensemble, he performed throughout the world as a cultural ambassador for Turkey and taught twice at the University of Washington (USA). In 1991, the Turkish government awarded him the title of "National Artist".

In 1930, Necdet Yaşar was born in Nizip, a small town near Gaziantep, Turkey. He graduated from the School of Economics, Istanbul University.

In 1972–73 and 1980–81, Yaşar was a resident artist of the Program of Ethnomusicology at the University of Washington (USA), where he gave lectures on the makam system of Ottoman classical music.

In 1981 He met Alan Prosser from England. He agreed to teach Alan and his children the complete makam list and system. This happened over the next 7 years. All the lessons were tape recorded. Yaşar later asked Alan to help preserve the true knowledge of the makams and the Traditional Turkish Art Music Society of Great Britain was started. Yaşar also asked Alan and his children to play a recital on Turkish Television to help with the revival of interest in the ancient makam system. As well as this he asked Alan to write to the Turkish Culture Minister to help establish Yaşar's music group officially.