santur

The tradition & historical record

The santur (English: san-TOOR /sænˈtuɹ/ Persian: سنتور [sænˈt̪ʰuːɹ]) is a hammered dulcimer of Iranian origin. ¹

The santur was invented and developed in Persia and its region. The earliest sign of it coming from Assyrian and Babylonian stone carvings (669 BCE); it shows the instrument being played while hanging from the player's neck. This instrument traveled and developed in different regions of the Middle East. Musicians modified the original design over the centuries, yielding a wide array of musical scales and tunings. The first santurs were probably made of wood, perhaps with stone elements, and goat gut strings. According to Habib Hasan Touma, the Babylonian santur was the ancestor of the harp, the yangqin, the harpsichord, the qanun, the cimbalom, and the hammered dulcimers. ¹

The name 'santur' comes from Persian sanṭīr, related to the Greek ψαλτήριον 'psalterion'. The Biblical Aramaic form psantērīn is found in the Book of Daniel 3:5. ¹

The oval-shaped mezrabs (mallets) are feather-weight and are held between the thumb, index, and middle fingers. A typical Persian santur has two sets of nine bridges, providing a range of approximately three diatonic octaves. The mezrabs are made out of wood with tips that may or may not be wrapped with cotton or felt. The right-hand strings are made of brass or copper, while the left-hand strings are made of steel. A total of 18 bridges divide the santur into three positions. Over each bridge cross four strings tuned in unison, spanning horizontally across the right and left side of the instrument. There are three sections of nine pitches: each for the bass, middle, and higher octave called behind the left bridges comprising 27 tones altogether. The top "F" note is repeated twice, creating a total of 25 separate tones on the santur. The Persian santur is primarily tuned to a variety of different diatonic scales utilizing 1/4 tones which are designated into 12 modes (dastgahs) of Persian classical music. These 12 Dastgahs are the repertory of Persian classical music known as the Radif. ¹

Similar musical instruments have been present since medieval times all over in Persian-influenced regions, including Armenia, China, Greece, India, etc. The Indian santoor, directly borrowed from the Persian santoor, is wider and more rectangular and has more strings. Its mallets are also held differently and played with a different technique. The eastern European version of the santur called the cimbalom, which is much larger and chromatic, is used to accompany Hungarian folk music, Eastern European Jewish music, and Slavic music, as well as Romani music. ¹

The Iraqi santur (also santour, santoor) (Arabic: سنطور) is a hammered dulcimer of Mesopotamian origin. It is a trapezoid box zither with a walnut body and 92 steel (or bronze) strings. The strings, tuned to the same pitch in groups of four, are struck with two wooden mallets called "midhrab". The tuning of these 23 sets of strings extends from the lower yakah (G) up to jawab jawab husayni (A). The bridges are called dama ("chessmen" in Iraqi Arabic) because they look like pawns. It is native to Iraq, Syria, India, Pakistan, Turkey, Iran, Greece (the Aegean coasts) and Azerbaijan. It and the joza are the main instruments used in the classical Iraqi Maqam tradition. The instrument was brought to Europe by the Arabs through North Africa and Spain during the Middle Ages and also to China where it was referred to as the "foreign qin". The Iraqi santur has, since its inception, been fully chromatic, allowing for full maqam modulations. It uses 12 bridges of steel strings on both sides. Three of these bridges are movable: B half flat qaraar, E half flat, and B half flat jawaab. The non-standard version of the Iraqi santur includes extra bridges so that there's no need to move those three bridges. However, playing it is a bit harder than playing the standard 12-bridge santur. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Santur”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

santur is hammered dulcimer of Persian/Iranic origins, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 17 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²