Santur

The santur is a hammered dulcimer: a shallow trapezoidal box, usually of walnut, strung with metal strings that the player strikes with a pair of light wooden hammers called mezrab. In its classic Persian form it has seventy-two strings, arranged in eighteen courses of four, each course tuned to a single note and carried over a small movable bridge known as a kharak, ‘little donkey’. Nine bridges stand on the right side of the instrument and nine on the left, giving three registers in all.

The mezrabs are held lightly between the fingers and thumb, and their tips are sometimes wrapped in felt to soften the attack. Because each note rings on after it is struck, the santur produces a shimmering, bell-like sound in which phrases overlap and resonate. A player retunes the movable bridges for each dastgah, so the instrument is reset before every change of mode, sometimes in the middle of a concert.

History

In the twentieth century the santur found a new public through radio and records. Habibollah Samaei (died 1946) was among the masters who carried it out of the court tradition, and Faramarz Payvar (1933–2009), who wrote widely used method books and composed for the instrument, made it one of the most familiar sounds of Persian music. Payvar’s teaching gave many students a standard technique and repertoire, while other players developed brighter, more virtuosic styles.

In the twentieth century the santur found a new public through radio and records. Habibollah Samaei (died 1946) and later his son Majid Kiani’s teachers, and above all Faramarz Payvar (1933–2009), who wrote widely used method books and composed for the instrument, made it one of the most familiar sounds of Persian music. Payvar’s teaching gave many students a standard technique and repertoire, while other players developed brighter, more virtuosic styles.

Beyond the classical

The santur also appears in Iraqi maqam music, under the same name, and Kashmir’s santoor, played with curved hammers, has its own long history in Sufi music before it entered Indian classical music in the twentieth century. In each place the instrument has been adapted to local modes and tastes, and each tradition tells its own history. In Iran it is today taught in conservatories and private schools in every major city, and a well-made santur from a known Tehran or Isfahan workshop is a treasured possession. Players often own two or three, tuned for different modes, so that they need not retune between pieces.