Santoor (Persian instrument)

The santur (also ''santūr'', ''santour'', ''santoor'') ( fa, سنتور), is a hammered dulcimer of Iranian origins.--- Rashid, Subhi Anwar (1989). ''Al-ʼĀlāt al-musīqīyya al-muṣāhiba lil-Maqām al-ʻIrāqī''. Baghdad: Matbaʻat al-ʻUmmāl al-Markazīyya.

History

The santur was invented and developed in the area of Iran and Mesopotamia. "The earliest sign of it comes from Assyrian and Babylonian stone carvings (669 B.C.); it shows the instrument being played while hanging from the player's neck" (35). This instrument was traded and traveled to different parts of the Middle East. Each country customized and designed its own versions to adapt to their musical scales and tunings. The original santur was made with wood and stones and strung with goat intestines. The Mesopotamian santur has been claimed to be the father of the harp, the Chinese yangqin, the harpsichord, the qanun, the cimbalom, and the American and European hammered dulcimers.

Name

The name 'santur' comes from Arabic ''sanṭīr'', a borrowing of the Greek ψαλτήριον ' psalterion'. The Biblical Aramaic form ''psantērīn'' is found in the Book of Daniel 3:5.

Description

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''. They also had 16 inch botos.

Derivations

Similar musical instruments have been present since medieval times all over the world, including Armenia, China, Greece, India, etc. The Indian santoor is wider, more rectangular and has more strings. Its corresponding 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.

Iraqi santur

The Iraqi santur (also santour, santoor ) ( ar, 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 is the main instrument used in the classical Maqam al-iraqi tradition along with the Iraqi spike fiddle joza. ('Music of the Arabs' ).
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. For a video demonstration, see Wesam al-Azzawy's video links in the sections below.

Notable players

Iran

* Abol Hassan Saba
* Manoochehr Sadeghi
* Faramarz Payvar
* Mohammad Heydari
* Parviz Meshkatian
* Majid Kiani
* Ahad Behjat
* Nasser Rastegar-Nejad
* Masoud Rezaei Nejad
* Milad Kiayie
* Omid Tahmasebpour
* Mohammad Sadeq Khan
* Ali Akbar Shahi
* Hassan Khan
* Hussein Malek
* Habib Soma’i
* Reza Varzandeh
* Reza Shafieian
* Mansur Sarami
* Masoud Shaari
* Siamak Aghayi
* Sourena Sefati
* Mohammad Santour Khan
* Daryoush Safvat
* Jalal Akhbari
* Pouya Saraei
* Ardavan Kamkar
* Pejman Azarmina
* Pashang Kamkar

Peyman Heydarian
* Kourosh Zolani
* Arfa Atrai
* Azar Hashemi
* Susan Aslani
* Manijeh Ali Pour
* Hayaf Yassine
* Masoud Malek

Iraq

Notable players of the Iraqi santur include:

* Abdallah Ali (1929–1998)
* Akram Al Iraqi
* Amir ElSaffar
* Azhar Kubba
* Bahir Hashem Al Rajab
* Basil al-Jarrah
* Ghazi Mahsub al-Azzawi
* Hugi Salih Rahmain Pataw (1848–1933)
* Hashim Al Rajab
* Hala Bassam
* Hammudi Ali al-Wardi
* Haj Hashim Muhammad Rajab al-Ubaydi (1921–2003)
* Hendrin Hikmat (1974–)
* Heskel Shmuli Ezra (1804–1894)
* Mohamed Abbas
* Muhammad Salih al-Santurchi (18th century)
* Muhammad Zaki Darwish al-Samarra'i (1955–)
* Mustafa Abd al-Qadir Tawfiq
* Qasim Muhammad Abd (1969–)
* Rahmatallah Safa'i
* Sa'ad Abd al-Latif al-Ubaydi
* Sabah Hashim
* Saif Walid al-Ubaydi
* Salman Enwiya
* Salman Sha'ul Dawud Bassun (1900–1950)
* Sha'ul Dawud Bassun (19th century)
* Shummel Salih Shmuli (1837–1915)
* Wesam al-Azzawy (1960–)
* Yusuf Badros Aslan (1844–1929)
* Yusuf Hugi Pataw (1886–1976)

Greece

Players of the Greek Santouri include:

*Tasos Diakogiorgis
*Aristidis Moschos
* Marios Papadeas
*Ourania Lambropoulou

India

Notable players of the Indian santoor include:
*Ulhas Bapat (1950–2018)
*Tarun Bhattacharya (b. 1957)
* Rahul Sharma (b. 1972)
*Shivkumar Sharma (b. 1938)
*Abhay Sopori
*Bhajan Sopori (b. 1948)
*R. Visweswaran (1944–2007)
*Varsha Agrawal (b. 1967)
*Mohammad Tibet Baqal (1914–1982)
* Harjinder Pal Singh (b. 1953)
* Sandip Chatterjee

Germany

* (Dr. Bee Seavers) disciple of Pt. Shivkumar Sharma

Poland

* Jarosław Niemiec

Turkey

* Santuri Ethem Bey composer of Sehnaz Longa

Lebanon

* Marcel Ghrayeb

From around the world

Versions of the santur or hammered dulcimer are used throughout the world. In Eastern Europe, a larger descendant of the hammered dulcimer called the cimbalom is played and has been used by a number of classical composers, including Zoltán Kodály, Igor Stravinsky, and Pierre Boulez, and more recently, in a different musical context, by Blue Man Group. The khim is the name of both the Thai and the Khmer hammered dulcimer. The Chinese ''yangqin'' is a type of hammered dulcimer that originated in Persia. The santur and santoor are found in the Middle East and India, respectively.

* Afghanistan – santur
* Armenian - sant'ur
* Azerbaijan – santur
* Austria – Hackbrett
* Belarus – Цымбалы (tsymbaly)
* Belgium – hakkebord
* Brazil – saltério
* Cambodia – khim
* Catalonia – saltiri
* China – 扬琴 (yangqin)
* Croatian – cimbal, cimbale
* Czech Republic – cimbál
* Denmark – hakkebræt
* France – tympanon
* Germany – Hackbrett
* Greece – santouri
* Hungary – cimbalom
* India – santoor

* Iran – santur
* Iraq – santur
* Ireland – tiompan
* Italy – salterio
* Korea – yanggeum 양금
* Laos – khim
* Latgalia (Latvia) – cymbala
* Latvia – cimbole
* Lithuania – cimbalai, cimbolai
* Mongolia – ёочин yoochin
* Netherlands – hakkebord
* Norway – hakkebrett
* Pakistan – santur
* Poland – cymbały
* Portugal – saltério
* Romania – ţambal

* Russia – цимбалы tsimbaly, Дульцимер (dultsimer)
* Serbia – цимбал (tsimbal)
* Slovakia – cimbal
* Slovenia – cimbale, oprekelj
* Spain (and Spanish-speaking countries) – salterio, dulcémele
* Sweden – hackbräde, hammarharpa
* Switzerland – Hackbrett
* Thailand – khim
* Turkey – santur
* Ukraine – Цимбали tsymbaly
* United Kingdom – hammered dulcimer
* United States – hammered dulcimer
* Uzbekistan – chang
* Vietnam – đàn tam thập lục (lit. "36 strings")
* Yiddish – tsimbl

See also

*Persian traditional music

Gallery

File:Ali Bahrami-Fard performing in Vahdat Hall.jpg, Ali Bahrami-Fard playing in Vahdat Hall
File:Iraqi Santur Player.jpg, Chalghi santur player playing on a non-standard Iraqi santur
File:Santur Hand Position.jpg, Santur hand position
File:Santur Technique Video.theora.ogv, Santur technique

References

Bibliography

*Al-Hanafi, Jalal (1964). ''Al-Mughannūn al-Baghdādīyyūn wa al-Maqām al-ʻIrāqī''. Baghdad: Wizarat al-Irshad.
* Touma, Habib Hassan (1996). ''The Music of the Arabs'', trans. Laurie Schwartz. Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press. .
*Children's Book of Music'

Further reading

*Duchesne-Guillemin, Marcelle (1980). "Sur la restitution de la musique hourrite". ''Revue de Musicologie'' 66, no. 1 (1980): 5–26.
*Duchesne-Guillemin, Marcelle (1984). ''A Hurrian Musical Score from Ugarit: The Discovery of Mesopotamian Music'', Sources from the Ancient Near East, vol. 2, fasc. 2. Malibu, CA: Undena Publications.
*Fink, Robert (1981). ''The Origin of Music: A Theory of the Universal Development of Music''. Saskatoon: Greenwich-Meridian.
*Gütterbock, Hans (1970). "Musical Notation in Ugarit". ''Revue d'assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale'' 64, no. 1 (1970): 45–52.
*
*Kilmer, Anne Draffkorn (1971). ''The Discovery of an Ancient Mesopotamian Theory of Music''. ''Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society'' 115:131–49.
*Kilmer, Anne Draffkorn (1974). "The Cult Song with Music from Ancient Ugarit: Another Interpretation". ''Revue d'Assyriologie'' 68:69–82.
*Kilmer, Anne Draffkorn (1997). "Musik, A: philologisch". ''Reallexikon der Assyriologie und vorderasiatischen Archäologie 8'', edited by Dietz Otto Edzard, 463–82. Berlin: De Gruyter. .
*Kilmer, Anne (2001). "Mesopotamia §8(ii)". ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.
*Kilmer, Anne Draffkorn, Richard L. Crocker, and Robert R. Brown (1976). ''Sounds from Silence: Recent Discoveries in Ancient Near Eastern Music''. Berkeley: Bit Enki Publications, 1976. Includes LP record, Bit Enki Records BTNK 101, reissued .d.as CD.
*Vitale, Raoul (1982). "La Musique suméro-accadienne: gamme et notation musicale". ''Ugarit-Forschungen'' 14 (1982): 241–63.
*Wellesz, Egon, ed. (1957). ''New Oxford History of Music Volume I: Ancient and Oriental Music''. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
*West, M rtin L tchfiel (1994). "The Babylonian Musical Notation and the Hurrian Melodic Texts". ''Music and Letters'' 75, no. 2 (May): 161–79.
*Wulstan, David (1968). "The Tuning of the Babylonian Harp". ''Iraq'' 30:215–28.
*Wulstan, David (1971). "The Earliest Musical Notation". ''Music and Letters'' 52 (1971): 365–82.

External links

Santur – The Art of Persian Music The Persian music and the santur instrumentNay-Nava Encyclopedia entry on the santurDr. Ümit Mutlu's information on the santur (in Turkish)

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Hammered box zithers
Arabic musical instruments
Iranian musical instruments
Azerbaijani musical instruments
Articles containing video clips
Iranian inventions