The archetype of the instrument carried horizontally and struck with two sticks, found in iconographical documents in ancientBabylon (1600-911 BCE) andNeo-Assyria (911-612 BCE).
Woman playing a santur, early 19th century, inQajar Iran.
The santur was invented and developed inPersia and its region. The earliest sign of it coming fromAssyrian andBabylonianstone carvings (669 B.C.); it shows the instrument being played while hanging from the player's neck.
This instrument traveled and developed in different regions of theMiddle East. Musicians modified the original design over the centuries, yielding a wide array ofmusical scales andtunings. The first santur were probably made of wood, perhaps with stone elements, and goat gut strings.
The oval-shapedmezrabs (mallets) are feather-weight and are held between the thumb, index, and middle fingers. A typical Persian santur has two sets of ninebridges, providing a range of approximately threediatonicoctaves. Themezrabs 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 inunison, spanning horizontally across the right and left side of the instrument. There are three sections of ninepitches: each for thebass, 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) ofPersian classical music. These 12 Dastgahs are the repertory of Persian classical music known as theRadif.[5]
Similar musical instruments have been present sincemedieval times all over the world, including Armenia, China, Greece, India, etc.
The Indiansantoor is wider, more rectangular and has more strings. Its corresponding mallets are also held differently and played with a different technique.
Typical Iraqi santurChalghi santur player playing on a non-standard Iraqi santur
TheIraqi santur (also santour, santoor) (Arabic:سنطور) is a hammered dulcimer of Mesopotamian origin.[2] 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 loweryakah (G) up tojawab jawab husayni (A). The bridges are calleddama ("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.[citation needed]
It and thejoza are the main instruments used in the classicalIraqi Maqam tradition.[7] 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 "foreignqin".[3]
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.[3]
Versions of the santur or hammered dulcimer are used throughout the world. In Eastern Europe, a larger descendant of the hammered dulcimer called thecimbalom is played and has been used by a number ofclassicalcomposers, includingZoltán Kodály,Igor Stravinsky, andPierre Boulez, and more recently, in a different musical context, byBlue Man Group. Thekhim is the name of both theThai and theKhmer hammered dulcimer. The Chineseyangqin is a type of hammered dulcimer that originated inPersia. The santur andsantoor are found in theMiddle East andIndia, respectively.
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