The santur (also sant?r, santour, santoor) (Persian: ???????) is a hammered dulcimer of Persian/Iranic origins. The term Santur originated with meaning "100 strings."
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History
The santur was invented in Iran, Kuwait, Syria and Turkey, and parts of Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq). This instrument was traded and traveled to different parts of the middle east and each country customized and designed their own versions to adapt to their musical scales and tunings. The original santur was made with tree bark, stones and stringed with goat intestines. The Mesopotamian santur is also the father of the harp, the Chinese yangqin, the harpsichord, the qanun, the cimbalom and the American and European hammered dulcimers.
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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 bridges, providing a range of approximately three octaves. The right-hand strings are made of brass or copper, while the left-hand strings are made of steel. Two rows of 9 bridges. A total of 18 bridges divide the santur into three positions. Over each bridge crosses 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 notes all together. The top "F" note is repeated 2 times, creating a total of 25 separate tones in 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 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 Romani music.
Iraqi santur
The santur (also santour, santoor ) (Arabic: ???????) is a hammered dulcimer of Mesopotamian origin. It is a trapezoid box zither with a walnut body and ninety two 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 twenty-three 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. The name 'santur' is thought to be derived from the Greek psalterion which, itself, is the result of musical experiments by Phythagorus based on the 6,000-year-old bull-headed lyre discovered from excavations found in the ancient city of Ur ('Children's Book of Music' ISBN 978-0-7566-6734-4). It is also thought that the name is derived from "Sant"- "Ur", meaning sound of Ur in Sumerian. It is native to Iraq, India, Pakistan, Turkey, Iran 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' ISBN 0-931340-88-8). 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, and has three movable bridges: 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. ('Music of the Arabs' ISBN 0-931340-88-8) For a video demonstration, see Wesam al-Azzawy's video links in the sections below.
Notable santur players
Iran
- Abol Hassan Saba
- Mohammad Heydari
- Manoochehr Sadeghi
- Faramarz Payvar
- Nasser Rastegar-Nejad
- Farzaneh Mohammadian
- Parviz Meshkatian
- Amirhossein Vahdati
- Majid Kiani
- Mohammad Sadeq Khan
- Ali Akbar Shahi
- Hassan Khan
- Hussein Malek
- Habib Soma'i
- Reza Varzandeh
- Reza Shafieian
- Mansur Sarami
- Masoud Shaari
- 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- Ostad Masoud Malek- Solo Santour Chahargah
- Maryam Saffarian
- Yasser Ghazikhani
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
Plyers of the Greek Santouri include:
- Aristidis Moschos
- Areti Ketime
India
Players on the Indian santour include:
- Rahul Sharma
- Shivkumar Sharma
Japan
- Dr. Masato Tani
Germany
- (Dr. Bee Seavers) disciple of Pt. Shivkumar Sharma
Santurs 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.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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