Santûr Santur, santour, santoor, cymbalon, cimbalon, hakkebord, psalterion, dulcimer

The santur is a struck zither in the form of a shallow, regular trapezoidal box. There are several sound posts inside the box, and two small rosettes on the top panel which help to amplify the sound. The santur has 72 strings, arranged in groups of four, i.e. each of four closely spaced strings are tuned to the same pitch. Each group of four strings is supported by a small,movable, wooden bridge; the bridges are positioned to give the instrument a range of three octaves. It is played with two small wooden hammers.

Faramarz Payvar playing the santur. (266K WAV file)

ESFAHAN, by Manoochehr Sadeghi

The santûr is a very popular court music instrument in Iran but also in Turkey and Iraq. It’s frequently used in the classical Persian music but it’s also a traditional Indian instrument.
The name of this middle eastern instrument comes from the Greek psalterion. Just like the qanûn – whom it is close related to – the santur arrived in Europe during the Moorish occupation of Spain. From then on it started to play an important role in the music of the Middle Ages. Strings are beaten by two drumsticks.
Santours are tuned according to the dastgah (Iranian) or maqam (Iraqi) modi. A traditional Iranian santur has 9 high cords divided into octaves and one row of 9 bass cords tuned an octave lower. The Arabic and Turkish qanun has little brass handles abling to raise the tone by one comma (8 commas=1 semi-tone) just as the qa’nûn.

Nowadays it still plays an important role in the music of the balkan countries, especially with the Hungarian and Romanian gypsies where it is known under the name cymbalon.

The strings of this instrument are hammered with two sticks. On this principle the piano and his relatives were build. So we could say the santur is the grandfather of the piano.

SANTUR

The santur belongs to the group of instruments known in organology as “hammered kitharas.” The ancient Greek word kithara is the common name given to instruments with multiple strings arranged parallel to the sound board, in which each string gives a fixed tone. The resonator of kitharas generally consists of a box of which the face and back are parallel. The kanun, for example, is a plucked kithara.

The ancient Assyrians and Egyptians are known to have had a harp-type instrument, sometimes held horizontally, the strings of which were struck by sticks. Even if this is not a santur, it is the idea that gave rise to it. Chronologically, the plucked kitharas predate the struck kitharas. The first santurs are believed to have been played in ancient Mesopotamia. They were predecessors of today’s kanun, played with mallets instead of plectra. Strings of instruments in the santur group are arranged and tuned in groups of three, four or five.

We have no absolute knowledge concerning the construction of either the old Iranian or old Ottoman santur. The santur played in Iran today is quite different from the Ottoman santur of the 19th century, which does not resemble any other santur that has survived to our day. None of the very few 19th century Ottoman santurs extant today resemble each other in terms of dimensions and number of strings

Santoor samples at freesound.org