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Santur
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The Santur is generally considered the most
important of Persian melody instruments. It is a type of dulcimer -
an instrument type which (like the bagpipes) has the rare distinction
of being found right across the world's musical cultures; there is the
hackbrett in Northern Europe, the cymbalum in Eastern Europe, the santouri
in Greece, the yang ch'in in China (which can be heard in bands such
as Dead Can Dance who were an influencial force in the makings of the
Edges of Twilight), and the dulcimer is also found in Britain &
North America. The santur basically consists of a trapezoid wooden box
with metal strings stretched across bridges arranged in courses; the
typical santur has 4 strings per note. The instrument is capable of
playing in 3 different octaves: the bass octave which has its own set
of brass strings, & the middle & treble octaves, which uses
the same set of steel strings divided in 2 by a set of movable bridges.
The strings are tuned diatonically, that is to say not chromatically.
The santur player tunes the strings to the pitch class set of whichever
dastgah they are going to be playing in. In a typical Persian music
ensemble, the leader of the group is the santur player, & tends
to sit in the middle of the line up.
This instrument can be heard in: The River (Alhambra Version), Walk With Me, Gyroscope |
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