A brief about hammered dulcimers with special focus on Persian santoor and some of famous santoor players of Iran
Santoor also spelled as santour or santur is the Persian hammered dulcimer. Hammered dulcimers with a trapezoid-shaped sound-box
are played with special-shaped mallets (mezrab). Actually Persian santoor players hold them between the index and middle fingers.
A typical Persian santoor has two sets of bridges (in Persian kharak), providing a range of approximately three octaves. The
right-hand strings are made of brass, while the left-hand strings are made of steel. Two rows of 9 bridges and over every
bridge, four strings pass and therefore a typical santoor has 72 strings.
Similar forms of the santoor have been present in many cultures like Armenia, Turkey, and Iraq for centuries. The Indian santoor
is thicker, more rectangular, and can have more strings. Its corresponding mallets are also held differently. The Chinese
yangqin may have originated from the Persian santoor. The Roma people introduced a derivative of the santoor called the cymbalum
to Eastern Europe, which in turn likely led to the development of the clavichord and the piano. The Greek santouri is also
derived from the Persian santoor. One can mention to hackbrett played in Germany, Austria and Switzerland too.
Probably the antiquity of hammered dulcimer goes back to Assyrian and Babylonian times.
