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The santur (santour, santoor) is a hammered dulcimer of Iran. It is a trapezoid-shaped box often made of walnut, with 72 strings. The name means one hundred strings in Persian. The special-shaped mallets (mezrab) are lightweight and are held between the index and middle fingers. A typical santur has two sets of bridges, providing a range of three octaves. The right-hand strings are made of brass, while the left-hand strings are made of steel.
Many instruments around the world at least in part derive from the santur. Similar forms of the santur have been present in neighboring cultures like Armenia and Turkey 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 santur. The Roma people introduced a derivative of the santur called the cymbalum to Eastern Europe, which in turn likely led to the development of the clavichord and the piano. The Greek Sandouri is also derived from the santur, and in Nikos Kazantzakis' classic novel Zorba the Greek Zorba plays the Sandouri.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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