The Persian Santour is a stringed musical instrument with 72
strings stretched over a trapezoidal box. The Santour is an instrument played
by means of two hammers striking the strings. The Persian Santour is a three-octave diatonic instrument,
which is the original form of the hammered dulcimer.
The seventy-two strings are arranged in eighteen quadruple
sets. An adjustable wooden bridge upholds each group of four strings. The
four strings over a bridge are tuned to the same pitch. There are nine bridges
in a row on each side of the trapezoidal box. The bass strings, which cross
over the right bridges are usually made from bronze. The strings over the
middle bridges are steel. The resonance box in the traditional instrument is
usually made of hard wood, for instance walnut. There are several sound posts
inside the box, which connect the table of the instrument to its back. The
arrangement of the sound posts plays an important role in the sound quality of
the instrument. Typically, there are two small rosettes on the top panel.
Not being able to change the key on a live stage is one of
the most known limitations of the original santour. In the original santour in
order to play in the different keys, a santour player has to retune the
instrument with the tuning pins or readjust the bridges.
Changing the key with the tuning pins cannot be done in a
few seconds. So it is not possible to switch from one key to another on a live
stage using the tuning pins. Plus, readjusting the bridges limits the playing range
of the instrument greatly. Also, it would badly affect the sound quality of the
santour.
Beside the limitation mentioned above, the original santour has
tuning stability issue. The tuning pins in the original Persian santour are not
reliable. So the instrument gets out of tune easily.