Santur

Overview

Santur is an instrument in¬di¬ge¬nous to Kashmir, but nowadays played throughout the North. It is a hammered dulcimer which is struck with light wooden mallets. The num¬ber of strings may be as few as 24 or more than 100. Typical sizes tend to be around 80. It has a vibrant tone and has be¬come very pop¬ular in the last 20 years. One must not confuse the In¬dian santur with the Persian santur. The In¬dian santur is box-like while the Persian version is much wider. The small wooden mallets are placed lightly bet¬ween the index and mid¬dle fingers. This is facilitated by two finger sized cut-outs in the mallets. Tuning styles are ext¬remely variable. They are us-ually tuned to the par¬ti¬cu¬lar rag and must therefore be retuned for each piece. Fur¬ther¬more dif¬fer¬ent art¬ists have their own styles of tuning. The origin of the instrument is clear. The name, struc¬ture, and technique point solidly to the Middle East. Yet, there are those who attempt to trace its origins to an ancient In¬dian harp like instrument known as "Vana Veena". There is abso¬lutely no evidence for this lat¬ter view. If we are to accept this pro¬po¬si¬tion, then how are we to explain its 2000 year disappearance, followed by a miraculous reappearance in a form and usage that, by mere coincidence, is si¬mi-lar to the mid¬dle eastern santur? It is clear that attempts to link the santur with this Vedic instrument are a mere ref¬lec¬tion of a Hindu cul¬tural bias and are not sup¬portable by ser¬ious scholarship.

Source - https://chandrakantha.com/articles/indian_music/santur.html