Iran Music History and Persian Musical Instruments

Iranian Music has thousands of years of history as we see the evidences from the Sassanid, Safavid and Elamite era, when music played an important role in religious affairs and also it was used upon king’s invasions.

Persian traditional music consists of twelve principal musical modal systems called Dastgahs which refer to the position (gah) of the hand (dast). These twelve Dastgahs are Bayat-e Tork, Bayat-e Esfahan, Abuata, Segah (third place), Chahargah (fourth place), Rast-Panjgah (fifth place), Shur, Mahur, Homayoun, Dashti, Nava and Afshari.

Some major Persian musical instruments are mentioned below:

Tar is one of the most important Persian musical instrument known in a variety of forms throughout the Middle East and now with a long neck and a double-bowl shape carved from mulberry wood covered with lamb-skin, a fingerboard of twenty-two to twenty-eight movable gut frets, and there are three double courses of strings which are played with a small brass plectrum.

Daf, a type of Persian frame drum, is considered to be a Sufi percussion instrument played in special places called Khanqah-s for Zikr music, and has recently become very popular in Persian art music successfully. This instrument is equipped with metal rings which add a jingle effect to the rhythmic patterns and sounds, and also the frame is covered with goat-skin.

Ney is a kind of Persian vertical reed flute with five finger holes in front and one thumbhole in the back. The upper end of the instrument is covered with a short brass cylinder. The sound is produced behind the upper teeth inside the mouth by directing the air through the opening of the instrument.

Tombak is a popular wooden percussion instrument with a goat-skin head and an opening on the bottom. For playing this instrument, one uses both hands and fingers to roll and snap in various ways to produce rhythmical patterns. The name of Tombak came from two basic strokes, one low (tom) in the center, and the other one high (bak) on the side of the skin.

Santur is a three-octave wooden instrument in the form of a regular trapezoidal box which has 72 strings, arranged in groups of four tuned to the same pitch. Depending on the desired sound quality, various kinds of wood (walnut, rosewood, betel palm, etc.) can be used for making the instruments which is played by two specific small thin sticks.

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