CHAPTER 5: Dulcimers in other countries since 1800 > The santur area

Afghanistan

One item of evidence: a recorded performance of the members of the Radio Afghanistan orchestra, together with notes by Peter ten Hoopen.

He talks of double or triple courses, and of the santur being imported from Persia and rarely used in folk music, but also played in the Punjab and parts of North India.

The music consists of heterophonic melodies, some strophic, others more extended, in which the santur doubles two lutes, predominantly in the lower register. The playing sounds polished and confident, and there are some tripled notes, but the style is not fundamentally different from that of the lutes.

See discography.