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A many-stringed stick-zither with an ancient lineage, recently adapted into North Indian raga via Kashmiri devotional music

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–Raga instruments (full list)–

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—Shivkumar Sharma (Malkauns)—

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“With the adoption of ‘kaleidoscopic’ patterns on the santoor…Shivkumar Sharma has substantially accelerated the process of freeing instrumental music from its traditional reference point in vocal music…” (Deepak Raja)

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—Santoor Basics—

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The santoor is little more than a wooden box with almost a hundred strings stretched across, which the player strikes with small hardwood mallets. Many cultures have similar ‘box-zithers’: its direct ancestor, the Persian santur, is used in Sufi music (a mystic strain of Islam which uses trance-like devotional music to attain divine insights), while other branches of the family tree include the Greek santouri, Swiss hackbrett, Hungarian cimbalom, and Chinese yangqin.

 

Despite the ancient lineage of its basic design (including a posited ‘shata tantri veena’ mentioned in Sanskrit texts), the santoor was only accepted into Hindustani raga from around the 1950s – adapted from Kashmiri zithers by Uma Dutt Sharma, who used his expertise in tabla and khayal to create a fresh musical pathway for his son Shivkumar. At first, its fixed-pitch character was highly controversial among purist rasikas, who believed it incapable of replicating raga’s true intricacies (Shivkumar: “There were days when I had nothing to eat…Concerts were hard to come by because of the negative criticism of the santoor…”).

 

Nevertheless, they worked tirelessly – restringing, retuning, and reconfiguring the instrument, changing the weights of the mallets to enable fresh glide and bounce techniques that allowed the young Shivkumar to capture the essences of Hindustani music’s gayaki ang (‘singing style’). Soon the critics fell silent, and, eventually, they began to laud his undeniable accomplishments – although he estimates that it took almost two decades from his controversial 1955 debut (a rendition of Yaman in Mumbai aged 17, at which he also played a half-hour tabla solo) to win over “the die-hard connoisseurs”.

 

His long career since saw him rise to the forefront of Indian classical music – playing on 1967’s Call of the Valley, the first Hindustani album to find a global audience, and teaming up with close friend Hariprasad Chaurasia for several acclaimed film soundtracks, not to mention countless global tours and international collaborations (notably with Indo-jazz heavyweights Remember Shakti). The great Pandit took a lifelong interest in the therapeutic and spiritual dimensions of musical practice – and, after his 2018 passing, his students, principally including his talented son Rahul, continue to push his legacy forward.

 

(Shivkumar Sharma through the ages)

The santoor’s unique character comes from the combination of two textures: a quick, percussive bounce when the mallet hits the string, and a floating, ethereal resonance left by the resulting vibrations. Musicians make sophisticated use of this contrast, mixing sparse passages with rapid flurries of notes. The sound is instantly captivating, with a strange, perpetual tension – your ear braces itself in anticipation of each mallet strike, but they pass in a flash, bringing a stable, soothing resonance which fades gradually to silence.

 

Many describe it as the least ‘vocalistic’ of all major Hindustani instruments: with strings that cannot generally be bent, fretted, or slid along. In a sense, it’s as if everything you play has been ‘auto-tuned’ – the only available notes are the precise set you choose at the start, with no ordinary capability to access the spaces between them. Artists compensate for this supposed lack of vocal ability by employing a breathtaking array of ‘gliding’ techniques, bouncing the mallets across the strings with a slurring sparkle.

 

Similarly, performers tend to accentuate its inherent rhythmic and harmonic strengths: like the tabla, it is struck with two hands, with the lower tones typically placed on the left – and, like the piano, it allows chords to be constructed via layering notes on top of each other. Many santoor players learnt tabla in their youth as well, making for dazzling feats of rhythmic interplay in live settings (after all, it’s easier to get in sync if you also play the accompanying instrument…).

 

Naturally, a plethora of variants are in existence: Tarun Bhattacharya (a student of Ravi Shankar) attaches an ultra-low bass string which can be pitch-bent via downward pressure – and Bhajan Sopori, leader of the distinct ‘Sufiyana’ lineage, uses heavier mallets and a larger set of 123 strings, opening up novel techniques which some liken to the sound of fluttering moths. Artists may also pluck the strings with their fingers, as well as using their palms to mute them – and today, some are experimenting with alternate stringings and tunings.

 

As a santoor player myself, I relish the unique challenges posed by its pitch-limitations. Its fixed tones bring a characteristic spaciousness, mixing intensity and relaxation – and to push against their constraints is to explore fascinating musical, physical, and theoretical puzzles. There are few more tactile joys in music than the sensation of precisely bouncing a mallet across its strings (just don’t talk to me about tuning…).

 

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• Notable performers: Rahul Sharma (1972-), Tarun Bhattacharya (1957-), Kiranpal Singh (1957-), Harjinderpal Matharu (1953-), Satish Vyas (1952-), Ulhas Bapat (1950-2018), Bhajan Sopori (1948-2022), Shivkumar Sharma (1938-2022)

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—Harjinderpal Matharu (Patdeep)—

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• Get started with learning raga! •

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—Classifiers—

• Form: trapezoid zither with 93 strings set across 31 bridges, struck with light wooden mallets
• Origin: adapted from Sufi instruments in the 1950s by Uma Dutt Sharma (although the basic dulcimeric design is ancient)
• Range: ~33 semitones (~2.7 oct.) [n.b. some variants feature a bendable ‘ati-mandra’ low string]
• Sa pitch: Shivkumar Sharma and his followers usually tune to concert D – although Bhajan Sopori (Sufiyana) and Tarun Bhattacharya (Maihar) prefer a semitone higher at D# [see my Survey of Sa Tunings for more].

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—Setup—

• Tuning: Stringing setups vary by region and individual taste – but Shivkumar Sharma’s general preference was to have the right-side strings tuned to the swaras of the current raga, and the left-side strings either matching them, or, depending on context, taking the ‘all-komal‘ SrgmPdn sequence of Bhairavi thaat, as annotated below (n.b. While rarely used, you can also play on the ‘other sides’ of the bridges: if positioned intentionally, they can ring with a specific interval above their ‘main string’: I’ve tried them out as +19 and +24 semitones, bringing a unique high sparkle).

(via the excellent James Jones Instruments)

• More Info •

• The santoor: Go into more contextual depth in my Seven Days of Santoor article (“Bhajan is proud of his Sopori baaz lineage: ‘I am an 8th-generation santoor player in my family…My great-grandfather contributed a lot to this kind of instrument in Kashmir, and my father was a superb sitar player…I started playing sitar initially, but later fell in love with santoor’…”) – and also read Jameela Siddiqi’s history-focused blog (“The [design] is thought to have originated in Persia, from where, according to some scholars, it made its way to India. But ancient Indian texts also refer to a similar zither as ‘shata tantri veena’ [‘100-stringed instrument’]…It became a vital part of Kashmiri folk music, accompanying mystic Sufi vocal music”). Also check out santooriya-created ragas such as Tarun Bhattacharya’s Ganga and Ulhas Bapat’s Meladalan and Amrut Ranjani.
• Shivkumar Sharma: Read his spiritually-inclined raga musings, and watch his ‘santoor unwrapped‘ demo for Darbar (below) – as well as their eloquent tribute to his passing (“Kashmir is a land of two provinces, Sharma explained. His father, who headed the music section at Jammu Radio, was transferred to Srinagar Radio: ‘That is the destiny – had he not been transferred, he wouldn’t have seen the santoor’…Sharma credited his father with conceiving the entire creative impulse behind…redefining its role. Though reluctant, Sharma would be the medium and the agent of change…”). Also listen to Antardhwani, his enigmatic, meditative raga creation.

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—Shivkumar Sharma interview—

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“I firmly believe in nada brahma, because I have experienced it personally…As a child in Jammu, there was a Shiva temple next to the Tawi River. You had to crawl through a cave to reach the Swayambhu Shiva..it was there by nature, no one had made it. I used to crawl through with my santoor when no one was there…Shiva was my guru, my audience, and my guide. While playing for him, I discovered many new techniques that weren’t taught to me. I could visualise more…” (Shivkumar Sharma)

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• Hindustani Instruments: Anandi | Bansuri | Bass-Veena | Bazantar | Bulbul Tarang | Cello | Chaturangi | Dilruba | Electric Guitar | Esraj | Fretless Guitar | Harmonium | Jal Tarang | Jori | Mandolin | Mohan Veena | Nal Tarang | Pakhawaj | Piano | Rabab | Rudra Veena | Sagar Veena | Santoor | Sarangi | Sarod | Saxophone | Shehnai | Sitar | Surbahar | Sursagar | Sursingar | Swarmandal | Tabla | Tabla Tarang | Tanpura | Tar Shehnai | Taus | Vichtra Veena | Violin

–Survey of Sa tunings–