Instruments Archives

The Setar: Supreme in Persian Classical Music

in World Music Instruments/by Kourosh Taghavi

This article is one in a series of reports on the fascinating variety of musical instruments that audience members and students encounter through Center for World Music programs.

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The setar is a Persian (Iranian) stringed instrument with a small, pear-shaped soundbox and four metal strings. Its name means “three strings.” A fourth drone string was added about 150 years ago by the mystic Moshtagh Ali Shah. The drone string is called the sim moshtagh (Moshtagh string) by many prominent tar and setar players. This modification gave the delicate instrument a “bigger” sound and more complex tuning possibilities.

The resonating box of the setar is attached to a long neck with twenty-five gut frets. The soundbox is made from mulberry wood, while the neck comes from the walnut tree. The instrument has a melodic range of just over twenty scale degrees. Although it is traditionally played with the right index fingernail, in the past three decades, two distinguished master performers, Mohammad-Reza Lotfi and Hossein Alizadeh, have introduced new techniques to give setar playing a whole new life.

Mohammad-Reza Lotfi playing the setar.

Today the setar is generally considered the supreme instrument for performing Persian classical music. Due to new playing techniques, its evolution, and new approaches to melodies within Persian classical music boundaries, the setar has opened the door to contemporary compositions.

It is hard to believe the setar was nearly forgotten during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries due to the tar‘s increased popularity. A similar but larger instrument with a fuller sound, the tar is double-chambered with three sets of double strings with the same fretting on its neck as the smaller, more delicate setar.

Hossein Alizadeh playing the tar.

In 1984, a pivotal recording of a setar solo performed by the master Mohammad-Reza Lotfi brought the smaller instrument to the attention of a new generation of Persian classical music enthusiasts. Indeed, Lotfi’s historic album, in memory of the great musician Darvish Khan, enticed many young instrument makers and musicians to fall in love with the sound of the setar. Thus a new generation of setar makers and players has recently emerged.

Updated and expanded: March 9, 2021

This project is made possible with support from the California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Visit www.calhum.org.

The Karimba Mbira of Zimbabwe

in World Music Instruments/by Garit Imhoff

This article is one in a series of reports on the fascinating variety of musical instruments that audience members and students encounter through Center for World Music programs.

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The mbira is a hand-held musical instrument that evolved in sub-Saharan Africa. In its many different forms, it is capable of producing both intimate singable melodies for meditation and vigorous percussive rhythms for dance. It can be used to delight and entertain, or it can be used to lend solemnity to religious ceremonies. Made from a small block of wood, with rows of tuned metal strips (lamellae) attached, the mbira naturally produces a subdued soft tone that can be amplified by placing it inside a large hollowed-out calabash gourd resonator (deze).

The mbira can be played as a solo instrument or as part of an ensemble, with other mbiras or with drums (ngoma) or rattle shakers (hosho). When two mbiras are played together, each renders a different but complementary interlocking musical part (kushaura or kutsinhira). As a native-trained teaching artist, I currently teach a type of solo mbira from Zimbabwe—the karimba—in the San Diego K-12 public schools.

— Garit Imhoff, World Music in the Schools Teaching Artist

See the mbira in action on YouTube. Also, San Diego students playing the Zimbabwean karimba.

View Teaching Artist Garit Imhoff in performance with Zimbeat on YouTube.

The Tabla: Paired Drum of South Asia

in World Music Instruments/by Miles Shrewsbery

This article is one in a series of reports on the fascinating variety of musical instruments that audience members and students encounter through Center for World Music programs.

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The tabla is a paired drum set from the northern regions of South Asia (North India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and parts of Afghanistan). Consisting of a high drum (dayan) and a low drum (dagga or bayan), the tabla is played with the fingers, using a variety of different strokes and hand positions, to produce up to twenty different sounds. Each of these sounds in turn has a name, or a syllable. Together, these syllables (for example: ta, tin, dha, dhin) are used pedagogically as a rhythmic solfège—the syllables are sung to the student in order to teach rhythmic phrases, which are then reproduced on the drums.

Although the tabla was invented and popularized in the Mughal courts of Delhi approximately 300 years ago, the systems of music it stems from are over two thousand years old. The tabla, in a sense, is a modern instrument that reflects South Asia’s embodiment of the ancient and the new—it has both Hindu roots and an Islamic Mughal past while continuing to thrive as a vibrant tradition, both within the contexts of North Indian Classical music as well as in the global musical landscape.

—Miles Shrewsbery, World Music in the Schools Teaching Artist

See the tabla in action on YouTube: Tabla Legend Ustad Alla Rakha | Interview with Zakir Hussain (Alla Rakha’s son) | Miles Shrewsbery Tabla Solo

Learn more about Teaching Artist Miles Shrewsbery and his music at tablamiles.com.

The Agogô: Yoruban “Double Bell”

in World Music Instruments/by Stefanie Schmitz

This article is one in a series of reports on the fascinating variety of musical instruments that audience members and students encounter through Center for World Music programs.

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The agogô is an instrument used widely in West Africa, Brazil, and throughout the world. The name comes from ágogo (AH-go-go) meaning “double bell” in the tonal Yoruba language and is onomatopoeia for the two sounds it makes. In my classes for the Center for World Music we use the Afro-Brazilian agogô (ah-go-GO).

The agogô is a type of handbell similar to our cowbell. It has two or more bells attached to a handle and is played with a wooden stick. The bells can be made of metal, castanhas-do-Pará (Brazil nut shells), coconuts, gourds, wood, or large seeds. The agogô is found in a variety of Afro-Brazilian musical styles including maracatu, maculelê, batucada of the samba schools, afoxé, songs of capoeira, and more. It is used in ceremonies and rituals of the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomblé.

—Stefanie Schmitz, World Music in the Schools Teaching Artist

Agogôs in action on YouTube: Demo with Stefanie | A Four-Toner in Brazil | Brazil Nut Shell Agogô

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