Banjo

Name: Setar 

Class: Chordophone 

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Origin: Iran 

Instrument maker:  

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Description:      The ancestry of the setar can be traced to the ancient tanbur of pre-Islamic Persia. It is made from thin mulberry wood and its fingerboard has twenty-five or twenty-six adjustable gut frets. Setar is literally translated as three stringshowever, in its present form, it has four strings and it is suspected that setar initially had only three strings. Because of its delicacy and intimate sonority, the setar is the preferred instrument of Sufi mystics.

Dimensions: 

Museum or collection: Courtesy of Pooyesh.

Photo credit: Courtesy of Pooyesh.

Information Sources: World Music Portal 

Setar Web sites:

Last Updated 04/03/2003 12:49PM; 2,021 Hits