Music

Local Instruments of Iran

The regional and folk instruments of Iran, grouped by where they live — the same frame drum means something different in a Kurdish khanqah than at an Azeri wedding.

11 entries

Daf — A large frame drum ringed on the inside with metal links. Its driving pulse carries the Qaderi Sufi dhikr, and it entered concert-hall Persian music only in the 20th century.

Dozale — Two short cane pipes bound side by side and blown at once. The tiny mistuning between them gives the beating, reedy buzz that identifies the sound instantly.

Tanbur — A sacred instrument before it is a musical one. The Yarsan repertoire of maqams is transmitted on the tanbur and is treated as liturgy, not entertainment.

Dotar — The voice of the bakhshi tradition. A bakhshi is poet, singer and player at once, and the dotar is how the epics of Khorasan have been carried down.

Ney — Classical and folk at the same time. The same length of cane serves the concert Radif and the pasture, and the playing technique differs more than the instrument does.

Balaban (Balaman) — Mellow and unmistakably mournful, closer to a human voice than any other Iranian wind. Known as duduk across the border in Armenia.

Naqareh — For centuries a pair of naqareh and a sorna announced dawn, dusk and royal events from the naqareh-khaneh above a city gate. The practice survives at the shrine in Mashhad.

Rubab — A waisted, skin-bellied lute carved from one block. The sympathetic strings are what give Baluchi music its characteristic shimmer.

Sorna — The outdoor voice of Iranian music. Paired with the dohol drum, a sorna carries a wedding, a Nowruz morning or a mourning procession across an entire village.

Karna — A metal trumpet over two metres long, named in the Shahnameh as a battlefield instrument. It survives today in Nowruz and shrine ceremonies rather than in war.

Dayereh — The everyday frame drum of Iran — lighter than a daf and far more portable. Long associated with women's ensembles and domestic celebration.