Santouri

The santouri is a hammered string instrument with a flat body. Its name comes from the Greek word 'psaltirion', through the Persian 'santur'.

It is an ancient instrument, probably invented in Persia, from where it spread east to India and China and west to the Middle East and the Balkans. It is usually made of walnut. It is trapezoid in shape, with 72 metal strings stretched across it, three for each note, giving 24 notes: the longest strings at the bottom and the shortest at the top. The strings are tuned with special tuning pins, usually on the right side, and are struck with small sticks whose ends carry little curved hammers, like spoons.

The santouri is played mainly in the traditional music of Greece and other countries of the Near East. There have been many great santouri players, such as Aristidis Moschos, who founded a school of playing; Tasos Diakogiorgis, who took part in the works of great composers such as Mikis Theodorakis; Nikos Kalaitzis, known as Bindayalas, a true voice of Asia Minor music; and Dimitris Kofteros, who has also written books on the instrument (an essay on the Greek santouri, on the santouri of Mytilene, and a method for the 'melifthongo' Greek santouri).