Portrait of a music group in the Naser al-Din Shah Qajar era, 188617th century fresco at Chehel Sotoun showing musicians at a 1658 entertainment, in which Shah Abbas II hosted Nadr Mohammed Khan.
Persian musical instruments or Iranian musical instrumentscan be broadly classified into three categories: classical, Western and folk. Most of Persian musical instruments spread in the former Persian Empires states all over the Middle East, Caucasus, Central Asia and through adaptation, relations, and trade, in Europe and far regions of Asia. In ancient era, the Silk Road had an effective role in this distribution.
19th century C.E. Qajar Iran scene with women playing ney (flute), tar (lute) and dancing.
Percussion instruments
While Arabic and Persian are separate languages, to a great extent the cultures intermixed during and after the Arab conquest of Persia. Arabic became the lingua franca from the Middle East to the edge of China and into India, much as Latin was in Europe. As a result, the list below may contain Arab words that don't belong, but may also include words shared by both languages. An example is daf (دایره), for which the Arab word is also daf or duff (plural dofuf'). Similarly, conquests and cultural intermixing have made Turkish words available, such as kudum.
Persian woman playing the Daf, from a painting on the walls of Chehel-sotoon palace, Isfahan, 17th century
Persian miniature of Woman with frame drum in Qajar Iran, 19th century. Possibly a daf; the red and white circles are links of chain attached to the inner edge of the drum.
Woman playing Kastan (کاستانیـِت), or possibly ghashoghak or zills.
Woman with Zarb drum, Qajar Iran,19th century
Woman playing drums, Qajar Iran, 19th century
Woman playing Dayereh-zangi (دایرهزنگی) or tambourine, ca 1820
Membranophones
Idiophones
Shaken idiophones
Lamellophones
Images from Turkestan
These images are from the Russian Turkestan, circa 1865-1872, an area in which Persian, Turkish, Arab/Islamic and Mongol peoples conquered and settled over the ages. When the Russians conquered, both Turkish and Persian languages were being spoken. The images of musical instruments show the mixing of cultures; some such as the tanbur appear normal for Persian culture. But there are variations, such as a kamanche that appears to be a bowed tanbur, and the kauz or kobyz, which is a Turkish word for an instrument that is closely related to the Ghaychak, a Persian instrument.
Russian Turkestan, about 1872. Dozaleh or "koshnai"
Abbas Aryanpur and Manoochehr Aryanpur, The Concise Persian-English Dictionary, Amir Kabir Publication Organization, Tehran, 1990.
David R. Courtney, Fundamentals of Tabla, Vol. I, Sur Sangeet Services, Houston, 1998.
Michael Kennedy, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music, Oxford Univ. Press, London, 1980.
Cemsid Salehpur, Türkçe Farsça Genel Sözlügü, Tehran, 1996.
Mehdi Setayeshgar, Vazhe-Name-ye-Musighi-ye-Iran Zamin, Tehran, Vol. I (1995) & Vol. II (1996).
^L. K. A. K. Iyer (1984). "Arbana". In Stanley Sadie (ed.). The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. Vol. 1. London: Macmillan Press. p. 68.
^ a bFarmer, Henry George (2001). A History of Arabian Music to the XIIIth Century. New Delhi: Goodword Books. p. 154. ISBN 9788187570639. ...pomp and circumstance of war became the order of the day, and we finds bands with the būq al-nafīr (large metal trumpet), the dabdāb (kettledrum), the qaṣ'a (shallow kettledrum), as well as the ṣunūj (cymbals).
^Farmer, Henry George (2001). A History of Arabian Music to the XIIIth Century. New Delhi: Goodword Books. p. 207. ISBN 9788187570639. granted leave to a general to have kettledrums (dabādib, sing. dabdāb)
^ a bFarmer, Henry George (2001). A History of Arabian Music to the XIIIth Century. New Delhi: Goodword Books. p. 38. ISBN 9788187570639. dā'ira (round tambourine)
^ a b c d eFarmer, Henry George (2001). A History of Arabian Music to the XIIIth Century. New Delhi: Goodword Books. p. 211. ISBN 9788187570639. jalājil (bells), and nāqūs (clapper)
^Farmer, Henry George (2001). A History of Arabian Music to the XIIIth Century. New Delhi: Goodword Books. p. 34. ISBN 9788187570639.
^Farmer, Henry George (2001). A History of Arabian Music to the XIIIth Century. New Delhi: Goodword Books. p. 211. ISBN 9788187570639. jalājil (bells), and nāqūs (clapper)
^Jean During (1984). "Zarb". In Sadie, Stanley (ed.). The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. p. 891. Volume 3.
^ a b cFarmer, Henry George (2001). A History of Arabian Music to the XIIIth Century. New Delhi: Goodword Books. p. 6. ISBN 9788187570639. jalājil (bells), and nāqūs (clapper)
^Marcuse, Sibyl (1975). A Survey of Musical Instruments. New York: Harper & Row. pp. 62–63. ISBN 0-06-012776-7.
^Farmer, Henry George (2001). A History of Arabian Music to the XIIIth Century. New Delhi: Goodword Books. p. 263. ISBN 9788187570639. ṣinj (pl. sunūj
^Farmer, Henry George (2001). A History of Arabian Music to the XIIIth Century. New Delhi: Goodword Books. p. 47. ISBN 9788187570639.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Musical instruments of Iran.
Introduction to Iranian Indigenous and Local Musical Instruments by Kamran Komeylizadeh
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