How To Tune Persian Santur?

How Many Tools Do You Need to Tune a Santur?

One of the first things I learned about the santur is that tuning it can be almost as challenging as playing it. Many musicians can play the santur beautifully but struggle with tuning it. In this post, I hope to shed some light on the secrets of tuning the santur. When tuning a santur, it’s important to set aside some time. Professional players can tune a santur from 0 to 100 in a few minutes, but for most of us, it’s a long process. If this is your first time tuning your santur, find a time in your day when you have at least three free hours.

What Tools Do You Need to Tune a Santur?

1. Tuner – We’ll use the classic Korg CA-1 tuner. In my experience with many tuners, this one is the best for the job. You can order the CA-1 online on Ebay. To tune to a quarter tone (koron), press the CALIB button and set the tuner to 427. In this mode, every string you tune will be a quarter tone lower than the note displayed on the santur. You can also use the “Pano Tuner” app, available on Google Play and the App Store.
2. Tuning Wrench – It’s best to use a metal wrench. The wrench should fit the size of the tuning pegs, not too tight and not too loose.
3. Hammer (500-1500 grams)
4. Mezrab (playing stick) – We’ll use it to separate the strings and check if the strings are in tune with each other.
5. Santur Tuning Guide – The Persian santur can be tuned to many scales. Choose one of the scales to start with. I recommend starting with Shur (Shur).

Santur Tuning Scales Collection

Tuning wrench and mezrabs

Understanding the Santur

Let’s take a look at the structure of the santur and its parts:

How to tune a santur? Different parts of the santur

• Kharak – A piece of wood designed to divide the string. The strings on both sides of the kharak are tuned to the same note, but the shorter part of the string is tuned one octave higher.
• The santur is built with alternating copper and metal strings. The bronze strings create the first, lower octave, and the silver metal strings create the two higher octaves.
• Each set of strings on the santur consists of four strings, all tuned to the same note.
• A Persian Santur has 9 sets of bronze strings and 9 sets of metal strings, totaling 72 strings.
• A Persian Santur with 12 Kharak has 12 sets of bronze strings and 12 metal strings, totaling 92 strings.

How to Tune? Positioning the Kharaks

If the santur is completely out of tune, I recommend doing an initial rough tuning (not precise). After the initial tuning, you can go back and fine-tune the strings that don’t sound right. The santur has two tuning systems: Kharaks and Tuning Pegs. Moving either of them will affect the sound. Let’s start by positioning the kharaks correctly. If the kharaks on your santur are already in the correct position, skip to the next part: Tuning Pegs.

1. First, look at the picture and move the kharaks under the bronze strings so they are close to the position in the picture. It’s not critical if the kharak isn’t exactly like in the picture, but keep the general structure.
2. To tune the kharaks under the silver metal strings, we’ll use our ears 🙂
3. A rule of thumb to get the approximate position of the kharak: divide the string into three parts and place the kharak exactly at the left third of the string. So you have 1/3 of the string on the left and 2/3 on the right.
4. After placing the kharak approximately, try to be more precise: use the mezrab to pluck the string closest to you among the four. Then pluck the same string on the other side of the kharak. Try to get the same note an octave apart.
5. Note: The longer the string, the lower its pitch.

Tuning Pegs – Bronze Strings

After positioning the kharaks correctly, the santur is relatively tuned. Now we need to tune it to the correct notes. We’ll start with the set of strings closest to us, at the wide part of the santur trapezoid.

1. Insert the tuning wrench into the lower tuning peg and use the tuner to tune to the desired note according to the tuning chart.
2. When tuning a string, it’s very important to first lower the pitch by about half a turn and then raise it until the string stabilizes at the correct note.
3. After tuning the first string among the four strings, move the tuning wrench one pin up (still on the bronze strings).
4. Using the mezrab and your ears, tune the second string to match the first string you tuned with the tuner.
5. When you’re done, move one pin up and tune the third and fourth strings the same way.
6. Finally, check by plucking all four strings in the set to ensure none of the strings are out of tune.

Tuning Pegs – Silver Metal Strings

1. Insert the tuning wrench into the silver tuning peg.
2. Pluck the four tuned bronze strings and compare them to the first metal string.
3. Again, it’s important to first lower the pitch slightly, about half a turn, and then raise it to the correct pitch.
4. From here, just compare and tune the rest of the string set. Tune the first to the second, the pair to the third, and so on.
5. If you positioned the kharaks correctly, the left side of the metal string set should be automatically tuned.

Also visit the Santur Tuning Scales Collection

Coming soon: A video demonstration…