Music Corner

Folk is a song-centered acoustic tradition rooted in community storytelling, everyday life, and social history. It emphasizes clear melodies, simple harmonies, and lyrics that foreground narrative, protest, and personal testimony. As a modern recorded genre, folk coalesced in the early-to-mid 20th century in the United States out of older ballad, work song, and rural dance traditions. It typically features acoustic instruments (guitar, banjo, fiddle, mandolin, harmonica), strophic song forms, and participatory singing (choruses, call-and-response).

Santoor music centers around the santoor, a trapezoid-shaped hammered dulcimer made of walnut wood, originally from the Kashmir valley. It is characterized by its ethereal, resonant, and water-like sound quality, produced by striking strings with lightweight wooden mallets called 'kalams' or 'mezrabs'. Traditionally an accompanying instrument in Kashmiri Sufiana Mausiqi, it was adapted for Hindustani classical solo performance, featuring complex melodic improvisations (alap), rhythmic compositions (gat), and the unique use of gliding techniques (meend) to mimic the human voice.

Santur refers to music centered on the santur (or santoor), a trapezoidal hammered dulcimer whose strings are struck with light wooden mallets. Originating in Persia (modern Iran), the instrument spread through Mesopotamia and the wider Middle East, later inspiring related dulcimers across Europe and Asia. In Iranian classical music, the santur is tuned to the modal dastgāh system and features shimmering tremolos (riz), delicate grace notes, and agile, dance-like passages (especially in chahārmezrāb and reng). In Iraq and the Levant it participates in maqām traditions, while in the Indian subcontinent—especially through the Kashmiri santoor—it was adapted to the Hindustani raga system and re-engineered with more strings and different bridges for sustained melodic development. The timbre is glassy and bell-like but warm, capable of luminous arpeggios, rippling rolls, sharply articulated rhythms, and intricate ornamentation. Modern performers also bring the santur into jazz, film music, pop, and electronic fusion.