Comparing the sound of a setar, guitar & baglama-مقایسه صدای سه تار و گیتار

Comparison of the sound of a Persian setar, Turkish saaz and a guitar-مقایسه صدای سه تار و گیتار
Also an idea for creating a less expensive yet setar-sounding instrument.
Please note, my nylon string guitar played at the end of this clip is worth about $200 only. Compare its sound to my best setar which is probably worth over $1000.

Watch an African kalimba (mbira) played with an eastern scale http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HHFhquVq7Q

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Comparison
• of
• the
• sound
• Persian
• setar
• and
• guitar-مقایسه
• صدای
• سه
• تار
• و
• گیتار
• Iranian
• music
• Tehran
• dastgah
• shajarian
• شجریان
• موسیقی
• سنتی
• ردیفی
• دستگاه
• ماهور
• How
• to
• make
• standard
• guitar
• like
• persian.
• turkish
• saaz

[ShivaFarrokh]

Amazing comparison, you just opened up unique views and visions in me. Thanks for sharing us your precious experience.

[goodcyrus]

@ShivaFarrokh (cont'd) if you add up all the music material available for western music, you get easily 10,000 times more stuff than all that is available for Persian music. Take away all the silly repetitions and similar sounding passages that everyone uses all the time and you get a terrible ratio.

[goodcyrus]

@ShivaFarrokh If a fellow Persian had told me 15 years ago they wanted to get guitar or piano lessons for their kids, I would have thought "why bother with a foreign instrument?" or "guitar and piano players are dime a dozen." But now I believe learning setar and Persian music in general is like entering an alley that is not only narrow but also a dead-end. Learning Persian piano / guitar is even more limiting.

[Golnegar66]

Beautiful. Thank you!

[AlexBouzouki]

What is the tuning of the instruments presented?

[filsoofimusic]

very interesting,,,but I don't think playing any kind of music can actually be compared to a dead-end alley! I'm not defending Iranian traditioal music but defending all folk musics with some kind of repetitive SILLYness in your opinion.well that's my opinion ..In a dead alley there are many corners you dont know and U think there is something in another alley or Highway which also u could easily get lost.

[peybak]

@goodcyrus I wouldn't give too much credit to the Chinese, even Western China which was dominated by nomadic people. The Chinese seem to think they have invented everything. As far as setar goes, what you say about becoming popular during the Safavid is true, but most people forget that tanboors were once very much like setars (small). But a more important point is that Persians loved musical instruments, specially anything lute-like & also harps. It's all over the poetry, paitings & manuscripts

[goodcyrus]

@peybak Setar First time one sees tar or setar-like drawings in Iran is during Safavid dynasty. Shah Abbas brought peoples of many cultures to create a microcosm especially in Esfehan (Armenians, Georgians etc). Tar-like instruments as you know, are common all over western China and central Asia all the way to turkey and Caucasus. Even Kabob Soltani is from Caucasus brought to Iran during Ghajar period!

[peybak]

@goodcyrus I don't know how Ross Daly tunes his cura but it's probably a fa-do scheme. I should also say that the cura I play is a baglama cura, which is a reduced version of a baglama. There is a whole category of baglamas with different sizes and different strings types. Real Curas are usually very small instruments and are usually strung with 3 strings covering about an octave. What's the string length on your baglama?

[peybak]

@goodcyrus I have read a lot of history with respect to musical instruments. It seems that the tar originated in the Caucasus. It's not particularly "turkish" but spread out during the 1600s or so in what we call Iran today, coming down with the ruling dynasties that came from the Caucasus. But instruments like the Setar have been around for a long time, probably since the Sumer civilizations and many cultures have similar instruments.

[hsamarq]

Continued from last comments "...thanks to you is cleared now."

[hsamarq]

Hate autocorrect...;) wanted to say shoorangiz!