سه‌تار

What it means

سه‌تار (setar) is a long-necked lute, the quietest member of the Persian classical instrument family. The name means “three strings,” which is a fossil; the modern setar has four. A fourth string was added in the eighteenth century, by tradition by the dervish Moshtaq Ali Shah, and the name never updated. The instrument has a small pear-shaped wooden body, a long fretted neck with around 25 to 27 movable gut frets, and a soft sound that does not carry across a room. It is played with the nail of the right index finger.

Among Iranians, the setar is the intimate instrument. You play tar for an audience, you play setar for yourself, late at night, alone, or for two friends sitting on a carpet.

How to use it

setar saz-e mahbub-e man ast, har shab qabl az khab mizanam.

Setar is my favorite instrument, I play it every night before bed.

سه‌تار ساز محبوب من است، هر شب قبل از خواب می‌زنم.

Ahmad Ebadi va Hossein Alizadeh do ostad-e bozorg-e setar hastand.

Ahmad Ebadi and Hossein Alizadeh are two great masters of the setar.

احمد عبادی و حسین علیزاده دو استاد بزرگ سه‌تار هستند.

The masters

Ahmad Ebadi (1906 to 1992) was the defining setar player of the twentieth century, the son of Mirza Abdollah, the figure who codified the radif. His recordings on Iranian state radio in the 1960s are still the reference. Hossein Alizadeh, born in 1951, took the instrument into composition and ensemble work, expanding what a setar could carry. Younger players (Kayhan Kalhor on related instruments, Sahba Motallebi, Sohrab Pournazeri) keep the line going.

Where to find one

In Tehran, the instrument shops cluster along Lalehzar Street, the historic music district north of the Grand Bazaar. A handmade setar by a known maker (the workshop of the late Ebrahim Ghanbari Mehr remains a benchmark) runs into thousands of dollars; a student-grade setar can be had for under two hundred. Outside Iran, Iranian diaspora music stores in Los Angeles, Toronto, and Hamburg stock them.

Where it comes from

The setar belongs to the family of long-necked lutes that stretches across the Iranian and Central Asian world, cousins to the Turkish saz, the Tajik dutar, the Afghan dotar. The name is pure Persian, سه (se, three) plus تار (tar, string). The Indian sitar shares the name and family but diverged centuries ago into a much larger instrument with a different role.

In our voice

If you only learn to recognize one Persian instrument by ear, make it the setar. It is the sound of a single person thinking through a melody. Once you can pick it out of a recording, the whole architecture of Persian classical music opens.

References

• Dehkhoda, سه‌تار
• Vajehyab, سه‌تار