Persian Musical Instruments: Names, Sounds and Music Words in Farsi

The best-known Persian musical instruments are the تار (târ) and سه‌تار (setâr), two long-necked lutes; the سنتور (santur), a hammered dulcimer; the کمانچه (kamânche), a bowed spike fiddle; the نی (ney), an end-blown reed flute; and two drums, the تنبک (tombak) and the دف (daf). In Persian, any musical instrument is simply a ساز (sâz).

This guide covers each instrument with its Persian name, pronunciation and a plain description of how it looks, sounds and is played. It also explains the folk instruments of Iran’s regions, gives a short, careful introduction to the دستگاه (dastgâh) system of Persian classical music, and teaches the vocabulary you need to talk about music in Persian, such as how to say “I play the setar.” There are flashcards, a dropdown exercise and a quiz along the way.

All Persian instruments at a glance

Here is the quick reference. The first eight are the core instruments of Persian classical music; the rest are mostly heard in folk and regional music. Each one is described in more detail below.

A note on spelling: English sources write these names in many ways. You will see tar, setar or sehtar, santoor, kamancheh or kamanche, tonbak, dombak or zarb, and nay or ney. The Persian spelling stays the same, so if you can read the Persian alphabet, the script is the most reliable way to search for recordings and teachers.

Instrument families: the Persian words

Persian groups instruments much as English does. The word ساز (sâz) Listen means “instrument,” and the plural is سازها (sâzhâ). To name a family, Persian uses the ezâfe: سازهای زهی (sâzhâ-ye zehi) means “string instruments.”

Two more words come up again and again: مضراب (mezrâb), the pick for a tar or the light hammers for a santur, and آرشه (ârshe), the bow of a kamancheh or violin.

String instruments

Tar (تار): the backbone of Persian classical music

تار (târ) Listen means “string” in Persian. It is a long-necked lute with a body shaped like two joined bowls, usually carved from mulberry wood, and a top made of very thin stretched lambskin. It has six strings in three pairs and movable frets of tied gut. The player holds it across the chest and plucks with a small brass pick set in wax, also called a مضراب (mezrâb).

The tar has a bright, clear, slightly metallic sound and a wide range, which is why it often leads an ensemble and why so many composers and teachers of Persian classical music have been tar players. If you hear a solo instrument improvising at the start of a Persian concert, there is a good chance it is a tar. A related instrument with the same name is played in the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Caucasus; it is held higher on the chest and has more strings.

Setar (سه‌تار): the quiet, intimate lute

سه‌تار (setâr) Listen literally means “three strings”: سه (se) is “three” and تار (târ) is “string.” Today it has four strings, because a fourth was added later; tradition credits the Sufi musician Moshtâq Ali Shâh. Note the spelling: there is a zero-width non-joiner between سه and تار, so the two parts sit close but do not join.

The setar is smaller and lighter than the tar and made entirely of wood, with no skin top. It is played with the nail of the index finger rather than a pick, which gives it a soft, whispering tone. It is the instrument of private, reflective playing, closely associated with Sufi gatherings and with poetry, and many Iranians call it the most “spiritual” of the Persian instruments. Because it is quiet, it is rarely the lead in a large ensemble.

Santur (سنتور): the hammered dulcimer

The سنتور (santur) Listen is a flat, trapezoid-shaped box with 72 metal strings arranged in groups of four, each group tuned to one note. The strings rest on movable wooden bridges, called خرک (kharak), set in two rows. The player strikes the strings with two very light wooden hammers, the مضراب (mezrâb), held between the fingers. The sound rings and shimmers, a little like a harp crossed with a piano. Because every note has to be set by moving bridges, santur players retune before each piece. Santur masters include Faramarz Payvar and Parviz Meshkatian.

Kamancheh (کمانچه): the bowed spike fiddle

کمانچه (kamânche) Listen is built from کمان (kamân), “bow,” plus the small suffix ـچه (-che), so it means “little bow.” It has a round wooden bowl covered with skin, a long neck, four strings and a metal spike at the bottom. The player sits and rests the spike on the knee or the floor, holds the instrument upright and turns the instrument itself toward the bow to change strings. Its voice is warm and close to the human voice, which is why it often answers a singer phrase by phrase. Kayhan Kalhor is the best-known kamancheh player outside Iran. In 2017, the art of making and playing the kamancheh was inscribed on UNESCO’s intangible heritage list as a joint file of Iran and Azerbaijan.

Barbat and oud (بربط، عود)

The بربط (barbat) Listen is a short-necked lute with a deep, rounded body and no frets. It has an ancient Persian history, and it is the close relative of the instrument known in Arabic as عود (ud, written oud in English). In Iran today both names are used, and many players simply say عود. The European lute descends from the same family. In 2022, Iran and Syria jointly inscribed the craft and playing of the oud on UNESCO’s intangible heritage list.

Qanun (قانون)

The قانون (ghânun) is a large, flat zither played on the lap or on a table, plucked with small picks worn on the index fingers. It is more central to Arabic and Turkish music, but it is also part of Iranian ensembles. The word قانون also means “law” in everyday Persian, so context tells you which one is meant.

Percussion instruments

Tombak (تنبک), also called zarb

The تنبک (tombak) Listen is the main drum of Persian classical music. It is a goblet-shaped drum carved from a single block of wood, with a skin glued over the wide top and an open bottom. Players hold it horizontally across the lap and play with the fingers and palms of both hands, getting a deep bass stroke in the center, a sharp click at the rim, and rolls and snaps in between. It is also called ضرب (zarb), a word that also means “beat” or “rhythm,” and you may see the spellings tonbak and dombak. Hossein Tehrani is remembered for turning the tombak into a solo instrument with its own repertoire.

Daf (دف)

The دف (daf) Listen is a large frame drum: a wide wooden hoop with a skin stretched over one side and rows of small metal rings fixed inside the frame, so every stroke both booms and rattles. It has deep roots in Kurdish regions and in Sufi gatherings, where it keeps the rhythm for chanting. Since the late twentieth century it has also become a familiar stage instrument, often played in large groups that create a powerful, driving sound.

Dayereh, dohol and naghareh

دایره (dâyere) is a smaller frame drum, often with jingles, used in folk and celebration music. دهل (dohol) is a big two-headed drum played with sticks, usually outdoors. نقاره (naghâre) is a pair of kettledrums; historically, نقاره‌خانه (naghâre-khâne), a “drum house” above a city gate or shrine, played at set times of day.

Wind instruments

Ney (نی): the reed flute of Persian poetry

The نی (ney) Listen is a simple tube of reed with six finger holes, five on the front and one on the back. The word also means “reed” itself. Persian ney players use a distinctive technique: instead of blowing across the open end like a recorder or a Western flute, they place the edge of the reed against their teeth and direct the air with the tongue, which gives the ney its breathy, voice-like sound.

No instrument is more tied to Persian literature. Rumi’s Masnavi opens with the ney, a reed cut from its reed bed that cries out with longing, an image of the soul separated from its source:

بشنو این نی چون شکایت می‌کند / از جدایی‌ها حکایت می‌کند Listen
(beshnow in ney chon shekâyat mikonad / az jodâyi-hâ hekâyat mikonad)
“Listen to this reed, how it complains; it tells the story of separations.”

Source: Masnavi, Book 1, opening section, text as given on Ganjoor; the translation is ours. Some printed editions swap the two words شکایت and حکایت. For more of Rumi in the original, see real Rumi quotes in Persian.

Sorna and ney-anban

سرنا (sornâ) is a loud double-reed instrument, a relative of the oboe, played outdoors together with the دهل (dohol) at weddings, festivals and village celebrations across Iran. نی‌انبان (ney-anbân) Listen is the bagpipe of the southern coast, especially Bushehr and Hormozgan: نی is “reed” and انبان (anbân) is an old word for a leather bag.

Regional and folk instruments

Iran is a large country with many peoples, and each region has its own sound. Classical music is mostly urban and performed by small ensembles; folk music (موسیقی محلی, musighi-ye mahalli) belongs to villages, tribes, weddings and storytelling.

• Khorasan (northeast): the دوتار (dotâr) Listen, “two strings,” a long-necked lute with a pear-shaped wooden body. Wandering musician-storytellers called بخشی (bakhshi) sing epics and love stories to it. UNESCO listed the music of the bakhshis of Khorasan in 2010 and the craft and playing of the dotar in 2019.
• Kurdish west (Kermanshah and Kurdistan): the تنبور (tanbur), a long-necked lute with a deep, earthy tone, sacred to the Yarsan (Ahl-e Haqq) community, and the daf.
• Baluchistan (southeast): the قیچک (gheychak), a bowed instrument with a hollow, waisted body, which has also been taken into classical ensembles.
• Persian Gulf coast (south): the ney-anban and lively percussion-heavy music influenced by the sea trade.
• Lorestan, Bakhtiari and many other regions: sorna and dohol for weddings and dances.

The چنگ (chang), an angled harp, deserves a mention too. Harps appear in ancient Persian art, including the Sasanian rock reliefs at Tâq-e Bostân, and the chang is named constantly in classical poetry. It fell out of use for centuries and has been revived by modern makers and players.

The dastgah system in brief

Persian classical music (موسیقی سنتی, musighi-ye sonnati, or موسیقی اصیل, musighi-ye asil) is not organized around Western major and minor keys. It uses a set of modal systems called دستگاه (dastgâh) Listen. Each dastgâh has its own scale, characteristic phrases, mood and resting notes. A performance usually stays in one dastgâh and moves through it, with a lot of room for improvisation.

By the usual count there are seven dastgâhs and five related âvâz, smaller systems that branch off from them:

The five âvâz are Abu’atâ, Bayât-e Tork, Afshâri and Dashti (from Shur) and Bayât-e Esfahân (from Homâyun). The moods in the table are general impressions, not rules; a skilled musician can make any of them sound joyful or sorrowful.

Each dastgâh contains many short melodic units called گوشه (gushe), “corner.” The traditional collection of all these pieces, passed from teacher to student by ear, is the ردیف (radif) Listen. Students memorize the radif before they improvise freely, much as a poet learns the classics before writing. UNESCO inscribed the Radif of Iranian music on its intangible heritage list in 2009.

A few more words you will see on concert programs and album covers:

Persian music also uses intervals that fall between the notes of a piano. Two special signs mark them in notation: کرن (koron), which lowers a note by roughly a quarter tone, and سری (sori), which raises it. Because the lyrics of آواز (âvâz) are often by Hafez, Saadi or Rumi, music is one of the best doors into Persian poetry; our Hafez quotes in Persian are a good place to start reading the lines you will hear sung. Mohammad Reza Shajarian is the singer most Iranians would name first.

Music vocabulary in Persian

These are the words you need to talk about music, ask someone what they play, or follow a conversation after a concert.

How to say “I play the tar”

In everyday Persian, you do not “play” an instrument with a special verb; you “hit” it. The verb is زدن (zadan), “to hit, to strike,” used for every instrument, including the piano and the flute. The formal, literary verb is نواختن (navâkhtan), present stem نواز (navâz), which you will read in articles and hear on the radio.

Listen to the key sentences: من تار می‌زنم Listen and چه سازی می‌زنی؟ Listen. Notice that Persian needs no word for “the” before the instrument. You can practice the full conjugation of زدن with our Persian verb conjugator.

After a performance, Iranians often praise the musician with دستت درد نکنه، خیلی قشنگ زدی (dastet dard nakone, kheyli ghashang zadi), “Thank you, you played beautifully” Listen. The first half literally means “may your hand not hurt,” a fitting thank-you for someone who has just played. For a formal setting, بسیار زیبا بود (besyâr zibâ bud), “It was very beautiful,” works well.

Practice: music words in context

Where to hear Persian instruments and keep learning

The fastest way to tell the instruments apart is to listen with the names in front of you. Search for recordings by instrument in Persian script, for example سه‌تار or کمانچه (our online Persian keyboard lets you type them), and you will find solo performances that show each sound clearly. Listening also helps your Persian: songs are full of everyday words and poetry. See 10 Persian songs to help you learn Farsi and tips for learning Persian with music and lyrics.

To practice talking about music in a real dialogue, try Persian Conversation 39: Missing a Great Concert and Conversation 36: Free Time and Hobbies. For more everyday conversation, Farsi Conversations collects the phrases Iranians use every day.

Want more? Test your knowledge of the verses behind the music with the Persian poetry quiz,.

Common questions

What is the most popular Persian musical instrument?

There is no official answer, but the تار (târ), the سه‌تار (setâr) and the سنتور (santur) are the most widely studied in Iran, and the تنبک (tombak) is the standard drum. The tar is often called the backbone of Persian classical music because it leads ensembles and is central to teaching the radif.

What is the difference between the tar and the setar?

The tar is larger, has a double-bowl body with a thin skin top, six strings, and is played with a brass pick, so it sounds bright and strong. The setar is smaller and all wood, has four strings despite its name (“three strings”), and is played with the fingernail, so it sounds soft and intimate.

What is the Persian drum called?

The main drum of Persian classical music is the تنبک (tombak), also called zarb or dombak. The دف (daf) is a large frame drum with metal rings, and in folk music you also hear the دایره (dâyere) and the دهل (dohol).

What is the Persian flute called?

It is the نی (ney), an end-blown reed flute with six holes. Persian players hold the end against their teeth, which gives it a breathy, voice-like tone. The ney is a central image in Rumi’s poetry.

Is the oud a Persian instrument?

The oud belongs to a family of short-necked lutes with a long history in Iran and the Arab world. Its Persian relative is the بربط (barbat), and Iranians use both names today. In 2022, Iran and Syria jointly listed the craft and playing of the oud with UNESCO.

What is a dastgah in Persian music?

A دستگاه (dastgâh) is a modal system: a scale together with a set of characteristic melodies (gushe), moods and resting notes. Persian classical music is usually described as having seven dastgâhs and five âvâz, all preserved in the radif.

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