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title: 'What is a santoor?'
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date: '2026-10-15T23:00:02+00:00'
updated: '2026-10-19T22:03:44+00:00'
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summary: 'A santoor is a hammered dulcimer from Kashmir with about a hundred strings, struck with two light wooden mallets.'
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  FAQ · Instruments & artforms

# What is a santoor?

 Updated 19 October 2026

 A santoor is a hammered dulcimer from Kashmir: a trapezoid walnut box with about a hundred strings. Twenty-five wooden bridges carry the strings in sets of four, and the player tunes each set to one note, so one stroke sounds four strings together.

The player sits with the santoor in front and strikes the strings with two light wooden mallets. A struck string cannot bend, so the player suggests a glide with fast strokes on neighbouring bridges. The santoor accompanied Sufiana Mausiqi, the Sufi music of Kashmir, until Pandit Shivkumar Sharma brought it to the classical concert stage.



 

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 ## Related pages

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 ###  Artists (1) 

- [   Vinay Desai Vinay Desai plays the santoor, the hundred-stringed instrument of Kashmir, as a disciple of Padma Vibhushan Pandit Shivkumar Sharma. Hear him live in the UK.     ](/en-in/artist/vinay-desai)
 
  ###  Instruments (1) 

- [   Santoor The santoor is a Kashmiri hammered dulcimer of about 100 strings on 25 bridges. Shivkumar Sharma and Bhajan Sopori took it from Sufiana Mausiqi to the…     ](/en-in/instrument/santoor)
 
  

 

 

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