Playing the Sorna and Dohol

A dohol is a large cylindrical drum with two skin heads. It is generally struck on one side with a wooden stick bowed at the end, and with a large thin stick on the other side, though it is also played by the bare hands. It is the principal accompaniment for the sorna, which is the Persian ancestor of the Renaissance shawm (which in turn developed to the oboe; so it goes).

Sometimes sorna is also referred as saz, which in Turkey (also in the Caucasian countries, as well as in Bosnia and Albania) denotes a long-necked fretted lute. Such a lute has a pear-shaped wooden body and several metal strings arranged in double or triple courses, and is played with a plectrum: in Caucasus it may be played in ensembles of as many as 15 to 20 players, accompanying an ashug, which is what we would call a troubadour.

But if we are here, at what it means to be an ashug, I have to promise you a post about Parajanov's Ashug-Karibi... all in good time!

سُرنا , دُهُل
(video by siyasard)

(Iranian Film and Poetry)