CIM09 26-29 octobre 2009

Design and make a novel music instrument “S orahi”

Mohammad Reza Shajarian

Head of High Council of music, Iran Music Home Tehran (Iran)

Shabnam Ataei
Electrical & Computer Engineering, Shahid Beheshti University Tehran (Iran)

(BACKGROUND I,II) INTRODUCTION

In order to understand why certain combinations of notes make harmony and others do not, we will
study the simplest instrument, a single string. The formula for the frequency of a vibrating string is:
Frequency=(1/2*length)(tension/line density)^0.5
When: Frequency is in Hertz=1/sec; Length is in meters; Tension is a force in Newton=kg*m/sec^2; Line density
is the string thickness, in kg/m
This fact has many physical manifestations, such as: Low instruments must be much larger than high
instruments. In general, an instrument which is an octave lower must be twice as large. For example, in the
string family, as we progress from violin, viola, cello, to bass, the cello is large and the bass is very large.

(AIM) SORAHI
Sorahi is a family of Persian musical instrument like violin, Have 4 members: soprano, alto, bass and
contrabass. “Sorahi” in Persian language is bottle or cup of wind and because of similarity of its shape the
instrument called “Sorahi”. They have 4 strings. And have a surface of animals skin which cause the
difference it sound from violin. The skin can be change in few minutes then the type of sound will change so
depends on the required sound the instrument can change the type of its sound. It play with it’s bow also
can play with violin’s bow. “Sorahi” which is introducing in this paper is designed and made regarding to
novel method of designing and measuring of resonating strings, such as new measurements and new
designing method with new bridge sizes. For strings measurements we use this formula:
Frequency=(1/2*length)(tension/line density)^0.5
The figs below show two members of Sorahi family:

Sorahi alto

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Bass Sorahi

(IMPLICATIONS) CONCLUSION
Two Characteristics of a musical sound are volume and pitch. What is the difference between flute and
violin, when they play the same note? If we see the waveform of the sound of these instruments in a same
note it would be like this:

The frequencies are the same because the notes are same. A note has one frequency and a frequency as a
number is relate to one note.

REFERENCES
1- Mathematical Harmonies, Mark Petersen, 2001.
2- Johnston, Ian, Measured Tones, The interplay of physics and music, Hilger, NY, 1989.
3- Pierce, John R., The Science of Musical Sound, Scientific American Library, NY, 1983.

BIOGRAPHIES
Mohammad Reza Shajarian is the most Iranian famous vocalist, composer and the musical instruments builder. His
works are brilliant in the history of Persian music. In 1999 UNESCO in France presented him with the prestigious
Picasso Award, one of Europe's highest honors. He has many international awards. He Nominated for Grammy award
in Best World Music 2006 and 2004. Also he have won Mozart award in 2007 in Moscow. He is the Head of High
council of music in Iran Music Home, that most of Persian music Masters are member of there.
S.Shajarian@gmail.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Shabnam Ataei is Electrical Engineer from University of Shahid Beheshti (National University), Iran. She has many
publications about Electrical Circuits, communications and speech signal processing. Also she has designed and made
electrical tuner, show quartertone that useful for Persian music.

M.R. Shajarian himself have designed and built this instrument. S. Ataei is just his paper presenter.

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