TromboneChat

I’m looking for inspiration for something to collaborate on with a Santur-playing friend.

We were thinking to search out something written for harp and voice, me playing the voice part on trombone and my friend adapting the harp part to whatever is playable on a Santur. For fairness sake, we should also try taking something from Persian music and me trying to play the melody line.

I think there will be some limitations of the playability of western chromatic scales on the Santur, similarly my familiarity with the intricacies of Persian music is very limited.

As a third option, are there some jazz modes which overlap both cultures and could be the basis for improvisation on both instruments?

As the trombone is the most microtonal brass instrument, you should play the microtonal Persian music, rather than trying to play western music on the Santur.

The santur scale has 1/4 tones, right? Improvising over this would be so cool!

I'm following this thread because I play trombone and hammered dulcimer (a cousin of the Santur) as a hobbyist. While I would love to put the two instruments together, I've not found much precedent to draw from. Mark Alan Wade has a nice trumpet / HD version of Concierto de Aranjuez on his Serenade CD. There is some precedent for pairing trombone and harp that might be a starting point for trombone / Santur. Here's a duo formed by a couple music faculty at Northern Kentucky University, almost just down the road from me: https://www.louissetzer.com/jolo-duo. Achilles Liarmakopoulos of the Canadian Brass has a trombone / harp CD (link here: https://www.achillestrombone.com/product-page/obvious).