Luthiers · Isfahan, Iran
Rahimi
Tombak Maker
An Isfahan-based maker of the Persian tombak with some twenty-eight years at the bench — hand-shaping goblet drums from the walnut, mulberry and ash favoured by Iranian makers, in a city long known for its percussion craft.
Rahimi is an Isfahan-based maker of the Persian tombak (also called the tonbak or zarb), the goblet drum at the heart of Iranian classical and folk rhythm. With roughly twenty-eight years at the bench, he works within Isfahan’s deep tradition of percussion making — a craft passed from hand to hand, where the maker’s ear is the final measure.
Like other Iranian makers, Rahimi shapes the tombak from a single turned body, choosing among the woods the tradition favours: dense, warm walnut for depth and long sustain; golden mulberry for a sweet, singing resonance; pale ash for brightness and projection. Aged, well-seasoned timber is central to the work — it is what gives a finished drum its mature, ringing voice — and the body is matched with a carefully mounted natural-skin head whose tension sets the balance between the deep tom at the centre and the bright tek at the rim.
The result is an instrument built slowly and by hand rather than to a formula. Tapadum carries Rahimi’s tombaks within its Persian-classical collection, alongside the santur, setar, and daf makers who shape the sound of the dastgāh repertoire.
