Surbahar

Possibly invented by Umrao Khan, beenker of Lucknow, the instument, a variety of sitar was actually developed by Ghulam Mohammad of Banda around 1830 and his son Sajjad Ahmed both accomplished players of sitar and surbahar in the nineteenth century. Compared to the sitar the instrument is larger with a longer neck and wider, and designed to play the alap and jod-alap of dhrupad in the Seniya Beenker tradition. It has six metal strings including two of the drone with 13 sympathetic strings below and two extra brass strings for the lower octave. Another difference is that an extra resonator is usually added to the sitar at the top with the resultant deeper tone of the instrument. The other technical difference is that the frets on the surbahar are fixed, not easily movable and it is played with two strokes with plectrum on the forefinger and little finger, one plectrum being used to keep the tal.

Accomplished sitar players can also play on the surbahar and vice versa, but the performers usually specialise in one of the two instruments. Thus, Vilayat Khan, the sitar maestro invariably performs on the sitar while his brother Imrat Khan prefers the surbahar. Annapoorna Devi, daughter of Ustad Allauddin Khan was an accomplished surbahar player but also plays the sitar. In recent times late Mushtaq Ali Khan was a sitarist as well as an illustrious exponent of the surbahar besides Imrat Khan, brother of Ustad Vilayat Khan. Sitar has a more scintillating and brilliant tone although surbahar is mellower and has a wider range. Both these instruments are, however, derivatives of the ancient veena. As mentioned separately the veena was modified by Amir Khusro to create the sitar.

How it Sounds?

Sarangi

Sarangi is sometimes called the Indian violin but shaped differently and larger in size. Sarangi has been used for long time as the main accompaniment in North Indian vocal music. It can particularly play the sedulous ape to North Indian classical music as it can emit tonal sounds akin to human voice and also execute all the variations and gamaks of the human voice. The tone of the instrument is somewhat mellow. The instrument is made out of one block of wood and is about 2 ft. in length. The main strings of the sarangi are four— one being made of brass and three out of gut. The lowest pitch is of the brass string. The main strings are tuned to Sa, Pa, Ga, or Ma to suit the notes of a raga. The instrument is played with a bow. Like violin the bow is used with right hand and the fingers are used to stop the strings. However, the instrument is placed vertically from the top placed in the lap of the performer unlike the violin. It has more pitch range than the violin but not comparable to the fine tone of the violin. Sarangi is a principal instrument of accompaniment for khayal, dhrupad, thumri, dadra, and even ghazal singing. Formerly the sarangi was not usually played as a solo instrument but mostly under the influence of All India Radio several eminent and distinguished sarangi players and maestros in their own right emerged as solo sarangi instrumentalists and broadcasters like Ustad Bundu Khan, Pandit Ram Narain and Gopal Mishra (of Banares), Bade Sabir Khan, Ustad Sabri Khan, Ustad Ghulam Sabir (of Lucknow), Ustad Abdul Latif Khan (of Bhopal), and Pandit Inder Lal.

In addition to the main strings these are as many as thirty-five sympathetic strings attached to pegs on the side of the finger board and tuned systematically. Unlike the sarod which is played more or less horizontally resting on the thighs and legs of the performers, sarangi is played in an up-right position like a cello in front of the performer who, however, sits or squats on the ground and sarangi is held in the sitting position resting between the thighs or lap of the performer. There are no frets in sarangi which results in great elasticity of movement of the left hand fingers on the playing strings.

How it Sounds?

Santoor

A variety of harp something like the swaramandal originating from Kashmir which has been innovated and developed to become a solo playing concert instrument replacing swaramandal. The most outstanding exponents of santoor are now Shiv Kumar Sharma, Omprakash Chaurasia and Bhajan Sopori of whom Shiv Kumar Sharma is now based mostly in Mumbai while Chaurasia resides in Bhopal. Amongst the younger generation Tarun Bhattacharya of Kolkata is a distinguished player. The santoor horizontally has three strings for each note and a bridge at both ends for each set of three strings. The santoor is played with two curved shaped sticks. The santoor has a scintillating tone and has about twenty-five playing wires with fixed pitches like those of the piano but with a remarkable brilliance of tone. It can render those ragas particularly well which do not have elaborate gamaks. Thus, it is much easier for a performer to play on the santoor effectively ragas like Durga, Bhopali, Eman, Rageshri, Kafi, Kirwani, etc. and not ragas like Darbari Kanhra, Miyan-ki-Malhar, Miyan-ki­Todi or even a Bageshri or Malkauns. Skilled players like those mentioned above, however, manage to transcend these limitations and produce the semblance of nuances of gamaks deftly and delicately by gliding and sweeping over the various notes in quick succession to create an aura and impression of gamaks.

How it Sounds?

Rabab

This is a music instrument of Persian or Afghan origin of the same name but adopted during Mughal times in the reign of Emperor Akbar by Tansen. The rabab has no frets unlike the sitar but has four strings, one or two of brass and two of gut with sympathetic metal strings attached to the side. All the strings could also be of gut. Strings are tuned either Sa Pa Ma Sa or Sa Sa Pa Pa Ma or Sa Sa Pa Sa Ga. The rabab is usually played with a plectrum, but sometimes also adapted for playing with a bow. It has a fine brilliant tone and its shallow bowl is usually made from mulberry wood. Rabab and the veena were the popular instruments during Mughal times and rabab was usually accompanied by pakhawaj. Tansen himself belonged to the Beenkar family but he also played the rabab and his successors and descendents were either known as Beenkars or Rababiars. His daughter Saraswati had married a veena player Mishri Singh who belonged to the Beenkar branch while descendents of his son Bilas Khan who was a rabab player came to be known as the Rababiars branch.

The rabab has now been superseded by the sarod in classical music performance, thanks to adaptation and popularization of this instrument in Bengal in the nineteenth century which also manufactures high quality sarods. Its last exponents were given recognition by the Rampur State. At present it is not much heard of as a solo instrument. Some like Ustad Amjad Ali Khan credit this instrument to be the precursor of the modern sarod but this has been disputed by distinguished sarod players belonging to Ustad Allauddin Khan gharana like Ustad Ali Akbar Khan’s son Ashish Khan and Smt. Sharan Rani Mathur (née Backliwal) who contend that actually sarod has had an independent evolution and dates back to the ancient Mauryan period as a sarod like instrument has been depicted in the Sanchi stupas and sculptures at Amravati.

How it Sounds?

Esraj

It is a stringed instrument akin to the dilruba sounding like sarangi with a sharper but mellower tone. It has frets but is played with a bow and has also sympathetic strings as in sitar. The tonal quality of this stringed instrument is closer to the human voice compared even to the sarangi which is considered to be the best vocal accompaniment with its capacity for elastic modulation and imitating the human voice inflexions. This instrument should be distinguished from dilruba.

Esraj differs from sarangi not only in as much that it has frets but also that instead of gut wires strings are used. It is also somewhat smaller in size than sarangi. Esraj became popular in Bengal and is sometimes called the Bengal variety of sarangi. The wires are tuned Sa-Sa-Pa-Pa. Esraj mainly differs from the dilruba in shape and physical cha­racteristics but is otherwise similar in the technique of playing and popular only in eastern India. It is also used in film music. Some of the notable Esraj players are Vinayaka Bora of Kolkata, Buddhadeo Das, Allauddin Khan and Om Prakash Sharma of Delhi.

How it Sounds?

Dilruba

The dilruba has a shape like that of a sarangi with a longer dandi and played with a bow made of a horse hair like the bow of the violin, but has movable frets like the sitar numbering nineteen, but unlike the sarangi which has no frets. It has four main strings, two made of steel and two of brass, besides about nineteen to twenty-two sympathetic strings with four tuning pegs—two placed vertically on the face of the instrument and two on the side like the sitar. The dilruba has somewhat pleasanter and more delicate tone than the sarangi. The playing strings are tuned Sa Pa Sa Ma (C, G, C, F). The dilruba has been mostly popular in U.P., Delhi and Punjab region. It has not had many votaries and there are not many famous dilruba players. Pyara Singh Martand, a staff artist of All India Radio was a distinguished dilruba player in his own right and popularized the instrument to some extent by his solo broadcast performances during the 1940s-1950s Om Prakash Sharma of Delhi is another dilruba player of distinction who also plays the esraj.

How it sounds?