---
url: 'https://kalasudha.com/en-gb/faq/instruments-artforms/how-do-you-play-the-sursingar'
title: 'How do you play the sursingar?'
author:
  name: rajeevk
  url: 'https://kalasudha.com/en-gb/user/fdfe7927a034173f'
date: '2026-10-19T15:08:20+00:00'
updated: '2026-10-25T18:55:25+00:00'
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summary: 'Sursingar players strike metal strings with a wire plectrum, holding the instrument upright or slanted on the left shoulder.'
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 FAQ · Instruments & artforms

# How do you play the sursingar?

 Updated 25 October 2026

 

**[Sursingar](/instrument/sursingar)** players strike the metal strings with wire. Sourindro Mohun Tagore, writing in 1877, names an iron plectrum, the java; other accounts describe wire mizrabs worn on the right-hand fingers. The instrument is held at a slant or upright, its upper part resting on the left shoulder. The fretless metal fingerboard allows glides, or meend, of up to two octaves.



 

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## Related pages

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###  Instruments (1) 

- [   Sursingar The sursingar is a fretless plucked lute in the bass register, close to the sarod and grown from the seni rabab. Musicians played it at the Gwalior and Rampur…     ](/en-gb/instrument/sursingar)
 
  

 

 

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