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url: 'https://kalasudha.com/en-in/faq/instruments-artforms/how-old-is-the-morsing'
title: 'How old is the morsing?'
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date: '2026-10-19T15:17:03+00:00'
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summary: 'The morsing belongs to an ancient, widespread family of jaw harps; it entered Carnatic concerts possibly in the early 1900s.'
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  FAQ · Instruments & artforms

# How old is the morsing?

 Updated 19 October 2026

 The jaw-harp family to which the **[morsing](/instrument/morsing)** belongs is found across Eurasia, South and Southeast Asia, Indonesia and Melanesia, and sources disagree on whether it had one origin or several. Grinnell reports that the morsing spread south into the subcontinent from the northwest. Sruti says it entered Carnatic concerts possibly in the early 1900s, and the V&A holds an iron jaw harp collected in British India by 1879.



 

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 ###  Instruments (1) 

- [   Morsing The morsing is the South Indian jaw harp of Carnatic music. The player presses it to the front teeth and plucks it, and the mouth, as resonator, shapes its…     ](/en-in/instrument/morsing)
 
  

 

 

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