FAQ · Instruments & artforms

What is a surbahar?

Updated

The surbahar is a plucked, fretted, long-necked lute of Hindustani music, built as a larger, lower-pitched version of the sitar and often called the bass sitar. Museums class it as a necked bowl lute. Its core repertoire is alap, jor and jhala in the dhrupad-derived style, sometimes followed by a slow dhrupad composition with pakhawaj.

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