सरोद

The sarod is a fretless plucked lute of Hindustani classical music, classed by museums as a necked bowl lute. A goatskin belly covers the face of a wooden bowl, usually teak, and the player stops the strings on a smooth metal fingerboard. Its immediate precursor is the Afghan rabab, carried into North India by Pashtun musicians.

You can learn the sarod with KalaSudha online and in workshops, starting at Foundation level. That first stage teaches your posture and the grip on the java, the coconut-shell plectrum, with slow, even strokes. Children learn with us as well as adults: ask us about a starting age, and about a sarod size for a younger learner.

After a long break, our courses let you start again where you left off, because they run in levels. Your teacher reviews where you stand first.

Most sarods have a teak body, and some are made of mulberry. Goatskin stretched across the face of the bowl forms the belly. The fingerboard is a metal plate, polished stainless steel or chrome- or nickel-plated cast steel, and bone serves for the bridge on one museum example. The triangular plectrum, the java, is most often coconut shell.

Catalogued sarods measure from 84.4 cm to 108 cm long and about 24.5 to 29 cm wide. A Kolkata sarod of 1877 measures 84.4 cm and weighs 2.7 kg, while the V&A's Varanasi sarod of about 1850 measures 96 cm. A modern Kolkata instrument in Berlin measures 108 cm and weighs 5.04 kg.

A conventional sarod carries 17 to 25 strings, and the larger Maihar design carries 25. Amjad Ali Khan's sarod has four melody strings, usually tuned doh, fa, doh, mi, with the lowest in bronze, plus two drone strings, two chikari strings and 11 sympathetic strings. Other players use more sympathetic strings.

The sarod player plucks with a triangular plectrum, the java or jaba, most often of coconut shell. The V&A describes the seated position: the instrument held in front of the body with its wide end resting on the right thigh. The smooth metal fingerboard lets the player slide across many notes, which a fretted instrument such as the rabab cannot do.

Ali Akbar Khan (1922 to 2009) trained on the sarod with his father from childhood, and in 1955 visited the United States at Yehudi Menuhin's invitation. Amjad Ali Khan, born in Gwalior in 1945, is the son and pupil of Hafiz Ali Khan and describes himself as the sixth generation of sarod players in his family. His sons Amaan Ali Bangash and Ayaan Ali Bangash are the seventh.

The origin of the sarod is contested. The Bangash family says Ghulam Ali Khan Bangash, a Gwalior court musician, transformed the Afghan rabab his grandfather had brought to India. Amjad Ali Khan says his forefathers replaced the rabab's fretted wooden neck with a steel fingerboard and its gut strings with steel. A V&A sarod made in Varanasi about 1850 shows the name was in use by the mid-19th century.

The Maihar sarod is a larger design with 25 strings, usually tuned to C. The conventional sarod carries 17 to 25 strings and is usually tuned to B. A third design, from the school of Radhika Mohan Maitra, may carry a second resonator. All three keep the goatskin belly and the smooth metal fingerboard.

The Afghan rabab is the immediate precursor of the sarod, carried into North India by Pashtun musicians. The rabab has a fretted wooden neck; in Amjad Ali Khan's account, his forefathers replaced it with a smooth steel fingerboard and changed gut strings for steel. That fingerboard lets a sarod player slide across many notes, which the fretted rabab cannot do.

A sitar and a sarod differ first under the left hand: the sitar has curved metal frets, while the sarod's fingerboard is fretless and faced with polished steel. In Musical Instruments of India (1978), B. Chaitanya Deva names a gourd as the sitar's main sound box. Makers hollow the sarod's body and neck from one piece of wood and cover the belly with skin.

A sitarist plucks with the mizrab, a wire plectrum worn on the index finger; a sarod player holds the java, a triangular plectrum. The sitar buzzes off its broad jawari bridge and bends notes across its frets. The sarod's tone is clean and bell-like, and its slides can run the whole fingerboard.

When buying a sarod, choose the design first. The conventional sarod carries 17 to 25 strings and is usually tuned to B. The Maihar design is larger, with 25 strings, usually tuned to C, and instruments of Radhika Mohan Maitra's school may carry a second resonator. Most sarod makers work in Kolkata, where goatskins are readily available.

Once you have chosen the design, compare a student and a professional sarod by the body wood and the steel fingerboard. Songlines magazine reports Amjad Ali Khan's view that teak gives the sarod a fuller, richer sound. The fingerboard should be smooth, polished steel, because the left hand slides along it, stopping the strings with nail or fingertip.

Professional sarods come from master workshops in Kolkata and Gwalior, and student sarods from established Indian makers. KalaSudha sells both. Ours suit the serious student and the performer: ask us for a quote, or for a sarod made to order.

KalaSudha sells the sarod worldwide, by quote or made to order, so you can buy one outside India and have it delivered. Your sarod leaves us packed for international shipping, and we can advise on cases and insurance.

We service and repair any sarod, wherever you bought it and wherever you live. Strings and spare parts come from us as well. For help with your sarod after the sale, use the chat on any page or email [email protected]. Ask us also about gift vouchers or class sets for schools, and about a flight case for travel.

Yes, you can book a sarod player through KalaSudha for a concert, event or recording. Send your request through our page to book Indian classical musicians. To hear our artists before you book, browse KalaSudha's recordings and concert videos.