Instrumental

A constant drone sounds beneath the melody. In Hindustani music the tanpura, or an electronic drone, sounds Sa, the tonic, with Pa or Ma, and the music has no chord changes.

Players shape the melody as a singer would. Sitar, sarod, sarangi and santoor players render vocal ornaments such as meend, a glide between notes. Carnatic players render the gamakas proper to their instrument; a gamaka is the oscillation or inflection of a note. A Hindustani instrumental performance customarily opens with an unmetred alap, gathers a steady pulse in jor, speeds into jhala and then turns to a gat, a composition for the instrument, with tabla. Carnatic players improvise within raga and tala through forms such as raga alapana and kalpana swara, passages improvised on the note names.

Players learn the ornaments and the improvising over years of face-to-face study with a guru. In the north that teaching passes through the gharana, a lineage linked by family or apprenticeship and by a shared style, such as the Imdadkhani school of sitar and surbahar.