Part of Hindustani Classical
Hindustani classical instrumental music is North Indian raga music played on instruments such as sitar, sarod, sarangi, bansuri and tabla, each with its own technique.
Historical Timeline
The harmonium reached India as a European instrument in the second half of the nineteenth century, and in Bengal the earliest records come from Kolkata. Dwijendranath Tagore played one in his private theatre at Jorasanko in the 1860s, and Sourindro Mohun Tagore published a playing guide, Harmonium Sutra, in 1874. Many accounts say missionaries brought it. The ethnomusicologist Birgit Abels finds a trade route more plausible: from the 1880s Indian dealers resold British and later American imports, most of them to European households and to members of the Brahmo Samaj, a Bengali reform movement that used it to accompany hymns.
Travelling theatre companies, Marathi theatre among them, spread it further, and their musicians, trained in classical music, carried it into thumri and khayal. Singers chose it over the sarangi because it holds its pitch in a changing climate and travels well, and Abels reads the change as active adoption by musicians. In western India Appa Jalgaonkar, Purushottam Walawalkar and Tulsidas Borkar popularised the instrument. The Sangeet Natak Akademi gives its Puraskar in a Hindustani instrumental harmonium category; Dharamnath Mishra received it for 2022.
Free reeds and Debain's patent
Free reeds enter European instruments after Christian Gottlieb Kratzenstein wins a 1780 St Petersburg prize for a vowel-sounding organ. In Paris, Alexandre Debain unites four stops on one keyboard and patents the harmonium in 1840 (Abels gives 1842).
The Indian hand harmonium
In Kolkata, Dwarkanath Ghose, from a family that imported and sold instruments, is generally credited with the Indian form: bellows at the back for the left hand, no legs, floor seating and added drone stops.
Replaces the Sarangi
With royal patronage ending, musicians travel more, and the portable harmonium becomes the preferred accompaniment for Hindustani singers. Over the following decades it pushes the sarangi into the background.
The All India Radio ban
Matt Rahaim dates the All India Radio ban on the harmonium to 1940, other accounts to 1941, and ties it to the search for a national sound. From 1971 it returned as an accompaniment. Ravindra Katoti reports giving the first national-programme solo in four decades, in 2018.
Playing Techniques
Bellows and Reed System
The left hand pumps a bellows at the back and the right hand plays the keys, and a note lasts while its key is held. Each note comes from free reeds fixed at its pitch. Players choose reed sets to suit the singer: Vinay Mishra prefers a lower and a higher set for a male singer and two higher sets for a female singer.
Stops, drones and the scale changer
Knobs called stops change timbre and volume, and smaller drone stops sound fixed pitches. Some models carry a scale changer for changing key. Vinay Mishra says it helps only those who cannot play from every key, and that serious accompanists avoid it for its less accurate tuning.
Fixed Pitch, Meend and Tuning
Each key's reeds are fixed at one pitch, so the harmonium cannot bend a note. Matt Rahaim points out that the santoor and jal tarang share that limit and still count as Indian instruments.
The imported harmoniums came tuned to twelve equal steps, and concert players retune them. Birgit Abels's informants named just intonation (intervals tuned pure against the tonic), or equal temperament with a lowered Ga, as the commonest tunings. Vinay Mishra tunes the seven natural notes to Sa and leaves the five altered notes tempered.
Journey to Mastery
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Posture and Bellows
Sa on Any Key
Drone and ornament approaches
Accompaniment: sangat and lehra
Solo Performance
Past Performances
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