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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 first known description of the sarangi appears in the Ain-i-Akbari, a Mughal court encyclopedia of 1588 to 1589. The scholar Joep Bor argues that the instrument won a place in Hindustani classical music only in the later seventeenth century, and that it took over from an enlarged rabab as the khayal singer’s accompaniment during the eighteenth. The large classical sarangi took shape in the nineteenth century, probably in or near Delhi. Where the instrument first came from remains disputed.
Sarangi players shaped vocal music as teachers. Abdul Karim Khan and Abdul Wahid Khan of the Kirana gharana, a school of singing passed down through teachers and families, began as sarangi players. Solo playing has a long history too, at home and in musicians’ gatherings, and solo recordings survive from the early twentieth century. Bor names Mamman Khan, Bundu Khan, Gopal Mishra and Ram Narayan among the players who won it recognition as a solo instrument. In the twentieth century the harmonium largely replaced the sarangi in vocal accompaniment, though the sarangi still plays in khayal ensembles.
c. 1900
A sarangi at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art dates its sarangi, object 1982.143.2, to about 1900, within a range of 1890 to 1910. The museum classes it as a bowed, unfretted lute made of wood, ivory, parchment and metal.
1986–1987
Joep Bor’s The Voice of the Sarangi
The National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA), Mumbai, published Joep Bor’s The Voice of the Sarangi as a special issue of its Quarterly Journal. NCPA’s own account dates the issues to September and December 1986 and March 1987.
1989
Sarangi Mela in Bhopal
Bhopal hosted a Sarangi Mela in 1989. Nicolas Magriel's archive shows stills credited to Daniel Neuman and short clips from recordings held in the Bharat Bhavan archive. In 1997 Magriel credited the Mela with helping a partial revival of teaching in sarangi families.
4 April 2010
Khayal accompaniment at Kings Place
Darbar’s festival record lists a khayal performance of Raga Multani at Kings Place, London, by Venkatesh Kumar with Murad Ali on sarangi. Tofail Ahmed played harmonium in the same ensemble, with tabla and two tanpuras.
Playing Techniques
Pitch from the side of the string
The left hand stops the playing strings with the side of the fingernail, usually just under the cuticle; some players use the skin above it. Talcum powder helps the contact glide. Sliding it along the string produces meend, a continuous glide between notes. Fingering differs between schools, and Bor documents several systems.
How the sympathetic strings respond
The sympathetic strings (tarab) are never bowed; they vibrate in response to the playing strings. Bor describes three sets: a main set tuned chromatically and left unchanged between ragas (achal that), a right-hand set tuned to the raga or chromatically to follow a singer, and an upper set that varies with raga and player. A large sarangi usually has about 35, smaller ones 24 or fewer.
Sustaining and shaping the tone
The seated player holds the sarangi upright and draws a heavy bow across the gut strings with an underhand grip, pressing with the first two fingers or the forefinger. Bowing near the bridge brings out the sympathetic response. The great players developed long strokes with inaudible bow changes. Rhythmic passages such as jhala, rapid repeated strokes, use the tip of the bow.
Journey to Mastery
Follow this structured journey to master this discipline
1
Begin with the bow
Sit with the sarangi upright in front of you and let your teacher check your underhand bow hold. Draw slow, full-length strokes on one open playing string. At each change of direction, listen for a gap or a bump in the tone; good players make the change inaudible. If the tone will not settle, ask your teacher to check the bridge and strings.
2
Glide between pitches (meend)
Ask your teacher to show the contact with the side of the nail, just under the cuticle, on one playing string. Keep a steady bow stroke and slide between two neighbouring notes: a short meend. Listen for the arrival note before you lengthen the slide. Teachers use many paltas, set note patterns, to train this contact and its intonation; ask for one that suits you.
3
Hear sympathetic resonance
With your teacher, find the three sets of sympathetic strings and ask how each is tuned on your instrument. Bow one note, lift the bow and listen to which strings keep sounding. Repeat on another note and compare. Leave retuning to your teacher at first. Ram Narayan said that players retune several times a day, and that the work deepens their sense of intonation.
4
Follow and answer a singer
Choose a short sung phrase with your teacher and sing it back before you play it, keeping its pauses and the joins between notes. Then play it. Practise answering the phrase after the singer stops, and leave the silence between phrases clear. After that, agree an entry point for playing alongside the voice.
5
Develop an independent phrase
Take a short raga passage your teacher has given you and mark where each bow change falls. Ram Narayan taught a clear difference between up and down bows, and began each new phrase with an up bow; try his rule and hear what it changes. Play the passage, add one brief phrase of your own, then return to the learned line.
Past Performances
Norwich Ragas: Tabla Solo by Ustad Akram Khan
Reading Raga Resonance: Bow, Beat, and Breath
Featured Artists
Renowned performers of this discipline
Satwinder Pal Singh
Satwinder Pal Singh is a London-based sarangi player from Moga, Punjab. He and his father are the first father-son Top Grade sarangi players in the Sikh Panth.
Sarangi
Senia-Maihar Gharana
