Surbahar
सुरबहार
Develop pitch control and raga phrasing in the surbahar’s lower register.
The surbahar, or bass sitar, is a large, low-pitched plucked instrument of Hindustani music. Study it through slow alap, long sustained notes and meend.
History & Evolution
Allyn Miner cites S. M. Tagore's Yantra Kosha of 1875, which places the surbahar's introduction about fifty years earlier and credits Ghulam Muhammad of Lucknow. Miner reads this as about 1825 and describes Ghulam Muhammad as a disciple of Umrao Khan, a Lucknow player of the bin, or rudra veena. Other accounts credit Umrao Khan himself, or Sahabdad Khan of the Etawah (Imdadkhani) gharana, and Miner allows that Sahabdad Khan may have played a part.
Writers of the period treated the instrument as an enlarged sitar. Scholars see it as a way to carry bin-style alap on a sitar-type instrument, and its deep sustain and wide pulls suited that music. After 1856 Ghulam Muhammad's son Sajjad Muhammad taught sitar and surbahar at Matiyaburj near Calcutta, home of the nawab Wajid Ali Shah. In the Etawah line, Imdad Khan, best known as a sitarist, also played surbahar in a dhrupad style. Tagore called the surbahar well known in 1875; C. R. Day, writing on southern India in 1891, found it rather uncommon.
- 1960
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Akademi honours Wahid Khan
The Sangeet Natak Akademi honoured Wahid Khan, born at Etawah in 1895, for Hindustani instrumental music. Its citation records that he learnt sitar and surbahar from his father, Imdad Khan, and credits him with mastery of the family's surbahar technique. - 1 January 1975
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Music Academy lecture-demonstration
At the Music Academy, Madras, Nilaufar Khan opened the day with a talk and demonstration on the surbahar. She covered slow alap, an octave pulled on one fret, jod and jhala, and closed with Nata Bhairavi. - 1991
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Akademi Award headed Surbahar
Annapurna Devi received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for Hindustani instrumental music on the surbahar in 1991. Born in Maihar and trained by her father, Allauddin Khan, she is best known as a surbahar player. - 12 January 2026
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A surbahar duet with pakhawaj
Pushpraj Koshti, the Sangeet Natak Akademi's 2011 surbahar awardee, played a surbahar duet with Bhusan Koshti and pakhawaj at the Vivekananda Music Festival, in Vivekananda Hall at the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Gol Park, Kolkata.
Technical Aspects
How it differs from the sitar
Compared with the sitar, the surbahar has a longer, wider neck and thicker strings. Allyn Miner and the maker Toss Levy describe a flat-cut gourd of the kachua type, against the rounder gourd of most sitars. C. R. Day, writing in 1891, described a wooden body with a flat back and called its tone rich and mellow, close to that of the vina.
David Courtney, a practitioner, finds tuning two or three steps below the sitar common. He also describes setting the main playing string to a lower Sa instead of Ma, so the instrument sounds about an octave below a sitar. Day reported the same tuning as an ordinary sitar.
Most surbahars carry chikari, high drone strings struck for rhythm, and sympathetic strings that ring without being plucked. String counts differ from maker to maker. A 2011 study by Lars-Christian Koch, published by the Ethnologisches Museum in Berlin, examines how the Kanailal & Brother workshop in Kolkata builds sitars and surbahars.
Meend at one fret
On the surbahar, a player makes meend mainly by pulling the string sideways across a fret. Practitioners report glides of up to an octave within one fret, so a complex phrase can sit on one or two frets. The right hand strikes with a mizrab, a wire plectrum.
Alap, jor and jhala
A recital moves from alap to jor, where a steady pulse emerges, then to jhala, where some players add rhythm on the chikari. Some surbahar players switch to sitar for composed sections and jhala, and one practitioner notes that long sustain can blur fast strokes. Others play both on the surbahar. Many performances use no percussion; some add pakhawaj.
숙달을 향한 여정
이 분야를 익히기 위한 체계적인 여정을 따라가 보세요
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Setup and first sounds
Support the large body and find a comfortable reach along the wide neck before you play a passage. Ask your teacher to check the position of both hands. Pluck one open string, let it ring until it fades and repeat. Listen for an even attack each time without gripping the neck harder.
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Hear the end of a meend
Choose two nearby pitches with your teacher. Sound the destination note first, then approach it with a small meend. Listen for the point where the moving pitch reaches that note. Repeat with a relaxed hand, keeping the movement within a range your teacher considers manageable.
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Shape a short alap phrase
Learn one short alap phrase in a raga your teacher selects. Sing or recall the phrase before playing it, then compare your version with the model. Let each sustained note ring until it fades. Keep the phrase short enough to remember how you approach each note and where the pauses fall.
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Introduce jor and pulse
After working on phrases without a pulse, ask your teacher for a short jor example. Tap its pulse before you try the plucking pattern. Play a brief section at a pace that keeps each stroke distinct. Check that the pulse stays steady when the melody changes direction.
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Listen, record and review
Choose a short surbahar recording to discuss with your teacher. Mark where the pulse begins and note whether percussion joins. Record a brief passage from your own practice and compare one feature, such as the clarity of a pitch arrival. Use that observation to choose the next exercise.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can a beginner, a sitarist or someone returning after a long break start learning the surbahar, the bass sitar?
KalaSudha teaches the surbahar online and in workshops, and a beginner starts at Foundation level. You start with the inward da stroke, played very slowly with the mizrab, the wire plectrum. We teach children as well as adults, so ask us about a starting age and about a size for a younger learner.
Taking up the surbahar again after a long break, you start where you left off: our courses run in levels. Your teacher reviews where you stand first.
Have more questions? Contact our support team and we'll be happy to help!