Indian Slide Guitar

The Indian slide guitar is a guitar laid flat across the lap and stopped with a steel bar instead of fingers on frets. It is an instrument of Hindustani classical music, the classical music of North India. Sympathetic strings ring underneath the melody unstruck, and the player plucks extra drone (chikari) strings.

The bar never leaves the string, so one note travels into the next without a break. For its history and players, see the Indian slide guitar page. You can learn it with KalaSudha in the online academy.

Beginners learn Indian slide guitar with KalaSudha online and in workshops, starting at Foundation level. The first stage sets your posture, with the guitar flat across your lap, and teaches the slide in an open tuning. We teach children as well as adults; ask us about a starting age and about a size for a younger learner.

Players returning after a long break start again where they left off. Our courses run in levels, and your teacher first checks where you stand.

On an Indian slide guitar, tarab strings are sympathetic strings tuned to the notes of the raga. They ring when the matching note sounds on a played string, so players retune them when the raga changes. Chikari strings are plucked drone and rhythm strings; on traditional plucked raga instruments they sit on the side nearest the player and are struck with the thumb.

No single standard tuning appears in the sources for the Indian slide guitar; tunings vary by player. Brij Bhushan Kabra tuned his main strings D-A-D-A, while a 2020 Premier Guitar lesson uses open C, C-G-C-E-G-C. The sympathetic tarab strings are tuned to the notes of the raga, and players retune them for each raga.

Pandit Brij Bhushan Kabra (1937 to 2018), a geologist by training who studied with the sarod master Ali Akbar Khan, pioneered the Indian slide guitar in Hindustani music. He played a Gibson Super 400 archtop fitted with a drone string and a high nut, laid flat and played with a bar. His 1967 album Call of the Valley, with Shivkumar Sharma and Hariprasad Chaurasia, brought slide guitar raga playing to a wide audience.

An Indian slide guitar is an adapted acoustic archtop guitar, so general acoustic guitar care applies. Keep it at 45% to 55% relative humidity. Cracking, a sinking top, a lifting bridge and protruding fret ends are signs of dryness. Many such guitars have their strings raised at the nut and bridge so the bar clears the frets.

A student Indian slide guitar and a professional one differ most in their strings. An entry instrument plays raga on its main strings alone, and a concert instrument adds sympathetic and drone strings. In a 2020 Premier Guitar lesson, Ryan Lee Crosby suggests a raised nut so the slide clears the frets of an ordinary guitar played on the lap.

KalaSudha sells adapted lap steel and resonator guitars, and specialist instruments with sympathetic strings. We also commission custom concert instruments with sympathetic and drone strings from specialist builders in India. Ask us for a quote, or for one made to order.

KalaSudha sells the Indian slide guitar to players outside India, by quote or made to order, and delivers worldwide. Each instrument leaves us packed for international shipping; ask us about cases and insurance.

We service and repair any Indian slide guitar, wherever you bought it, anywhere in the world. New strings and spare parts come from us too. For help with your instrument after the sale, ask us through the chat on any page or at [email protected]. Gift vouchers, class sets for schools and flight cases for travel are also available on request.

A good gift for someone learning an Indian classical instrument suits the instrument they play and the stage they have reached, so ask their teacher if you are unsure. An instrument of their own, or a better one, also makes a gift: KalaSudha sells every instrument by quote or made to order. For something smaller, ask us for a case, or for strings and spare parts to suit their instrument.

Lessons make a gift as well. KalaSudha teaches online and in workshops, and beginners start at Foundation level: see our courses.

Ask us about gift vouchers.

The mohan veena is a form of Indian slide guitar with drone and sympathetic strings added to a guitar. Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, a renowned player with his own style, plays the mohan veena he designed. It carries about 19 to 21 strings: three or four melody strings, four or five chikari and 12 sympathetic strings tuned from the side of the neck, with a gourd behind the neck. Premier Guitar says it began as an archtop brought from West Germany, while programme notes from the Smithsonian's Freer and Sackler Galleries say his first instrument was adapted from a Spanish guitar.

You can book an Indian slide guitar player through KalaSudha for a concert, event or recording. Send your request through our page to book Indian classical musicians. Before you decide, listen to KalaSudha's recordings and watch our concert videos.