Sarod
The sarod is a
Origins
The word sarod was introduced from Persian during the late Mughal Empire and is much older than the Indian musical instrument. It can be traced back to sorūd meaning "song", "melody", "hymn" and further to the Persian verb sorūdan, which correspondingly means "to sing", "to play a musical instrument", but also means "to compose".[3]
Alternatively, the shahrud may have given its name to the sarod.[4] The Persian word šāh-rūd is made up of šāh (shah or king) and rūd (string).[5]
Many scholars of Indian classical music believe that the sarod is a combination of the ancient
Although the sarod has been referred to as a "
Among the many conflicting and contested histories of the sarod, there is one that attributes its invention to the ancestors of the present-day sarod maestro,
Design
The design of the instrument depends on the school (gharana) of playing. There are three distinguishable types:
The conventional sarod is a 17 to 25-stringed lute-like instrument—four to five main strings used for playing the melody, one or two drone strings, two chikari strings and nine to eleven sympathetic strings. The design of this early model is generally credited to Niyamatullah Khan of the Lucknow Gharana as well as Ghulam Ali Khan of the Gwalior-Bangash Gharana. Among the contemporary sarod players, this basic design is kept intact by two streams of sarod playing. Amjad Ali Khan and his disciples play this model, as do the followers of Radhika Mohan Maitra. Both Amjad Ali Khan and Buddhadev Dasgupta have introduced minor changes to their respective instruments which have become the design templates for their followers. Both musicians use sarods made of teak wood, and a soundboard made of goat skin stretched across the face of the resonator. Buddhadev Dasgupta prefers a polished stainless steel fingerboard for the ease of maintenance while Amjad Ali Khan uses the conventional chrome or nickel-plated cast steel fingerboard. Visually, the two variants are similar, with six pegs in the main pegbox, two rounded chikari pegs and 11 (Amjad) to 15 (Buddhadev) sympathetic strings. The descendants of Niyamatullah Khan (namely Irfan Khan and Ghulfam Khan) also play similar instruments. Some of the followers of Radhika Mohan Maitra still carry the second resonator on their sarods. Amjad Ali Khan and his followers have rejected the resonator altogether. These instruments are typically tuned to B, which is the traditional setting.
Another type is that designed by Allauddin Khan and his brother Ayet Ali Khan. This instrument, referred to by David Trasoff as the 1934 Maihar Prototype,[10] is larger and longer than the conventional instrument, though the fingerboard is identical to the traditional sarod. This instrument has 25 strings in all. These include four main strings, four jod strings (tuned to Ni or Dha, R/r, G/g and Sa respectively), two chikari strings (tuned to Sa of the upper octave) and fifteen tarab strings. The main strings are tuned to Ma ("fa"), Sa ("do"), lower Pa ("so") and lower Sa, giving the instrument a range of three octaves. The Maihar sarod lends itself extremely well to the presentation of alap with the four jod strings providing a backdrop for the ambiance of the raga. This variant is, however, not conducive to the performance of clean right-hand picking on individual strings. The instrument is typically tuned to C.
Sarod strings are either made of steel or phosphor bronze. Most contemporary sarod players use German or American-made strings, such as Roslau (Germany), Pyramid (Germany) and Precision (USA). The strings are plucked with a triangular plectrum (java) made of polished coconut shell, ebony, cocobolo wood, horn, cowbone, Delrin or other such materials. Early sarod players used plain wire plectrums, which yielded a soft, ringing tone.
Playing technique
The lack of frets and the
There are two approaches to stopping the strings of the sarod. One involves using the tip of one's fingernails to stop the strings, and the other uses a combination of the nail and the fingertip to stop the strings against the fingerboard.[9]
Fingering techniques and how they are taught depends largely on the personal preferences of musicians rather than on the basis of school affiliation. Radhika Mohan Maitra, for example, used the index, middle and ring finger of his left hand to stop the string, just like followers of Allauddin Khan do. Maitra, however, made much more extensive use of the third fingernail for slides and hammers. Amjad Ali Khan, while a member of approximately the same stylistic school as Radhika Mohan, prefers to use just the index and middle fingers of his left hand. Amjad Ali is, however, pictured circa 1960 playing with all three fingers.
Notable sarodiyas
Deceased
- Mohammad Amir Khan (1873–1934), Court Musician of Darbhanga and Rajshahi
- Allauddin Khan (1862(1882?)–1972)
- Hafiz Ali Khan (1888–1972)
- Ali Akbar Khan (1922–2009)
- Jotin Bhattacharya (1926-2016)
- Bahadur Khan (1931–1989)
- Buddhadev Das Gupta (1933–2018)
- Dhyanesh Khan (1942-1990)
- Kalyan Mukherjea (1943–2010)
- Sakhawat Hussain (1877–1955)
- Sharan Rani Backliwal (1929–2008)
- Radhika Mohan Maitra (1917–1981)
- Vasant Rai (1942–1985)
- Shahadat Hossain Khan (1958–2020)
Living
- Rajeev Taranath (b. 1932)
- Aashish Khan (b. 1939)
- Avi Kishna (b. 1978)
- Amjad Ali Khan (b. 1945)
- Brij Narayan (b. 1952)
- Narendra Nath Dhar (b. 1954)
- Biswajit Roy Chowdhury (b. 1956)
- Vikash Maharaj (b.1957)
- Tejendra Majumdar (b. 1961)
- Aditya Verma (b. 1968)
- Amaan Ali Khan (b. 1977)
- Ayaan Ali Khan (b. 1979)
- Abhisek Lahiri (b. 1983)
- Abanindra Maitra (b.1953)
- Wajahat Khan
- Arnab Chakrabarty (b. 1980)
- Soumik Datta (b. 1983)
- Prithwidev Bhattacharyya
- Abhishek Borkar
- Debanjan Bhattacharjee
- Debasmita Bhattacharya
- Vishal Maharaj (b. 1986)
- Rajeeb Chakraborty
- Prattyush Banerjee
- Aayush Mohan (b. 1995)
- Rupa Neupane (A. Nepal) First Nepali Female Sarod Player
- Apratim Majumdar
- Praashekh Borkar
See also
- Hindustani classical music
- Music of India
- Plucked string instrument
- String instruments
References
- ^ "sarod · Grinnell College Musical Instrument Collection". omeka1.grinnell.edu. Retrieved 2019-10-13.
- ^ "Classical Indian Musician Amjad Ali Khan to Perform March 1 at FAC". Office of News & Media Relations. Retrieved 2019-10-13.
- "ITC Sangeet Research Academy". www.itcsra.org. Retrieved 2019-10-13. - ^ Heinrich FJ Junker; Bozorg Alavi (1970). Persisch-deutsches Wörterbuch [Persian-German dictionary] (in German). Leipzig/Tehran. p. 420.
- ISBN 978-81-7046-213-2.
- ISBN 9004082654.
rud is of Persian origin and the word, like tar, means a string
- ^ "The Story of Sursringar". Sursringar.
- ^ Miner, Allyn. 1993. Sitar and Sarod in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, International Institute for Traditional Music, Berlin.
- ^ Courtney, David. "Sarod". David and Chandrakantha Courtney. Retrieved 2006-12-02.
- ^ a b Broughton, Simon. "Tools of the Trade: Sarod". Archived from the original on November 18, 2006. Retrieved 2006-12-02.
- ^ Trasoff, 2000
Further reading
- McNeil, A. (2005). Inventing the Sarod: A Cultural History. Seagull. ISBN 81-7046-213-4.