History And Playing Technique Of Sarod Musical Instrument In English

History And Playing Technique Of Sarod Musical Instrument

History –

• The sarod is a stringed instrument used in Hindustani music in the Indian subcontinent. Along with the sitar, it is one of the most popular and prominent instruments.
• It is known for having a deep, weighty, introspective sound, contrasting the mellow, overtone-rich texture of the sitar with sympathetic strings that give it a resonant, resonant quality.
• A fretless instrument, it can produce continuous slides between notes known as meends (glissandies), which are important in Indian music.

Etymology

• The word sarod, which comes from Persian, is much older than the Indian musical instrument. It can be traced back to sorud meaning “song”, “melody”, “hymn”, and further to the Persian verb sorudan, meaning “sing”, “to play on a musical instrument”, but also meaning “to compose”.
• Alternatively, Shahrud may have given his name to the sarod. The Persian word shah-rud is derived from shah (shah or king) and rud (string).

Origins

• Many scholars of Indian classical music believe that the sarod is a combination of the ancient chitraveena, the medieval Indian rabab, and the modern sursingar. Some scholars argue that a similar instrument may have existed about two thousand years earlier in ancient India during the period of the Gupta kings.
• In fact, a coin from the Gupta period depicts the great king Samudragupta playing a veena, which many consider to be the forerunner of the sarod. Current Indian traces of similar rabab-style instruments can also be found in South India, especially in the states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka, where it is known as swarbat.
• The folk rabab, a musical instrument popular in northern India, has a wooden fingerboard, its strings are made of silk, cotton or gut, and is played with a wooden pick.
• History also mentions an autumnal veena from which the name Sarod has originated. It is also believed that the sarod is derived from the Afghan rubab, a similar instrument originating in Central Asia and Afghanistan.
• Among the many conflicting and disputed histories of the sarod, there is one that attributes its invention to an ancestor of the present-day sarod player, Amjad Ali Khan.
• Amjad Ali Khan’s ancestor Mohammad Hashmi Khan Bangash, a musician and horse trader, came to India with the Afghan rubab in the mid-18th century, and became the court musician of the Maharaja of Rewa.
• It was his descendants, especially his grandson Ghulam Ali Khan Bangash, a court musician in Gwalior, who transformed the rubab into the sarod we know it today.
• In the 20th century, Alauddin Khan and his brother Ayat Ali Khan greatly improved the sarod. He increased the number of chikari (drone) stars and increased the number of tarfdar (sympathetic) stars.
• However, as is the case with most young, evolving instruments, much work remains to be done in the field of sarod luthier to achieve reliable adaptation and accurate replication of successful instruments. This reflects the general state of Indian instrument-making at the present time.

Design

• The design of the instrument depends on the Gharana of the instrument. There are three vulnerable types:
• The traditional sarod is a 17 to 25-stringed harp-like instrument—four to five main strings, one or two drone strings, two chikri strings and nine to eleven sympathetic strings to play the melody.
• The design of this early model is generally attributed to Niyamatullah Khan of the Lucknow Gharana and Ghulam Ali Khan of the Gwalior-Bangash Gharana.
• Among contemporary sarod players, this basic composition has been kept intact by two streams of sarod playing. Amjad Ali Khan and his disciples follow this model, as do followers of Radhika Mohan Maitra. Amjad Ali Khan and Buddhadeb Dasgupta both made minor changes to their respective devices which became design templates for their followers.
• Both musicians use a sarod made of teak wood, and a soundboard made of goat skin is stretched over the face of the resonator.
• Another type is the one that was designed by Alauddin Khan and his brother Ayat Ali Khan. There are a total of 25 strings in this instrument. These include four main strings, four added strings, two chikari strings and fifteen strings.
• The main strings are tuned to Ma, Sa (“Do”), lower Pa and lower Sa, giving the instrument a range of three octaves.
• The Maihar sarod lends itself very well to the presentation of alap with the four added strings providing a backdrop for the atmosphere of the raag.
• This version, however, is not suited for performing right-handed cleans on individual strings. The instrument is usually tuned to C.
• The sarod strings are made of either 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 plectrums of plain strings, which produced a soft, ringing tone.

Playing Techniques

• The lack of fretting and string tension makes the sarod a very demanding instrument to play, as the strings must be pressed strongly against the fingerboard.
• There are two ways to stop the strings of the sarod. One involves using the tip of your fingernail to depress the strings, and the other uses a combination of fingernail and fingertip to depress the strings against the fingerboard.
• Fingering techniques and how they are taught depend largely on the personal preferences of the musicians depending on the school affiliation.

Notable Sarodia –

• Allauddin Khan
• Hafiz Ali Khan
• Ali Akbar Khan
• Jotin Bhattacharya
• Bahadur Khan
• Buddhadev Das Gupta
• Kalyan Mukherjea
• Sakhawat Hussain
• Sharan Rani Backliwal
• Radhika Mohan Maitra
• Vasant Rai
• Shahadat Hossain Khan

Sarod’s Question Answer-