Sarod

1.1 What is the sarod?

The sarod is a plucked string instrument of Hindustani classical music. Hindustani is the North Indian tradition. The sarod has no frets, which are the raised bars that fix the notes on a sitar. That is why it can glide between notes.

1.2 Where did it come from?

The sarod grew out of the Afghan rabab. The rabab was a popular string instrument in Afghanistan and Persia.

A Tribune feature says an Afghan horse trader, Mohammed Hashmi Khan Bangash, settled in Rewa and played the rabab. His son, Ghulam Bandagi Khan Bangash, changed it by adding a metal fingerboard.

1.3 Who perfected it?

Ghulam Bandagi’s son, Ghulam Ali Bangash, perfected the new instrument. He joined the Gwalior court, and the Maharaja of Gwalior gave him a house in the city.

Do not link the family with Lucknow. The sources place it in Rewa and then Gwalior.

1.4 How sure are these dates?

Not very sure. The early family history is not firmly settled. One report says the lineage “cannot be confirmed”.

So say the Bangash family is traditionally credited. That is the safe wording in an exam answer.

2.1 How is the body built?

The sarod has two resonating chambers. A resonating chamber is a hollow space that makes the sound louder.

The first is a rounded wooden body covered with goatskin. The second is a hollow neck covered with a thin metal sheet. The body is often carved from one block of teak. Some sources name mahogany.

2.2 Why does the metal fingerboard matter?

The fingerboard is smooth metal with no frets. The player presses the strings with the left-hand fingers and slides along the metal.

This sliding is called meend. It makes the sarod sound close to the human voice.

2.3 How is it played?

The player plucks with a plectrum called the java. A plectrum is a small pick. The java is a triangular piece of wood or coconut shell.

2.4 How many strings does it have?

The number depends on the instrument. One museum sarod has 21 metal strings. Four are melody strings, two are chikari strings, four are drone strings and eleven are sympathetic strings.

Sympathetic strings are not plucked. They hum on their own when a matching note is played. Counts run from about 17 to 25. Ali Akbar Khan’s instrument had 25.

3.1 Who was Allauddin Khan?

Ustad Allauddin Khan founded the Maihar gharana. A gharana is a school of music handed down in a family or from teacher to student.

He was a disciple of Wazir Khan, a descendant of Tansen.

3.2 What honours did he earn?

He won the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship in 1954. He then received the Padma Bhushan in 1958 and the Padma Vibhushan in 1971.

3.3 Who were his students?

His students included Ali Akbar Khan, Ravi Shankar, Pannalal Ghosh and Nikhil Banerjee.

Ali Akbar Khan was also his son. Allauddin trained him from childhood.

3.4 Did he redesign the sarod alone?

No. Later changes to the sarod came from Allauddin Khan and his brother Ayet Ali Khan. The credit is shared.

Do not give him sole credit.

3.5 How are the two lineages different?

Each lineage has its own instrument design. Do not mix them up.

4.1 Who was he?

Ali Akbar Khan was born on 14 April 1922 in Shibpur, Brahmanbaria district. That place is now in Bangladesh. He died on 19 June 2009.

In the 1940s he became music director at All India Radio, Lucknow. He also served as court musician to the Maharaja of Jodhpur.

4.2 What did he do in 1955?

Yehudi Menuhin, the violinist, invited him to the United States in 1955. A press release from the Museum of Modern Art, dated 31 March 1955, announced his first performances in the country.

He made the first American recording of Indian music. He also gave the first TV performance of Indian music, on the show Omnibus.

4.3 Was it the first Indian classical album in the West?

Sources word it in different ways. The safest wording is the National Endowment for the Arts version. It says he made the first American recording of Indian music.

Angel Records issued an Ali Akbar Khan album with catalogue number 35283. Do not call it “Angel’s first release”, because no source says so.

4.4 What are his other landmarks?

• He founded the Ali Akbar College of Music in Calcutta in 1956. He opened a second one in California in 1967.
• He scored films such as Aandhiyan, Devi, Kshudhita Pashan and The Householder.
• He played with Ravi Shankar at the Concert for Bangladesh in 1971. Shankar was his brother-in-law.
• He won the US National Heritage Fellowship in 1997.
• His son Alam was learning the sarod, says the NEA profile.

4.5 Which honours should I remember?

He joined the MacArthur Class of 1991, aged 69. He was the first Indian musician to receive a MacArthur fellowship.

The Gazette of India notice of 26 January 1989 lists him under the Padma Vibhushan. Some websites print 1988 for the Vibhushan, and 1971 for the Padma Bhushan. Trust the Gazette.

5.1 Who is Amjad Ali Khan?

Amjad Ali Khan was born in Gwalior in 1945. He belongs to the sixth generation of the Senia Bangash family.

He is the family link to Ghulam Ali Khan, Nanhe Khan and Hafiz Ali Khan. Hafiz Ali Khan also learned from Wazir Khan of the Rampur gharana.

5.2 What awards did he win?

• Padma Shri in 1975.
• Sangeet Natak Akademi Award and Tansen Award, both in 1989.
• Padma Bhushan in 1991.

5.3 What else is he known for?

In 1981 he was the first Indian musician to break the cultural silence by visiting Pakistan.

He set up Sarod Ghar in Gwalior. It is a museum in his ancestral house and keeps the rabab of Ghulam Bandagi Khan.

5.4 Who carries the line on?

His sons, Amaan Ali Bangash and Ayaan Ali Bangash, are sarod players of the seventh generation.

Buddhadev Dasgupta, a disciple of Radhika Mohan Maitra, stands for the other Senia Bangash branch, the Murad Ali line.

6.1 How does the sarod differ from the sitar?

The sarod is fretless. The sitar has frets. Meend is the sarod’s defining feature, but other instruments also play it.

6.2 Which similar names get mixed up?

Father and son share a gharana, but the two Khans are different people.

6.3 Where does Ravi Shankar fit in?

Ravi Shankar played a four-hour set at the Monterey Pop Festival in July 1967. That was a sitar breakthrough, not a sarod one. Ali Akbar Khan’s US debut came in 1955, over a decade earlier.