Sarangi

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
For the Nepali instrument, see Sarangi (Nepali).
 This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2011)
Sarangi
The Childrens Museum of Indianapolis - Sarangi.jpg
Classification
Related instruments

The Sārangī (Hindi: सारंगी, Punjabi: ਸਰੰਗੀ, sarangī) is a bowed, short-necked string instrument of India which is originated from Rajasthani folk instruments. It plays an important role in India's Hindustani classical music tradition. Of all Indian instruments, it is said to most resemble the sound of the human voice – able to imitate vocal ornaments such as gamakas (shakes) and meend (sliding movements).

Contents

[edit] History

Surjeet Singh tuning his Sarangi

There are different versions for the meaning and origins of sarangi but the most logical and widely accepted ones are that the word sarangi is derived from two Hindi words: sau (meaning hundred) and rang (meaning colour) hence meaning the instrument of 100 colours while the other one is that the word sarangi is combination of two sanskrit words: saar (summary) and ang (form, herein different styles of playing instrumental music for e.g. gayaki ang) hence meaning the instrument that can summarize every style of music or playing. Both the versions though point towards the same quality of sarangi, that it can play any type of repertoire of music and still sound beautiful.

The current form of sarangi is believed to have originated from the traditional stringed and bowed instruments from Rajasthan which were further developed and amalgamated with Persian instruments that came along with the Muslim invasion in India.

The sarangi was traditionally used primarily for accompanying singers (shadowing the vocalist's improvisations) and it was considered as just an accompanying instrument, even the players were not given due respect and were considered inferior to vocalists (most of this mindset is considered to have born out from the insecurities that the vocalists had about sarangi players trying to overshadow them). But it started becoming a mainstream instrument around the mid 18th Century when it gained more and more prevalence in Indian classical scene and was considered as a prime accompanying instrument in a concert setup. Notoriously difficult to play and tune, the sarangi is considered as most difficult instrument to play and master out of all the instruments in the world, for the same reason the sarangi started losing its ground to the easier option harmonium as the accompanying instrument and has started becoming quite a rare instrument even in India, though every one acknowledges huge limitations that harmonium has compared to sarangi (for e.g. gamakas, meends', murki, khatka and other articulations can only be played on sarangi) not many dare to learn it due to its highly difficult nature.

Many outstanding sarangi players emerged and strove to popularize it; as a result it got the recognition of an exclusive solo instrument. Well known sarangi players include Mamman khan, Nathu Khan, Shakoor Khan, Sagiruddin Khan, Hanuman Prasad Mishra, Abdul Lateef Khan and Sultan Khan while Bundu Khan, Sabri Khan, Gopal Mishra and Ram Narayan are considered to be the most virtuosic sarangi players till now. In the current generation Kamal Sabri, Aruna Narayan Kalle and Dhruba Ghosh are widely appreciated.

The repertoire of sarangi players is traditionally very closely related to vocal music. Nevertheless, a concert with a solo sarangi as the main item will probably include a full-scale raag presentation with an extensive alap (the unmeasured improvisatory development of the raga) in increasing intensity (alap-jor-jhala) and several compositions in increasing tempi called bandish. As such, it is on a par with other instrumental styles such as for sitar, sarod, and bansuri.

Sarangi music is often vocal music. It is rare to find a sarangi player who does not know the words of many classical compositions. The words are usually mentally present during performance, and performance almost always adheres to the conventions of vocal performance including the organisational structure, the types of elaboration, the tempo, the relationship between sound and silence, and the presentation of khyal and thumri compositions. The vocal quality of sarangi is in a quite separate category from, for instance, the so-called gayaki-ang of sitar which attempts to imitate the nuances of khyal while overall conforming to the structures and usually keeping to the gat compositions of instrumental music. (A gat is a composition set to a cyclic rhythm.)

The sarangi is also a traditional stringed musical instrument of Nepal, commonly played by the Gaine or Gandarbha ethnic group but the form and repertoire of sarangi is more towards the folk music as compared to the heavy and classical form of repertoire in India.

[edit] Structure

A sarangi laid flat

Carved from a single block of tun (red cedar) wood, the sarangi has a box-like shape with three hollow chambers: pet (stomach), chaati (chest) and magaj (brain). It is usually around two feet long and around half a foot wide though it can vary as there are smaller as well as larger variant sarangis as well. The lower resonance chamber or pet is covered with parchment made out of goat skin on which a strip of thick leather is placed around the waist (and nailed on the back of the chamber) which supports the elephant-shaped bridge that is made of camel or buffalo bone usually (made of ivory or Barasingha bone originally but now that is rare due to ban in india). The bridge in turn supports the huge pressure of approximately 35-37 symapthetic steel or brass strings and three main gut strings that pass through it. The three main playing strings – the comparatively thicker gut strings – are bowed with a heavy horsehair bow and "stopped" not with the finger-tips but with the nails, cuticles and surrounding flesh. (talcum powder is applied to the fingers as a lubricant). The neck has ivory/bone platforms on which the fingers slide. The remaining strings are resonance strings or tarabs (see: sympathetic strings), numbering up to around 35-37, divided into 4 different "choirs" having two different sets of pegs, one on the right and one on the top. On the inside is a Chromatic scale/chromatic/chromatically tuned row of 15 tarabs and on the right a diatonic row of 9 tarabs each encompassing a full octave plus 1–3 extra notes above or below that. Both these sets of tarabs pass from the main bridge to the right side set of pegs through small holes in the chaati supported by hollow ivory/bone beads. Between these inner tarabs and on the either side of the main playing strings lie two more sets of longer tarabs, with 5-6 strings on the right set and 6-7 strings on the left set. They pass from main bridge over to two small, flat and wide table like bridges through the additional bridge towards second the peg set on top of the instrument. These are tuned to the important tones (swaras) of the raga. A properly tuned sarangi will hum and buzz like a bee-hive, with tones played on any of the main strings eliciting echo-like resonances. A few sarangis use strings manufactured from the intestines of goats - these harken back to the days when rich musicians could afford such strings.

[edit] Notable Sarangi players

Music of Nepal: Topics
Ethnic music Newa music - Gurung music - Tamang music - Khas music - Mithila music - Sunuwar music - Magar music - Bhojpuri music - Sherpa music - Thakali music - Chepang music - Rai music - Tibetan music - Lepcha music - Limbu music - Kusunda music
Genres Dapa - Dohari - Selo - Bhajan - Rodhi - Adhunik Sangeet - Rock - Hip hop
Festivals Goon lā
Instruments Dhimay - Bhusyah - Madal - Sarangi - Damfoo - Dholak - Chyambrung - Bansuri
Media Radio Nepal, Hits FM, Image FM
National anthem "Sayaun Thunga Phool Ka"

[edit] In India and Pakistan

[edit] In Nepal

A bamboo sarangi from Nepal

[edit] In UK

[edit] Notable Sarangi Makers

  • Masita (Meerut)
  • Behra (Meerut)
  • Rajesh Dhawan (Meerut)
  • Raj Musicals (New Delhi)
  • Krishna Gopal Manandhar (Nepal)

[edit] Modern performers who have used sarangi in compositions

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.sardharkatha.org
  2. ^ http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=TOINEW&BaseHref=TOIA/2011/11/29&PageLabel=2&ForceGif=true&EntityId=Ar00200&ViewMode=HTML

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Sarangis

Three historic sarangi from The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sarangi&oldid=476495576"
Personal tools
Namespaces
Variants
Actions
Navigation
Interaction
Toolbox
Print/export
Languages