Krsna Kirtana Songs est. 2001                                                                                                                                                      www.kksongs.org

Alleviating Problems with Traditional Indian Instruments

As a North Indian classical musician, I have studied not only the vocal forms of Indian classical music, but I have also studied the instruments of Indian classical music. After studying tabla extensively for six years, I ventured into the world of melody, studying the science of the raga and melody perceived through various musical instruments. Instruments, such as the sitar, sarangi, sarod, tabla, pakhawaj, mridanga, and such, have been used for many centuries. Manufacturing the instrument was considered a very holy art and honored as much as the person who is playing it. Each family passed down their art of manufacturing a specific instrument down to younger generations. Unfortunately, the amount of family traditions in producing Indian instruments is on the low today. It is not uncommon to see a “jack-of-all-trades” style of store in India where sitars, tabla, sarangis, shehnais, etc. are produced under one roof. Sometimes, experts would do a fantastic job. However, this is not always the case.

 

Because of unknown quality of purchasing the instrument, especially over the web, there are many problems. For instance, poor skin or shells on the tabla, bad tuning pegs, damaged gourds in sitars, flatted goat skin on sarod, etc. I have some suggestions that will hopefully help in preserving the quality of the instrument by look and by tone.

 

TABLA

The tabla is a pair of North Indian drums most popularly heard in North Indian classical. The head is a very complex in construction and its description would be beyond the scope of this discussion. Basically, the head of the tabla is used fastened with straps made of leather. Tabla is considered an accompanying instrument, although it has moved up to solo status. Whether it is used in solo or accompaniment, it has to be tuned to a certain note usually the tonic or some other note useful in the raga being performed.

 

With leather straps, due to its nature and weather change, they can either loose its elasticity. Even worse, it can break if the strength is poor! Luckily the most efficient way to not only keep tension on the tabla stable, but easier tuning, has already been developed as nut-bolt tabla. Although, finding a good pair of bolt-tuned tabla sets are very difficult to find. I recall seeing sets that will have a low insertion-to-strap ratio. Usually one would want to use a tabla pair that has 3 to 1 insertion to strap ratio. My pair has a 4:1 ratio, which is not as great as 3:1, but tolerable. Hopefully, this idea will find its popularity.

 

This also applies to pakhawaj, which has heads and straps that are very similar to the tabla. This bolt-tuned construction will also alleviate re-heading problems.

 

SITAR

Who can possibly think of Indian classical music without remembering the sitar! Sitar has been synonymous with India’s culture, heritage, as well as its religions.  The sitar is a stringed-instrument with four playing strings, two drone strings, and eleven to thirteen sympathetic strings. The fret-board and the soundboard is made of wood, while the sound box is made of gourd.

 

The instrument looks as beautiful as it sounds. However, it is perhaps one of the most delicate instruments. One reason is primarily because of the gourd resonator. The gourd is of the pumpkin class. As the fruit inside is emptied out, the shell is used for various instruments like sitar, tanpura, vina, ektar, and other such instruments. As hard as the gourd shell is, one sudden shock can cause cracks or even worse, holes. Fixing gourds is rarely done in the U.S., if at all. It will seem “wiser” to simply by a new sitar or such. However, gourded instruments are fairly expensive because of its delicate nature while transporting. Otherwise, you will find sitars and such instruments to be as ghastly expensive as they are found here. This is actually true for any instrument transported from any country. Another problem I noticed with most Indian stringed instruments is the traditional “wood-in-the hole” method for tuning pegs. If you attempt to turn the peg, either the peg won’t turn or will change the pitch drastically if turned.

 

There are good suggestions for improvements. One such is the easiest one to solve. Namely, the traditional pegs can easily be replaced with guitar tuning pegs. I noticed that I could tune the guitar and fine tune it much better than I could attempt with the sitar-tuning pegs. Of course, I guess that’s why those fine-tuning beads are there. Second issue to think about is the gourd. The gourd problem has been experimented by Green Onion Sitar Company in the Netherlands. It uses an epoxy-base to replace the gourd, which is an acceptable substitute. Rikhi Ram’s special traveling sitar uses a wooden sound box instead of a gourd one. I see either method being acceptable. However, the exopy-base has more of the feel than the wood.

 

Another really important consideration is the fact that two bridges (melody and sympathetic) are flat and made of camel bone. Actually, it is the bridge that gives it its unique sound. In this way, Coral and Jerry Jones took advantage of this special style of bridge to recreate the sitar sound to create “electric sitar.” The electric sitar has more resemblance to the vina than a true sitar. There is no real replacement to the camel bone bridge used traditionally. Synthetic ivory used by Green Onion is acceptable. Although there are some slight sound differences, it is not that grossly different. Since bridges are made of camel bone, the strings will naturally dig grooves into the bone, and the string starts to sound out of tune. This is a never ending process for a sitar, tanpura, or vina player.

 

Last point in discussing the sitar is the frets. Frets, unlike the guitar or Western string instruments, are moveable. Indian music is based on pure, naturally harmonic scales, rather than Western music, which uses an artificially equally tempered scale. Because of the inequality in the positioning of notes, frets will not be equally spaced. In addition, certain ragas will require super-flattening or super-sharpening certain notes to give its distinctive flavor. This is why frets could be moved accordingly. Also, they are curved to allow meends, or glissandos. One would find it difficult to do meends on the guitar, although it’s not impossible. The curved frets allowed a more controlled ability to pull the string laterally, unlike the guitar. The special curved moveable frets, just as the case with the bridge, is an irreplaceable part. A good plan to work with the finger-board the sitar is to enlarge a guitar fingerboard with open-and-snap frets that allows motility. This alleviates the problem of tying frets and allows meends to be done with justice.

 

SAROD

 

Sarod is a musical instrument which is the modified version of the Afghani rebab. It is made of wood with a goat-skin resonator. It is a fretless instrument with four playing strings, two drone strings, and fifteen sympathetic strings. It is played with a coconut plectrum.

 

I have two stories to tell about how I come up with my solution for improving the sarod. The first story involves me purchasing an esraj, an Indian bowed instrument. It has a goat skin resonator. The instrument was defective and the strings wouldn’t adjust to tune. (This is one of the reasons why I am writing this paper). Just by plucking the string, there was a unique haunting sound produced. I figured that it’s the goat skin that is producing that haunting feel. Second incident was when I went to the music store and saw a Kentucky banjo. I played it like a sitar and guitar and it was incredibly similar to a sarod and rabab. I knew it had to do with the fact that its all because of the goat skin head and its bridge.

 

Now my solution for the sarod is simply this. Instead of “gluing” a head to the wooden body, the easiest solution is to use tension lugs or straps to fasten the skin. If the head ever breaks or dull down, the appropriate action of either reheading or retightening the head can be done. Guitar pegs would obviously replace the “hole in the wood” pegs was in before. The sound should be the same. The fingerboard shape should not affect the sound. Obviously, the finger board could either be fretless, like the original sarod, or have a scalloped fret board, which allows the player to locate notes with ease.

 

SARANGI AND ESRAJ

 

The sarangi is perhaps one of the dearest instruments to me, after the tabla. Sarangi is the only instrument that could imitate the human voice in joy, happiness, ecstasy as well as pain, hurt, sadness, and confusion, love, fear, anger, and a whole host of emotions. Initially, it was used as an accompanying instrument. Now, it has gained status as a classical solo instrument. It is the toughest musical instrument to play in the world, as it is a small sized fiddle without a finger board or frets. In addition, strings are not supposed to be played with fingertips. Instead, it is played by the fingernail across gut strings. The sarangi, sadly, has been slowly replaced with the harmonium, as it was easier to play and maintain than the sarangi. I have few suggestions to hopefully improve the sarangi to allow more people not to give up this sarangi.

 

Before presenting my solution, I would like to make two notable advances with sarangi issues. First advance was about two hundred years ago when idea to combine a sitar neck with the sarangi body and concept was invented. The instrument was known as dilruba. The esraj was introduced in Bengal. The dilruba and esraj were supposed to be easier to play than sarangi. To some degree, it retains the sound of the sarangi. The second advance to reproduce the sound of the sarangi was by inventing the bela-bahar. The bela bahar is in the shape of a violin with a goat-skin soundboard instead of wood. It has a rack of sympathetic strings. It has some similarities to the sarangi, as far as sound is concerned. However, it is unavoidably a “developed violin” feature with limitations.

 

My solution of an easier sarangi retains the original figure. Instead of the old-fashioned tuning pegs, guitar pegs will be used. This way, sympathetic strings wouldn’t be as difficult to tune. The strings will have to have direction markers, like many stringed instruments, to redirect the proper direction of the string. A finger-board should not be included, as the original sarangi did not have a fingerboard. The problem with the fingerboard is that is minimizes the potential for the string to sustain when bowed. Since gut strings are thick enough, using nails to fret the note wouldn’t be difficult. Including a fingerboard will only allow the instrument to develop the limitations the violin has. Adding frets or even showing where notes are locating will make it seem like it is an esraj or dilruba.

 

The soundboard in a sarangi is made of goat skin, like the sarod. Since sarangi has a very peculiar shape, metal hooks tightening or loosening the head of the sarangi would be ideal.

 

The steps of developing a new esraj would be quite similar to the steps of creating a sarangi and sitar. The sitar’s neck would be incorporated, although the frets would not be that high. The sarangi’s approach to developing a resonator, tuning apparatus, and lower body would be applied. Unlike tabla or sarod, the esraj and sarangi would need to have individual hooks with its own unique head, as their resonators are not perfectly round. The bow for sarangi and esraj will remain unchanged, as cell bows may be substituted.

 

TANPURA

 

Who can ever thing of an Indian concert without tanpura? The tanpura is a fretless drone instrument which is strummed to create a waterfall channel of notes. The recipe of creating one is exactly the same as the sitar, except for the frets.

 

 

IN CONCLUSION

 

With the exception of the tabla, pakhawaj, and khol, I have not personally tested nor manufactured these special instruments. I do plan on creating these instruments in the future and posting the reaction and results. Once tested and approved, these instruments will come to the student with higher quality and durability without compromising its unique sounds, tones, flavors, and techniques. Hopefully, this article will give some musicians hope that ideas are there to improve musical instruments so that music may become a memorable joy ride.

 

If one has any questions about the content presented here, please e-mail me.