The word sarangi is derived from two Hindi
words: sau (meaning "hundred") and rang
(meaning "colour"). This is because the sound of
the sarangi is said to be as expressive and
evocative as a hundred colours. Its origins are
unknown, however most people believe that it
became a mainstream instrument in the mid 18th
Century. Notoriously difficult to play and tune, the
sarangi has traditionally been used primarily for
accompanying singers (shadowing the vocalist's
improvisations),in recent times it has become
recognised as a solo instrument by the efforts of
Ram Narayan and Sabri Khan. Other current
celebrated performers include Sultan Khan, Kamal
Sabri, Dhruba Ghosh and Aruna Narayan Kalle,
while eminent maestros of the past have included
Bundu Khan, Nathu Khan, Sagiruddin Khan, Gopal
Mishra and Shakoor Khan.
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 raga presentation
with an extensive alap (the unmeasured
improvisatory development of the raga) in
increasing intensity (alap-jor-jhala) and several
compositions in increasing tempi. As such, it is
on a par with other instrumental styles such as
for sitar, sarod, and bansuri. This full-fledged raga
development has its roots in the Dhrupad style of
raga presentation.
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.
Structure
A lying sarangi
Carved from a single block of wood, the sarangi
has a box-like shape, usually around two feet
long and around half a foot wide. The lower
resonance chamber is made from a hollowed-out
block of tun ( red cedar) wood and covered with
parchment and a decorated strip of leather at the
waist which supports the elephant-shaped
bridge. The bridge in turn supports the huge
pressure of approximately 40 strings. Three of
the strings – the comparatively thick, tight and
short ones – 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 remaining strings are resonance
strings or tarabs (see: sympathetic strings),
numbering up to around 35, divided into 4
different "choirs". On the lowest level are a
diatonic row of 9 tarabs and a chromatic row of
15 tarabs, each encompassing a full octave plus
1–3 extra notes above or below. Between these
lower tarabs and the main playing strings lie two
more sets of longer tarabs, which pass over a
small flat ivory bridge at the 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 have strings
made of Goat's intestine,these were used in olden
days by rich musicians.
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