Tradition - A Story of Strings

From rudimentary folk beginnings, string instruments have now reached the heights of concert glory, giving endless moments of ecstasy and delight to listeners. The strumming of a series of taut metallic strings is capable of creating an enthralling experience of vitality and emotion. As the player slides over the notes, the listener experiences moments of ecstasy and delight. There is an entire tradition in Indian music where musical instruments of the stringed variety form a separate classification, termed as tata vadya or the sound of strings. These instruments are also termed as chordophonic, which means string sounds.

Just how old and how endearing is this art of playing on strings in India, can be reckoned from a legendary tale. The Rig Veda, the oldest Indian text of the Aryan civilization, contains a reference to the sage Kanwa who was imprisoned by demons. The revered man was blindfolded by his captors and cast into a dark dungeon. The sage had no problem complying with this order for though his eyes were shut, his ears were open. From the stillness of his dark cavern he heard the sounds of a sonorous veena the oldest string instrument in India which was customarily played at dawn as a musical accompaniment to group recitals welcoming the break of a new day.

Though the veena was the oldest string instrument, the term was not specific to a single variety. It was a generic term that applied to all instruments that were played by plucking or striking at the strings. As it was an invariable accompaniment to singing and dancing the stringed veena was compared to a human body and termed darvi veena. The main sound box of this veena was likened to a human head and was made of a gourd or pumpkin, whose exterior had been dried and hardened with long weathering.

The stomach of the veena was the hollow rod on which the fingers moved and glided to produce different notes. The tongue of the veena was the sound of the notes emanating from the strings, while the strings themselves were the fibers and sinews of the body. By the 19th century, the term veena came to denote a particular variety of stringed wonders. This was a lute related instrument of great antiquity that is now extinct but whose references can be found in historic writings that still exist. The Aryans played the ancient instrument at ceremonial occasions. There was a formal pattern of play and even the construction of this veena was a matter of set rituals. The hundred strings of the instrument were pegged on to ten holes of rod, attached to the main gourd. The first 33 strings were affixed by the officiating priest at the formal ceremony. The next group of 33 was the charge of the priest performing the sacrificial rites. The last 33 were fixed by the one who led the chanting during the ceremony. Finally, the hundredth string was added by the householder in whose home the Vedic ceremony was taking place.

Today, the oldest surviving stringed instrument is not a 100 stringed formality but a solo stringed country-made lute known as the ektara. It consists of a bamboo rod attached to a small pumpkin resonator, covered with hide. It has a single string fixed to the upper end of the bamboo rod and the player simply twangs the string to produce a resonant and rhythmic note to enliven a vocal recital. The best-known user of the ektara today is the folk artist of Punjab, Yamla Jat, who produces a string of long notes as he strikes on his tuneful resonator using this technique to serve as a rhythm beat as well as an accompaniment to his singing. The vibrant Pandvani singer, who recites tales and episodes from the Mahabharat, has only one handmaid to her dramatic singsong presentation. Visitors at the Festivals of India in France, Switzerland and West Germany, were awe-stuck as this folk charmer came on stage, wielding her bright red ektara and striking the strings, at times using the instrument as a tool to augment an incident of the story. She won repeated encores for the stark simplicity of her performance.

The antiquity of this proletarian instrument goes back to thee 17th century when the country was swayed by a mass movement of religious renaissance. Saint-poets, composers and reformers preached their simple faith in the form of vernacular compositions, sung to the accompaniment of an ektara. People's poets like Mirabai, the erstwhile queen of the ruling house of Mewar, who had spurned her bejeweled status and opted for a mendicant's saffron garb, used an ektara for her immortal compositions that are still part of a classical singer's repertoire, and commonly known as Mirabai bhajans. The saint poet Surdas, composed couplets that were sung with the help of an ektara. Till date, wandering minstrels of Bengal, known as Bauls, who follow a mystical tradition, use the ektara so profusely that the instrument has now become a symbol of their deep inner moorings and beliefs.

Having been witness to the vibrant culture of the Indian mendicant, the ektara has ceased to be a mere bamboo and string contraption and instead, acquired a profound association with the Indian subconscious. Whenever one thinks of saints, fakirs and mystics the inseparable ektara is part of this universal image. The cult of the shunya or the void of the enlightened soul and the marvels of the formless one are best rendered with the ektara.

Evolving from this single stringed simplicity there came about the four-stringed tamboora or tanpura, which today is a compulsory instrument in any concert recital of Indian classical music. The Indian musician sings virtually hundreds of ragas accompanied by this tamboora, which provides a droning resonance in the background. Like the ektara it has a simple structure and a robust resonator. The network of four strings are coiled around four pegs attached at the end of the rod. The plucking of these strings with the fingers is all that is required for the recital. The strings are tuned to the notes of the lower middle octave and create a resonance of a very subtle nature, making the instrument very soothing to the ear. As it is played non-stop through the recital, the atmosphere acquires a magnetic field of notes around which the singer delineates the raga details. This highly charged, sound filled instrument activates the intuitive mind into hearing subtle notes and consequently brings the senses under control to a level of extreme concentration. No wonder, Indian musicians believe that ragas are embedded in the bosom of the tamboora and the entire universe of notes is contained within the sanctum of this instrument. Musicians declare that they are even willing to die for their tanpuras, as it attracts the mind to the purity of the sound.

However, the competence of the tanpura is only evident in the form of an accompanying instrument. But the 100 stringed santoor or dulcimer is capable of standing on its own. Set in a box-shaped trapezium, the santoor is notable for its harmonious sounds that tingle in soft reverberations like the sound of a dancing brook gliding unevenly over a bed of rounded pebbles. The striking of its notes is done by a pair of sticks crafted from willow, which grows abundantly near riversides in the northern state of Kashmir. In fact, the santoor is a native of this land and is still a popular instrument both for folk and classical presentations in this valley. But while it was originally part of Kashmiri's folk culture, today, its exotic sounds have reached the concert stage of metropolises. This improved status of the instrument has largely been due to the painstaking research and innovations devised by its reigning classical supreme, Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma.

In the same way, other string instruments have graduated from a rudimentary folk beginning to the heights of concert glory. Just such an instrument is the modern day sitar. It was first a three-string; fourteen fret invention, attributed generally to Amir Khusro, a 14th century scholar musician. At that time, the sitar was known by its earlier name, the sehtar, which had existed since ancient times. What Khusro did was to reverse the order of the latter day instrument by arranging the main playing string of the instrument at the front instead of at he rear. The frets that were to be used were made movable and could then be used to create full tones as well as half tones with ease.

Today, this simple three-stringed sehtar has turned into a 7-stringed instrument. It soon replaced the ancient veena in Northern schools of music. The method of playing the sitar also underwent changes. The player plucked the strings with the help of a 'Mizrab' or plectrum of wire, worn on the right hand index finger. While the basic structure of the instrument is made up of a rod and pumpkin resonators, an extra hollow gourd, at the top of the rod, where the pegs are fixed, provides a greater resonance. The sides of the main rod are sometimes fitted with a set of sympathetic strings that reverberate a rich grandeur of musical notes with each strike of the major strings.

Once it had turned a modern day instrument, it was not surprising that the sitar had entered the realms of western music. Its modern flag carrier has been Pandit Ravi Shankar. His sitar was first heard alongside Yehudi Menuhin in 1966, at the Bath Festival of Music. In 1967 Ravi Shankar and his sitar entered the Beatles Group and proved that the sitar could speak many languages. Ravi Shankar has now used it to present western classical music enhancing the versatility of his instrument.

The present day Sarod, too, came into vogue through an evolutionary process. Its predecessor, the ancient rabab, was only played in the Imperial Moghul court of Emperor Akbar. It is a six stringed instrument with its lower gut string used as a resonator. The founder of the Sikh faith, Guru Nanak, favored this instrument. The guru's closet disciple, Bhai Ramdass, usually strummed on it and it is believed that the guru poured out his immortal devotional hymns to the sounds of the melodious rabab.

The high point of difference between the rabab and the Sarod is that the Sarod is endowed with an extra dose of melody and this is due to the inclusion of a metal chest plate across the front rod of the instrument. The fingerboard is thus a steely glide. As gut strings would create a dull sound effect on a steel surface, it necessitated the introduction of metal strings of variable thickness.

These innovations were the work of Bandegi Khan Bangash, a camel caravan driver of Afghanistan. The ace Sarod genius, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan is a direct descendant of this family and like his illustrious family he has included a new aspect of creative element into the still evolving instrument. The musical element of the thumri form of singing has entered his Sarod playing style and the methodology of the thumri singer has become part of the Sarod repertoire ever since the early fifties.

The story of strings, therefore, has always been a matter of magic and marvel, crafted from homely things like bamboo rods, animal gut, pumpkins and finally horse hair. With the help of a few strands of this hair, a bamboo rod and an empty coconut shell, the earliest known bowstring instrument was created. The Ravanhatha, as it is called is still in vogue among the folk musicians and balladeers of the western state of Rajasthan. The folk artists who still play and sing to this instrument attach a string a small brass bells to the bow so that each beat of the rhythm of the song is underlined with a novel jingle. It creates the feel of a delightful prance and lends itself gracefully to the pace of folk music. One only has to watch the right hand of the musician dance in the act of bowing the strings to comprehend the vitality of this raw form of music.

From this primitive beginning, the intermediate stage saw the arrival of the sarinda. This instrument has a main string like the earlier ravanhatha but in addition, it also has an underlying gut of sympathetic strings. Its more sophisticated evolution is the sarangi. Today the sarangi is the best known of all bow instruments and the tone of the instrument is closest to the human voice. It is profusely used as an accompanying instrument for vocal recitals. The interludes of he sarangi during the long drawn out recital provide the much needed pauses in the singing and add a further dimension to the richly unexplored field of music.

The solo artiste thus relies on the sarangi for is vital functional role of accompaniment. Artistes like Ram Narayan and Hanuman Mishra, have made the sarangi also sing an independent language by emerging as solo sarangi performances. The stylistics of the sarangi, its race and the delicacy of play, range from pure notional sounds to a rising crescendo of notes.

The process of enrichment and evolution has thus been a constant one in the realm of stringed instruments where the romance of the string tugs at the very heart.

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