Instruments we Teach 

Tabla, pair of small drums fundamental (since the 18th century) to Hindustani music of northern India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The higher-pitched of the two drums, which is played with the right hand, is also referred to individually as the tabla or as the daya (dahina or dayan, meaning “right”). It is a single-headed drum usually of wood and has the profile of two truncated cones bulging at the center, the lower portion shorter. It is about 25 cm (10 inches) in height and 15 cm (6 inches) across. Skin tension is maintained by thong lacings and wooden dowels that are tapped with a hammer in retuning. It is usually tuned to the tonic, or ground note, of the raga (melodic framework).

The baya (bahina or bayan, meaning “left”), played with the left hand, is a deep kettledrum measuring about 25 cm (10 inches) in height, and the drum face is about 20 cm (8 inches) in diameter. It is usually made of copper but may also be made of clay or wood, with a hoop and thong lacings to maintain skin tension. Pressure from the heel of the player’s hand changes the tone color and pitch. The tuning of the baya varies, but it may be a fifth or an octave below the daya. A disk of black tuning paste placed on the skin of each drum affects pitch and also generates overtones characteristic of the drums’ sound. The musician plays the tabla while seated, with the baya to the left of the daya. Sound is produced on the drums through a variety of different finger and hand strokes. Each drum stroke can be expressed by a corresponding syllable, used for both teaching and performance purposes. The intricate music of the drums reflects the rhythmic framework (tala) of the piece.

The tabla, is the principal rhythmic instrument in the Hindustani music tradition.

Tabla can be documented in India from the late 18th century. 

The sitar is a commonly used stringed instrument in South Asian countries such as Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka. The Sitar instrument is a plucked stringed instrument that contains movable frets and a gourd resonator. “Sitar” is derived from the Persian word “Sehtar”(seh+tar) meaning “three-stringed”. Sitar received its name because the first used instruments has only three main playable strings to produce a melody.  

In India, the sitar can be traced back to the Mughal period, around 700 years ago. Many people believe that sitar was developed from Persian lutes which were commonly played in the Mughul courts. However, contrary to this belief, there is considerable evidence that supports Chitra Veena to be the precursor of a sitar. 

As per early records, the sitars blossomed in the 16th and 17th centuries and arrived at the present known form in the 18th century due to the efforts of “Amir Khusru” who is Tansen’s grandson. He is the most famous Hindustani performer and was involved in adjusting the Veena to plan the present-day Sitar. His work led to the creation of a traditional Sitar which contains 5 melody strings that can be tuned to Ma-Sa-Ma-Sa-Pa. 

Amir Khusru’s grandson Masit Khan has further contributed to the field of music. He has composed many slow gats in dhrupad style which was popular in the early times. This style is popular even today and is called the Masitkhani gat. His son Bahadur Khan continued to develop this genre.

The term surbahar is Hindi and means a ‘springtime of musical notes’. 

The surbahar is a type of large, bass sitar. Ghulam Muhammed Khan of Lucknow is credited with its invention around the year 1825. The surbahar was reportedly popularised in the nineteenth century by his son, Sajjad Hussain. The surbahar was a specialized instrument used only in performances of certain types of instrumental classical Indian music. While the popularity of the rudra vina or bin was fading towards the end of the nineteenth century, the surbahar was becoming more prominent, especially in Bengal. Because of its large size, however, C. R. Day reported in 1891 that it was tiring to play and expensive to buy.

A steel plectrum called mizrab is used to play the surbahar, which is held in front of the musician at an angle with its body by the musician’s hip and its neck pointing upwards.

In other words, a Surbahar is much Larger  and Heavier than a sitar which haves a bass voice as the main characteristics.

The Indian santoor instrument is a trapezoid-shaped hammered dulcimer and a variation of the Iranian santur. The instrument is generally made of walnut and has 25 bridges. Each bridge has 4 strings, making for a total of 100 strings. It is a traditional instrument in Jammu and Kashmir and dates back to ancient times. It was called Shatha Tantri Veena in ancient Sanskrit texts. 

Santoor has a rich heritage as this was the most prominent instrument of the Sufiana Mausiqi in the olden days of Kashmir, Kashmiri Pandits used to meditate with santoor, one has to attain sheer patience to learn this instrument.

The sarod is a stringed instrument, used in Hindustani music on the Indian subcontinent. Along with the sitar, it is among the most popular and prominent instruments. It is known for a deep, weighty, introspective sound, in contrast with the sweet, overtone-rich texture of the sitar, with sympathetic strings that give it a resonant, reverberant quality. A fretless instrument, it can produce continuous slides between notes known as meend (glissando), which are important in Indian music. 

The word sarod was introduced from Persian during the late Mughal Empire and is much older than the Indian musical instrument. It can be traced back to sorūd meaning "song", "melody", "hymn" and further to the Persian verb sorūdan, which correspondingly means "to sing", and "to play a musical instrument", but also means "to compose".

Alternatively, the shahrud may have given its name to the sarod. The Persian word šāh-rūd is made up of šāh (shah or king) and rūd (string).

Many scholars of Indian classical music believe that the sarod is a combination of the ancient chitravina, the medieval Indian rabab (aka the seniya rabab) and the modern sursingar. Some scholars contend that a similar instrument may have existed about two thousand years ago in ancient India during the ages of the Gupta kings. A Gupta period coin depicts the great king Samudragupta playing a veena, which many believe to be the precursor of the sarod. The present Indian Traces of similar Rabab-style instruments can also be found in southern India, especially in the states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Karnataka, where it is known as the swarbat. The folk rabab, an instrument popular in north India, had a wooden fingerboard, its strings were made of silk, cotton, or gut, and it was played with a wooden pick. In history, reference is also made to a Sharadiya Veena from which the name Sarod has been derived. The sarod is also believed to have descended from the Afghan rubab, a similar instrument originating in Central Asia and Afghanistan.

Although the sarod has been referred to as a "bass rubab"[ its tonal bandwidth is considerably greater than that of the rubab, especially in the middle and high registers. Lalmani Misra opines in his Bharatiya Sangeet Vadya that the sarod is a combination of the ancient chitravina, the medieval rubab, and the modern sursingar. Another instrument, the sur-rabab, is known to exist, which has the characteristics of both the dhrupad rabab/seniya rabab and the sarod. The sur-rabab has the structure of the dhrupad rabab but has a metal fretboard and uses metal strings.

We teach two types of Sarod here one is Maihar Style and the other is Senia Bangash Style

The rubab is known as "the lion of instruments" and is one of the two national instruments of Afghanistan (with the zerbaghali). Classical Afghan music often features this instrument as a key component. Elsewhere it is known as the Kabuli rebab in contrast to the Seni rebab of India. In appearance, the Kabuli rubab looks slightly different from the Indian rubab. It is the ancestor of the north Indian sarod, although, unlike the sarod, it is fretted.

The rubab is attested from the 7th century CE. It is mentioned in old Persian books, and many Sufi poets mention it in their poems. It is the traditional instrument of Khorasan and is widely used in countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkey, Iraq, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, as well as in the Xinjiang province of northwest China and the Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab regions of northwest India.

The rubab was the first instrument used in Sikhism; it was used by Bhai Mardana, the companion of the first guru, Guru Nanak. Whenever a shabad was revealed to Guru Nanak he would sing and Bhai Mardana would play on his rubab; he was known as a rababi. The rubab-playing tradition is carried on by Sikhs such as Namdharis.

Rabab is a very rare Instrument it is very hard to get a tuned good rabab, but here at Paddhant School of Music we have the best sources

A harmonium, also called a "reed organ" or "pump organ", is a keyboard instrument that is a lot like an organ. It makes sound by blowing air through reeds, which are tuned to different pitches to make musical notes.

A harmonium can be made to work using either the feet or the hands:

• In a foot-pumped harmonium, the player presses two pedals with his or her feet, one at a time. This is joined to a mechanism that operates a bellows, sending air to the reeds. Both of the player's hands are free to play the keyboard. This type was invented in 1842 by Alexandre Debain of Paris, although similar instruments have been made in other places around the same time.

• In a hand-pumped harmonium, the player pushes and pulls a handle back and forth with one hand, which is joined to the bellows that blow the air. Because of this, he or she can only use one hand to play the keys as the other has to keep pumping the bellows. Some players can pump enough air with one hand, and then play the keys with both hands, when necessary.

The hand-pumped harmonium was created by Dwarkanath Ghose so that the instrument could be played while the player was sitting down on the floor. It is used in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and in other South Asian countries as an accompanying instrument in Hindustani classical music, Sufi Music, Bhajan and other devotional music, Qawwali, Natya Sangeet, and a variety of genres including accompaniment to Classical Kathak Dance and other entertainments. Others began building using similar instruments. In Vienna, Anton Haeckl constructed the philharmonic, a keyboard instrument filled with free reeds. John Green invented the seraphine, which produced music when air was blown over metallic reeds. Such instruments are now museum pieces.