Most Indian traditional music is melodic and not harmonic. This
means that the music played on an instrument like the harmonium
needed the use of only one hand and the other hand was not
needed (as in the piano) to play structured chords. The second
factor was that most varieties of traditional Indian music are
performed with the performers sitting on the floor. These two
aspects of Indian music forced the harmonium to be redesigned
to its current shape and structure as is widely used in India, that
allows the harmonium to be played with one hand, sitting on the
floor while the other hand is used to pump the bellows. The
redesign also incorporated other interesting and clever features
like “drone stops” and a scale changing mechanism. This design,
which is now an integral part of the Indian harmonium, was
created by Dwarkanath Ghosh in the city of Calcutta. He was in
fact inspired by the design of the original French ‘Harmoniflutes’
that were designed in France.
French Harmoniflute
During its early days in India, the harmonium was widely used in
Marathi and Parsee theatre. Today, the harmonium is possibly the
most widely accompaniment musical instrument used in India
specially for the traditional forms of music. Interestingly, the
connoisseurs of pure Indian classical music still still look down
55