SOUVIK CHAKRABORTY
SOUNDS CLOSE TO HOME
It was almost a mandate in Bollywood to use saxophone as a basic foundation over the ornamental percussions in the very recent past . And , today the popular Hindi cinema music is shifting fast to remixing and remaking old songs with EDM loops . What is wrong , with our music , are we so dry in our home , that we have always to go back to the waters of the sea washed away from a foreign land
Our roots are deep seated in a variety of percussion and stringed instruments , which we hardly see or hear in our popular media , be that Television or film . We have so many diversity that it along can bring down the glory of mighty European operas to dust and blow up the potential of what actually is believed to be ' hit music ' in our country . Tour through the most underrated musical instruments , that do not make the main stream music in most cases .
Rabab was actually renovated to a musical instrument called sarod . Rabab is a surprisingly widely known stringed instrument as it has toured the length and breadth of places like Asia and Africa . The beauty of rabab like most instruments is in playing . It can be bowed and plucked as well .
Tambura is a long stringed instrument with a resonator made of gourd , tambura does not produce a characteristic melody that is mostly unheard of in popular genre , but also produces a great aesthetic value to the tradition or a culture it belongs to . Any tambura you would pick will talk of the precision involved in designing the intricacies of the body art done on it .
Morsing is one of the most quirky designs that a musical instrument can have . It is believed to have originated in Greece and was popularly used to sing lyrics . It is a tiny prong shaped instrument with a metal stick running through its length . The prongs are placed in the mouth between the upper and lower lip and the string is plucked producing a sound that could well replicate the mating calls of the animals in a pond .
Esraj is one of my favourite all time drug . Dilruba or Esraj is the successor of the Taus from the yesteryears . It is played with a bow and has 18 strings and frets along the necks . The Holy Gurmat Sangeet is accompanied with this instrument . It is interesting that except for one , the rest of the strings in this instrument are sympathetic strings . It is unfortunate though , that such a purely magical instrumental could not make it to mainstream music and is stuck only to the religious and the folks .
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Swarmandal is the very oriental harp , that is mostly used with Indian classical vocals . This stringed instrument is hooked to a wooden board and is free to use according to the musician . It is fascinating that this 36 string instrument can be tuned according to the preference of the musician and is not dependant on a set of rules . Unlike most instruments the use of this instrument varies from raga to raga . Besides , the swarmandal is played by the lead vocalist itself .
Ghatam is a clay pot , re alloyed with copper , iron and brass which is sometimes boosted with more water or clay as required . It has a wide range of tonality from the mouth to its bottom . While in the carnatic , ghatam accompanies mridangam , in Punjab the same is called garha and is popular in folk music .
Kanjira resembles almost a tambourine and is a leathered percussion that is used mostly in carnatic music . While the popular soundscape occasionally forays in the mridangam of the Southern classical genre it hardly manages to touch this difficult to play and much more interesting piece of instrument . Kanjira requires expertise and precision because it has a pretty sophisticated pitch tuning system . Amazingly , there are records of the use of this instruments in places like the Eastern part of the country and even the valleys of Nepal .
Kamanche is one of the most authentic and primitive bowed instrument that predates the existence of rabab or sarangi .
Veena is an archaic instrument of seven strings that find references in both mythology , religion and history which dates back as old as the cave paintings . It is believed to deliver all the gamakas in carnatic music , which in itself is a feat that only few vocalists are believed to have .
It is nothing short of surprises that our music end up sounding the same ; while we have so much of meat at our backyard rotting for no good . It ' s time we demand some taste and variety from our composers , it ' s time that our music starts sounding a little less dependent on the visuals and is largely focussed on the merits of the qualities associated with music exclusively .