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Thesārangī is abowed, short-neckedthree-stringed instrument played in traditional music from South Asia. It is said to resemble the sound of the human voice through its ability to imitate vocal ornaments such asGamaks or Gamakam (shakes) andmeends (sliding movements). TheNepali sarangi is similar, but is a four-stringed, simplerfolk instrument.
The repertoire ofsarangi players is traditionally very closely related to vocal music. Nevertheless, a concert with a solo sarangi as the main item will sometimes include a full-scaleraag presentation with an extensivealap (the unmeasured improvisatory development of the raga) in increasing intensity (alap tojor tojhala) and several compositions in increasing tempo calledbandish. As such, it could be seen as being on a par with other instrumental styles such assitar,sarod, andbansuri.
It is rare to find a sarangi player who does not know the words of many classical compositions.[citation needed] The words are usually mentally present during the performance, and a performance almost always adheres to the conventions of vocal performances including the organisational structure, the types of elaboration, the tempo, the relationship between sound and silence, and the presentation ofkhyal andthumri compositions. The vocal quality of sarangi is in a separate category from, for instance, the so-calledgayaki-ang ofsitar which attempts to imitate the nuances ofkhyal while overall conforming to the structures and usually keeping to thegat compositions of instrumental music. (Agat is a composition set to a cyclic rhythm.)
TheNepali sarangi is a traditional stringed musical instrument ofNepal, commonly played by the Gaine orGandarbha ethnic group; the form and repertoire of the instrument in Nepal is more folk oriented than in India, and it is particularly associated with Gandarbha people.
Carved from a single block oftun (red cedar) wood, the sarangi has a box-like shape with three hollow chambers:pet ('stomach'),chaati ('chest') andmagaj ('brain'). It is usually around 2 feet (0.61 m) long and around 6 inches (150 mm) wide, though it can vary as there are smaller as well as larger variant sarangis as well. The smaller ones are more stable in hand. The lower resonance chamber orpet is covered withparchment made out of goat skin on which a strip of thick leather is placed around the waist (and nailed on the back of the chamber) which supports the elephant-shaped bridge that is usually made of camel or buffalo bone. (Originally, it was made of ivory orBarasingha bone but now that is rare due to the ban in India). The bridge in turn supports the huge pressure of approximately 35–37sympathetic steel or brass strings and three main gut strings that pass through it. The three main playing strings – the comparatively thicker gut strings – are bowed with a heavy horsehair bow and stopped not with the fingertips but with thenails, cuticles, and surrounding flesh.Talcum powder is applied to the fingers as a lubricant. The neck has ivory or bone platforms on which the fingers slide. The remaining strings are sympathetic, ortarabs, numbering up to around 35–37, divided into four choirs having two sets of pegs, one on the right and one on the top. On the inside is achromatically tuned row of 15tarabs and on the right adiatonic row of ninetarabs each encompassing a fulloctave, plus one to three extra surrounding notes above or below the octave. Both these sets oftarabs pass from the main bridge to the right side set of pegs through small holes in thechaati supported by hollow ivory/bone beads. Between these innertarabs and on either side of the main playing strings lie two more sets of longertarabs, with five to six strings on the right set and six to seven strings on the left set. They pass from the main bridge over to two small, flat, wide, table-like bridges through the additional bridge towards the second peg set on top of the instrument. These are tuned to the important tones (swaras) of the raga. A properly tuned sarangi will hum and cry and will sound like melodious meowing, with tones played on any of the main strings eliciting echo-like resonances. A few sarangis use strings manufactured from the intestines of goats.
Around the 20th century, the harmonium and violin began to be used as alternatives to the sarangi due to their comparative ease of handling.[citation needed] In Pakistan specifically, since the 1980s, the decline in sarangi playing has also been attributed to the deaths of several masters and extreme religious radicalization.[1]
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