Strings and standards

A recent seminar in Mumbai saw sitarists, sitar makers, dealers and maestros deliberating on a range of questions on the instrument.

January 29, 2015 02:57 pm | Updated November 13, 2021 10:45 am IST

OF SOUND AND TECHNIQUE From the seminar

OF SOUND AND TECHNIQUE From the seminar

If Chinese factories can bulk-produce musical instruments, why do our instrument makers retain standards of a small-scale cottage industry till date, particularly when 80 per cent of Indian sitars get exported? Why must each gharana demand a customised sitar? Can’t cheap metals replace the expensive woods and delicate gourds to make these instruments affordable and easy-to-maintain for students with limited means? How to ensure good tonal quality or sustained tunefulness despite pulls and pressures during recitals? Tumba meetha ya haath meetha ? (Is a ‘good’ instrument absolutely necessary for a ‘good’ show or the artistes’ mastery?)

An array of such diverse questions hit the floor of the Experimental Theatre at the National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA), Mumbai, during a recent seminar, ‘Sitar: Makers and Maestros’. Under the leadership of Pandit Arvind Parikh, the seminar was organised by Indian Musicological Society (IMS) and NCPA in collaboration with Music Forum.

Inaugurated by sitar exponent Shujaat Khan, the daylong session saw interactions between sitar makers, dealers and maestros — all involved in the entire gamut of making, selling and playing. While the maestros’ group consisted of renowned musicians belonging to different major gharanas of sitar, the former lot, from behind the heavy curtains of unfamiliarity, was represented by Suman Karmakar (of P & Brothers, Kolkata) and a group of Miraj sitar makers led by Nasir Mulla, Altaf Mulla and Mubarak Mulla and the most effective spokesperson Sanjay Sharma (of Rikhiram, Delhi), who also bagged Shri Manohar Mulay Award for Instrument Making 2014 during the consecutive two-day seminar on ‘Sitar Gharanas’ organised by ITC SRA (West) and NCPA.

What emerged out of the exchange of ideas is: the profound extent of spontaneous skill is the soul of Indian arts and crafts; that is why it is essentially solo; and it is this unique quality which sets it apart from the rest of the world. Standardised mass production, therefore, could be harmful though less costly sitars are made available for students.

History tells us that musical instruments went through paradigm shifts to accommodate the changing socio-cultural scenes; so the question of rigidity does not arise. Veena got replaced by surbahar; surbahar’s regal alap gradually became possible on the sitar with several modifications. The huge tanpura, albeit an integral part of riyaaz , got replaced by small, flat and easy-to-carry tanpuri to assist globe-trotting musicians of this era.

To make these changes possible, professional instrumentalists and instrument makers always shared a close relationship which thrived on mutual understanding. They still do, to protect their comfort zone for unrelenting sadhana and invent new ways and means to address newer challenges — for example, the right type of seasoned wood, strings; government policies regarding ivory, skin, gut-strings; problems in transportation, dearth of skilled craftsmen, meagre monetary profit, and dwindling interest of educated successors of renowned makers of the bygone era.

On the question of ‘good instrument = good concert’, Shujaat Khan recounted an interesting incident. “Once, in a sitar workshop, a youngster kept on pestering the veteran craftsperson for a sitar which would produce music just like mine. Hassled, he peered above his spectacles and said, ‘Your idol is sitting right here. Please cut and take away his finger for desired results!’” This summed it all up.

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