Music
Instruments, and the hours they belong to
Sixteen instruments in the four families the Natya Shastra named, drawn and described, and a day divided into the hours that ragas are traditionally sung.
Four families
More than two thousand years ago the Natya Shastra, a treatise on the performing arts attributed to the sage Bharata, sorted instruments into four families, and the sorting still works. Tata instruments have strings. Avanaddha instruments are covered, which is to say drums with a skin stretched over them. Ghana instruments are solid, from cymbals to clay pots, and sound when struck. Sushira instruments are hollow and sound by breath. The treatise is dated between about 200 BCE and 200 CE, though estimates range from 500 BCE to 500 CE.
Below are sixteen instruments, all still played. Listen for what each does that no other can, and notice how many of them are meant to sound like a voice.
Sitar
- Strings
- Hindustani
North India
A long-necked lute with movable frets and, under the played strings, a set of sympathetic strings that hum along with them. Ravi Shankar (Bharat Ratna, 1999) carried its sound around the world. A popular story credits Amir Khusrau in the thirteenth century; that is tradition rather than record, and the modern sitar is generally dated to the eighteenth.
Listen for the shimmer of the sympathetic strings and the long bend of a note, meend.
Sarod
- Strings
- Hindustani
North India
A fretless, deep-toned lute with a polished steel fingerboard, a skin-covered face and a plectrum. With no frets, the player slides between notes as a singer does. Ali Akbar Khan and Amjad Ali Khan are among its best-known voices.
Listen for the glide between notes and the metallic ring at the end of each stroke.
Saraswati veena
- Strings
- Carnatic
South India
The South Indian plucked lute: four strings for the melody, three side strings for rhythm and drone, and twenty-four frets set in wax on a wide neck. In temple sculpture and painting it is the instrument of the goddess Saraswati.
Listen for the mellow, sustained tone and the gamakas, the shakes and slides that shape each note.
Santoor
- Strings
- Kashmir and Hindustani
Kashmir
A hammered dulcimer: a trapezoid box strung with about a hundred wires, struck with two light curved mallets. It began in the Sufiana music of Kashmir and entered concert Hindustani music through Pandit Shivkumar Sharma (1938 to 2022).
Listen for the rain-like shimmer of notes left to ring over one another.
Tanpura
- Strings
- Drone
All over India
The drone. Four strings, commonly tuned to the fifth, the tonic and the low tonic, are plucked one after another in a slow loop. A thread under each string (the jivari) makes the bright buzzing halo. It never plays the tune; it is the ground the raga stands on.
Listen for the halo of overtones that seems to grow after the string has stopped.
Ektara
- Strings
- Folk
Bengal and beyond
Its name means one string: a single string stretched over a hollow gourd and a split bamboo neck. It is the companion of wandering singers, most famously the Bauls of Bengal, who tighten and press the neck to bend the note.
Listen for the single, twanging note that answers the voice.
Bansuri
- Winds
- Hindustani and folk
All over India
A side-blown bamboo flute, most often with six finger holes. In art it is the flute of Krishna. Players keep several, because a longer flute gives a lower key and the choice of flute follows the raga and the voice.
Listen for the breath in the tone and the slow, unbroken phrases.
Shehnai
- Winds
- Hindustani and ceremonial
North India
A double-reed wind instrument with a flared bell, long the sound of weddings and temple gateways. Bismillah Khan (Bharat Ratna, 2001) carried it from the ceremony to the concert hall.
Listen for the reedy, penetrating brightness that carries across a courtyard.
Harmonium
- Winds
- Devotional and popular
All over India
A hand-pumped reed organ that arrived from Europe in the nineteenth century and was adopted so completely that it now accompanies bhajan, kirtan, qawwali and ghazal. It is not one of the four ancient families; it is a later arrival that made itself at home.
Listen for the steady, breathing drone under a singer.
Tabla
- Drums
- Hindustani
North India
A pair of drums: the smaller, treble dayan played with the right hand and the larger bass bayan with the left. Each head carries a black patch that gives it a ringing, pitched tone. Zakir Hussain (1951 to 2024) made it a solo instrument around the world.
Listen for the way a single stroke can be dry, ringing or rounded, and how the pair talk to each other.
Mridangam
- Drums
- Carnatic
South India
A two-headed barrel drum, traditionally of jackfruit wood, with a skin on each side. The right head is tuned to the tonic. It leads the percussion of a Carnatic concert and speaks in syllables that the player can recite before playing.
Listen for the deep left-hand boom against the bright, tuned right hand.
Dhol
- Drums
- Folk
Punjab and beyond
A double-headed barrel drum slung from the shoulder, struck with a curved stick on the bass side and a thin one on the treble. It is the heartbeat of bhangra and of processions and weddings across the north.
Listen for the bass thud and the sharp crackle of the treble stick.
Damaru
- Drums
- Ritual and street
All over India
A small hourglass drum sounded by twisting the wrist so that knotted cords swing and strike the two heads. In iconography it is the drum of Shiva; on the street it is a performer’s call to gather round.
Listen for the rapid rattle that rises and falls with the wrist.
Ghatam
- Solid
- Carnatic
South India
A clay pot, played with the fingers, palms and heels, and part of many Carnatic percussion ensembles. The potters of Manamadurai in Tamil Nadu are well known for making them.
Listen for the pitched, earthy note when the mouth of the pot is pressed against the belly.
Manjira
- Solid
- Devotional and folk
All over India
A pair of small hand cymbals joined by a cord. They mark the beat in bhajan and kirtan, and the tap and ring of the pair is one of the most familiar sounds of devotional singing.
Listen for the bright ring that keeps the cycle of beats in view.
Jal tarang
- Solid
- Hindustani
North India
A set of porcelain bowls holding different amounts of water, tuned to the notes of a raga and struck with two thin sticks. The name means waves of water.
Listen for the glassy, bell-like notes that fade slowly.
Ragas and the hours
A raga is a melodic framework: a set of notes, their moods and the ways of moving between them. In the Hindustani tradition each raga is also associated with a time of day, so that a dawn raga is sung at dawn and a late-night raga after midnight. The association is a tradition, not a law, the hours are approximate, and teachers and schools differ. It is a good way to listen slowly: choose an hour and stay with one raga.
All eight hours, as a table
| Hours | Traditional raga hours | Ragas | Often described as |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 to 7 am | Dawn | Bhairav, Ramkali, Lalit | hushed and devotional |
| 7 to 10 am | Morning | Ahir Bhairav, Bilaskhani Todi, Bhairavi | clear, calm and unhurried |
| 10 am to 1 pm | Late morning | Todi, Asavari, Jaunpuri | pensive and meditative |
| 1 to 4 pm | Afternoon | Sarang, Bhimpalasi, Madhuvanti | warm and unhurried |
| 4 to 7 pm | Late afternoon to sunset | Multani, Puriya Dhanashree, Marwa | yearning, in a restless light |
| 7 to 10 pm | Evening | Yaman, Kedar, Bhoopali | serene and open |
| 10 pm to 1 am | Night | Bihag, Bageshri, Jaijaiwanti | gentle and romantic |
| 1 to 4 am | Late night | Darbari Kanada, Malkauns, Chandrakauns | deep, grave and inward |
Notes on the scales (flattened, sharpened) are given for the ragas where the notes are settled and widely taught.
How to listen
- Find the drone first. Before anything else, hear the tanpura. Everything after is measured against it.
- Give the opening time. A raga usually begins with an unmetered alap, slowly showing the notes one by one. Nothing is being skipped.
- Follow the return. The music keeps coming home to the tonic, Sa. The beauty is in the leaving and the coming back.
- Listen to the silences. The pauses are part of the phrase.
- Do not translate it. A raga is not a tune with decoration. Let it be one sound that changes slowly.
Sources
- Natya Shastra, chapter 28: On the instrumental music (atodya) — the four families; text of the chapter
- Natyashastra, chapter 28, translated — an English translation, for the same chapter
- Natya Shastra — dating: first complete compilation between 200 BCE and 200 CE, with estimates from 500 BCE to 500 CE
- Sitar — form, sympathetic strings and the debated history of the instrument
- Bismillah Khan — the shehnai and his Bharat Ratna (2001)
- Zakir Hussain (musician) — dates and honours
- All India Radio: legendary tabla maestro Zakir Hussain passes away at 73 — he died on 15 December 2024
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