Musical Instrument

Musical instrument A musical instrument is a device constructed or modified for the purpose of making music. In principle, anything that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument. The term "musical instrument", however, is generally reserved for items that have a specific musical purpose such as a piano. The academic study of musical instruments is called organology.

Bansuri The bansuri is a transverse alto flute of India, made of a single length of bamboo with six or seven open finger holes. An ancient musical instrument associated with cowherds and the pastoral tradition, it is intimately linked to the love story of Krishna and Radha, and is depicted in Buddhist paintings from around 100 AD. It is intimately associated with Krishna's Rasa lila; the tunes on his flute are poetically associated with driving the women of Braj mad. The North Indian bansuri, typically about 14 inches long, was traditionally used as a soprano instrument primarily for accompaniment in lighter compositions including film music. Famous masters of the bansuri include Pannalal Ghosh, Vijay Raghav Rao, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Nityanand Haldipur, Raghunath Seth, and Devendra Murdeshwar.

Tabla The tabla is a popular Indian percussion instrument used in the classical, popular and religious music of the Indian subcontinent and in Hindustani classical music. The instrument consists of a pair of hand drums of contrasting sizes and timbres. The most common historical account credits the 13th century Indian poet Amir Khusrau as having invented the instrument, by splitting a Pakhawaj into two parts. However, none of his writings on music mention the drum (nor the string instrument sitar). Another common historical narrative portrays the tabla as being thousands of years old, yet this is mere conjecture, based on slipshod interpretations of iconography. Reliable historical evidence places the invention of this instrument in the 18th century, and the first verifiable player of this drum was Ustad Sudhar Khan of Delhi. Famous tabla players Zakir Hussain

Veena Veena is a plucked stringed instrument used in Carnatic music. There are several variations of the veena, which in its South Indian form is a member of the lute family. One who plays the veena is referred to as a vainika.The design of the veena has evolved over the years, probably from the form seen in South Indian Medieval paintings and temple sculpture: a string instrument with two gourd resonators connected by a central shaft, possibly of bamboo, and held diagonally from lap to shoulder. Sangeet Ratnakar calls it Ektantri Veena and gives the method for its construction.

Famous veena players S. Balachander , Veena Dhanammal , Doraiswamy Iyengar, Jayanthi Kumaresh , N. Muralikrishnan, Prince Rama Varma , N. Ravikiran.

Sitar The sitar is a plucked stringed instrument. It uses sympathetic strings along with a long hollow neck and a gourd resonating chamber to produce a very rich sound with complex harmonic resonance. Predominantly used in Hindustani classical, sitar has been ubiquitous in Hindustani classical music since the Middle Ages. This instrument is used throughout the Indian subcontinent, particularly in Northern India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Santoor The santoor is an Indian stringed musical instrument, believed to be derived from the Persian santur. It is also related to the Indian shata-tantri veena of earlier times. It is a trapezoid-shaped hammered dulcimer often made of walnut, with seventy strings. The special-shaped mallets (mezrab) are lightweight and are held between the index and middle fingers. A typical santoor has two sets of bridges, providing a range of three octaves. The Kashmiri santoor is more rectangular and can have more strings than the original Persian counterpart, which generally has 72 strings. The santoor as used in Kashmiri classical music is played with a pair of curved mallets made of walnut wood and the resultant melodies are similar to the music of the harp, harpsichord or piano. The sound chamber is also made of walnut wood and the bridges are made of local wood and painted dark like ebony. The strings are made of steel. Notable santoor players of the twentieth century include Pandit Bhajan Sopori and Pandit Shivkumar Sharma.

Harmonium A harmonium is a free-standing keyboard instrument similar to a reed organ or pipe organ. Sound is produced by air, supplied by foot-operated or hand-operated bellows, being blown through sets of free reeds, resulting in a sound similar to that of an accordion. The harmonium was invented in Paris in 1842 by Alexandre Debain, though there was concurrent development of similar instruments. Christian Gottlieb Kratzenstein (1723-1795), Professor of Physiology at Copenhagen, was credited with the first free reed to be made in the western world after winning the annual prize in 1780 from the Imperial Academy of St.Petersburg. Famous harmonium players Farrukh Fateh Ali Khan, Sufjan Stevens