Cineplot Music

Surbahar

Surbahar

Possibly invented by Umrao Khan, beenker of Lucknow, the instument, a variety of sitar was actually developed by Ghulam Mohammad of Banda around 1830 and his son Sajjad Ahmed both accomplished players of sitar and surbahar in the nineteenth century. Compared to the sitar the instrument is larger with a longer neck and wider, and designed to play the alap and jod-alap of dhrupad in the Seniya Beenker tradition. It has six metal strings including two of the drone with 13 sympathetic strings below and two extra brass strings for the lower octave. Another difference is that an extra resonator is usually added to the sitar at the top with the resultant deeper tone of the instrument. The other technical difference is that the frets on the surbahar are fixed, not easily movable and it is played with two strokes with plectrum on the forefinger and little finger, one plectrum being used to keep the tal.

Accomplished sitar players can also play on the surbahar and vice versa, but the performers usually specialise in one of the two instruments. Thus, Vilayat Khan, the sitar maestro invariably performs on the sitar while his brother Imrat Khan prefers the surbahar. Annapoorna Devi, daughter of Ustad Allauddin Khan was an accomplished surbahar player but also plays the sitar. In recent times late Mushtaq Ali Khan was a sitarist as well as an illustrious exponent of the surbahar besides Imrat Khan, brother of Ustad Vilayat Khan. Sitar has a more scintillating and brilliant tone although surbahar is mellower and has a wider range. Both these instruments are, however, derivatives of the ancient veena. As mentioned separately the veena was modified by Amir Khusro to create the sitar.

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