It's only lately that santoor made an entry into the Indian classical music. Until the 1950s,it was played only as a folk instrument. The trapezoid instrument with 72 strings took such a long time to be admitted to the classical music instruments due to a fundamental flaw,from the pure Indian classical music point of view,in its physical structure. Its structure meant santoor cannot produce the meend,which means taking a leap from one note to a higher one while slightly touching upon all the notes of the raag falling between these two notes. In fact,meend is one of the essences of the classical music and it is almost impossible to think about any kind of Indian music without it. The purists among the artists and musicologists of the classical music have always insisted that the best instrumental music is the one which produces the same effect of the raag as produced by the vocal music. So,if santoor could not produce the meend then it must be kept in the category of folk instruments. The fact that santoor is now not only a regular instrument in the Indian classical music,but also the most popular instrument among the aspiring artists,is due to the persistent efforts of Pandit Shivkumar Sharma. He made changes in the physical structure of the instrument in such a way that though it could not produce the meend,it produced greater resonance of the sound which,in turn,gave it continuity another essential character of vocal music. Apart from making the necessary changes in santoor,Pandit Sharma worked for decades mastering its technique and exploring the aesthetics of the Indian classical music before he was accepted as part of this.
