The Rules of Accompaniment…

... and the new bells and whistles of Indian classical music

THE NEXT TIME you go for a concert, try to sneak into the green room. Chances are you’ll spot a bunch of foreigners, all disci-ples, twiddling their thumbs, waiting to grab the tamboori, an instrument that accompanies the lead artist. Gone are the days of Ustad Amir Khan Sahib or the Dagars when a mere sarangi or a tanpura was enough to es-tablish the nishad or the rishabh. Now the ideais:Themore thenumberofac-companying instruments, the better.

Tanpuri or tamboori, the miniature versionof thegrandoldtanpura, isright now the hottest selling accompanying stringed instrument. Its USP—the miniature look and circular sound pat-tern— is a big hit with westerners. No wonder it is nowa must-have with any globetrotting non-percussionist. And it’s not just this instrument. The swar-manadal (based on the western harp), the swarpeti (a simpler cousin of the harmonium used in Marathi music) and the swarsangam (a combination of the swarmandal and the tanpura) have become very popular in recent times.

Accompanying instruments are be-coming dearer to music lovers—they are easiertocarryin aircargosandthey do whip up the arty look during a per-formance. SaysAjay ofthefamousmu-sical instruments’ manufacturers,Riki-ram and Sons: “Conventional tanpuras aren’t selling much now. I have about eight unfinished pieces lying in my workshop. I doubt they will sell.” As for the swarmandal, “even those without any tuning skills are carrying it in the west these days, just for the sound and thelook,”smirksAjay.

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Some vocalists like Pt Jasraj now even use just one tanpura, instead of the conventional two, to accommo- date the tamboori. Says Durga Jasraj, his daughter and accompanist: “It gives an awesome resonance.”

But the swarsangam is a real piece of artistry—a flat, vertical block of hollow wood, the height of a sarangi. Pt Rajan and Sajan Mishra use it on foreign tours, though they don’t use it in home concerts: “It’s a really convenient in-strument. However, it’s only an add-on.

Nothing can replace the tanpura.” The swarpeti is increasingly becom-ing popular in France with aspiring Dhrupad singers as “they offer mono-chords suited for the form”. But with hardly any young Indian musician picking up the sarangi (the westerners run from it, they don’t like spoiling their nails), this difficult instrument has a lowclientele.Though people like Fakruddin Dhaulpuri, the rising sarangi star, are optimistic. “You wait and watch how it catches up. People like Ustad Rashid Khan, Pt L.K. Pandit and Begum Parvin Sultana are tire-lessly promoting the sarangi culture.”

Bonsais are handsome, but can never stand tall. Here’s hoping the miniatures remain a mere on-stage in-dulgence in times to come, because that’s all they can really hold.