Hindustani Instrumental

The instrumental tradition of Hindustani music has ancient antecedents: the veena is mentioned in the Rigveda, and percussion and wind instruments are documented throughout Indian history. However, the systematic application of the raga and tala grammar to instrumental performance in its current form developed through the Mughal period.

The sitar's name derives from the Persian sehtar (three-stringed instrument), though the design may reflect older Indian plucked lutes. It was refined through the 18th and 19th centuries, with the major development of sympathetic strings that give the modern instrument its characteristic resonance. The sarod descended from the Afghan rabab and was adapted in India with a fretless metal fingerboard, enabling the gliding ornaments (meend) central to Hindustani expression. The bansuri (bamboo flute) has ancient origins but was developed as a serious classical instrument primarily in the 20th century by Pannalal Ghosh and later Hariprasad Chaurasia.

The critical moment in the instrumental tradition's development was the Maihar gharana, established by the multi-instrumentalist Allauddin Khan (c. 1862-1972), who trained both his son Ali Akbar Khan (sarod) and his student Ravi Shankar (sitar). Both became the most internationally recognised Indian classical musicians of the 20th century, and their joint recordings and international concerts created the global audience for Hindustani instrumental music that persists today.

Hindustani instrumental music follows the same concert structure as Khayal: an opening alap (unmetered raga exploration), followed by jod and jhala (progressively rhythmically engaged passages), and then the gat (a composed piece in a specific tala, accompanied by tabla). The depth of raga elaboration possible in a full instrumental performance rivals the best Khayal, and the absence of words frees the musician to explore melodic ideas that the constraints of text would prevent.

Each instrument brings distinct possibilities. The sitar's long neck allows wide pitch range and fast taan passages; its sympathetic strings create a halo of resonance around each note. The sarod's metal fingerboard allows slides of great expressiveness but requires complete technical control. The bansuri's breath control creates melodic phrases with an intimate, almost vocal quality. The sarangi, primarily an accompaniment instrument, is also a solo form of considerable expressiveness.

The tabla is the universal accompaniment instrument, but different tabla gharanas have developed distinct conversation styles with different solo instruments. The relationship between the soloist and the tabla player in a great Hindustani instrumental performance is a real-time compositional dialogue.

The gharana system structures the instrumental tradition as it does the vocal. The Maihar gharana, through Allauddin Khan's students, produced the most internationally prominent instrumental tradition of the 20th century. The Etawah gharana (sitar) traces to Imdad Khan and includes Vilayat Khan and Imrat Khan. The Senia tradition (descended from Tansen) includes the been (rudra veena) and the rabab traditions. The Bishnupur gharana in Bengal has a distinct sitar-based tradition.

The tabla accompaniment tradition has its own gharana structure: the Delhi, Ajrada, Lucknow, Banaras, Punjab and Farrukhabad gharanas each have distinct approaches to accompaniment and solo performance. Zakir Hussain, son of Alla Rakha (the tabla player who accompanied Ravi Shankar through his career), is the most celebrated tabla player of the contemporary era.

Ravi Shankar's film scores, including Pather Panchali (1955) and its sequels for Satyajit Ray, are among the most celebrated intersections of Hindustani instrumental music and cinema. His score used raga structures and instrumental textures to create atmospheric landscapes rather than conventional film music. In Hindi cinema, the sarangi has historically provided the principal melodic colour in background scores, while the sitar and bansuri appear as solo instruments in romantic and contemplative sequences. Shivkumar Sharma's santoor features prominently in several major Hindi film scores.

Hindustani instrumental music has the broadest international reach of any Indian classical tradition, built principally through Ravi Shankar's six-decade international career and Ali Akbar Khan's Ali Akbar College of Music in California (established 1967). Zakir Hussain's tabla collaborations with artists from John McLaughlin (Shakti) to Charles Lloyd have sustained international interest in the form. Digital streaming has made archival recordings of Ravi Shankar, Vilayat Khan and Bismillah Khan widely accessible. Younger instrumentalists including Anoushka Shankar, Amaan Ali Bangash and Ayaan Ali Bangash have maintained the international concert circuit while building large social media audiences.

Hindustani instrumental music has no single geographic centre in the way that Khayal has Varanasi and Lucknow, or Carnatic music has Chennai. Calcutta was historically important through the Bishnupur tradition and the ITC Sangeet Research Academy; Delhi has become the most significant city for teaching and institutional development; Mumbai's recording industry shaped the form's 20th-century commercial development. Pune's Sawai Gandharva Bhimsen Mahotsav is the most important annual festival that includes instrumental soloists alongside vocalists.

International presence is exceptional relative to other Indian classical forms. The sitar's association with the Beatles (George Harrison studied with Ravi Shankar) brought it to a global audience in the mid-1960s that has never fully disappeared. The Ravi Shankar Foundation, the Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael California, and dozens of institutions in Europe, the United States and Australia offer systematic training in Hindustani instruments.

Hindustani Instrumental connects on the Atlas graph to the Dhrupad artform profile (through the rudra veena and the senia tradition), the Hindustani Khayal profile (the vocal tradition from which instrumental conventions derive), and to festival profiles including Dover Lane Music Conference, Sawai Gandharva Bhimsen Mahotsav and Saptak Music Festival. The form's score of 8.8 reflects its depth, historical breadth and global reach. The primary gap in the Atlas's current documentation is the tabla tradition as a distinct artform: the instrument deserves its own profile given its compositional depth, its distinct gharana system and its position as the primary percussion partner to all Hindustani music.