Sustainability and Materiality of Instruments
by Evie Samaha
ETHN212: Music and Ecology 2023
This display shows four South Asian string instruments: the vina, sarod, sitar, and sarangi. Next to each one is information regarding the materiality of the instrument, how it is played, its sound, and the social and historical context of the instrument.
I mention two woods specifically: teakwood for the sitar, and jack fruit wood for the vina. Neither of these woods are currently endangered. Several of the instruments involve parts made out of bone. It is unlikely that they are made of ivory due to their being brought overseas to Oberlin.
For the sarangi, I write that its gut strings cause it to be thought of as a lower class or lower caste instrument. Traditionally, high caste Hindus do not touch animal parts.
Music and Ecology is a class that explores connections between human music-making and the environment. This display offers information on instrument materiality. It is important to understand what makes up our instruments in order to work toward a more sustainable future.
Works Cited:
- Holroyde, Peggy, The Music of India, Praeger Publishers, Inc., 1972.
- Ruckert, George E., Music in North India. Oxford University Press, 2004.
- Wade, Bonnie C., Imaging Sound. The University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Vina
The vina (or veena) is a large plucked lute originating from South India. This particular instrument was purchased in Madurai by an Oberlin Shansi Association representative and was brought to Oberlin in the 1970s.
While the round body and smaller round vessel at the neck of this instrument resemble gourds, they are actually carved out of wood. In the Roderic C. Knight instrument database, the type of wood is not specified, though in Peggy Holroyde’s The Music of India, it is stated that usually the “gourds” are made of “natural wood from the jack-tree” (259), also called jack fruit wood. The instrument’s strings are steel, with brass frets embedded in wax. The bridge is made of brass.
The vina has four playing strings and three additional strings (chikari) at the left of the fingerboard. The four strings are plucked with the first two fingers with plectrums attached. The chikari are plucked with the little finger, also with a plectrum. The painted “gourd” at the neck acted as a resonator on earlier forms of the instrument, but this one serves as a stabilizer as the instrument rests on the ground. The vina can be played horizontally on the ground, or slightly raised with the stabilizing gourd on the left knee of a cross-legged musician.
Holroyde writes that “of all instrumental sound, that of the veena is said most closely to resemble the sound of the human voice” (258). Its lineage is ancient. “It is said to have evolved from the Egyptian lute (called a vena) 4000 years ago” (258). In Bonnie C. Wade’s Imaging Sound, she writes that the vina was also “an instrument associated with numerous Indian deities – Sarasvati and Parvati, for instance” (159). Unlike many other Indian string instruments, the vina is most often played by women.
Sarod
The sarod is a plucked lute with its roots in North India. This instrument was purchased used at a music store in Mumbai, according to the Roderic C. Knight instrument database.
The instrument is carved from a single piece of wood, the pegbox merging into the fingerboard merging into the body. The fingerboard is covered with metal, most likely steel according to descriptions in George E. Ruckert’s Music in North India. Animal hide stretches across the top of the round body. The sarod is fretless. There are twenty-five wire strings, all passing over a bone bridge. A brass resonator is attached at the top of the instrument’s neck.
A musician on the sarod plays ten of the twenty-five strings – four on the right side of the instrument are played by using the fingernail to stop the string against the fingerboard. The next six strings are chikari strings – four full length and two shorter, played with a plectrum. The remaining fifteen strings are called “sympathetic strings.” They are not played, instead they pass underneath the playing strings. They are there to add resonance to the instrument’s sound. The sarod is meant to be played with a plectrum made of a coconut shell, but the plectrum is missing from this particular instrument.
Holroyde describes the sarod’s sound as similar to a mandolin, with a “haunting resonance” (256). It sits “at the top of the pedestal of Hindustani classical music” because it has inherited the technique and literature of the vina while having its own distinct voice (Ruckert 70).
Sitar
The sitar, called a “sister instrument” to the sarod in Music in North India, is the most popular stringed instrument in North India (Holroyde 256). According to the Roderic C. Knight database, the instrument was purchased for the college by Hasu Patel. No further information is given about the acquisition.
The body of the sitar is made out of a gourd, and the neck and sound-table are made out of wood. Holroyde writes that most sitars are made out of teakwood (256), so one can assume that is true for this instrument. Four playing strings and three chikari strings pass over a bone (or what was historically ivory) bridge. Thirteen sympathetic strings run under the playing strings and pass over a small bridge of their own. Fourteen moveable brass frets allow the sitar to be tuned to the raga being performed. This sitar is elaborated decorated with complex bone inlays and carvings of floral designs on its sound table and back.
The main strings of the instrument are played with a wire plectrum attached to the index finger of the right hand. “This plectrum is a piece of wire twisted three-dimensionally to facilitate the intricate motions of the finger” (Holroyde 256). Unfortunately the plectrum is missing on this sitar in Oberlin’s collection. Occasionally, the sympathetic strings are plucked with the little finger of the musician’s right hand, which is often “bleeding at the end of a long performance” (Holroyde 256).
The sitar has a recognizable, distinctive sound, and for many symbolizes the music of North India (Ruckert 70). In its past (and perhaps the present, too) it served as a parlor instrument in rising middle-class households – a symbol of culture and cultivation (70).
Sarangi
The sarangi is a bowed string instrument often used as accompaniment for vocal performance. This instrument was purchased from a music store in Mumbai according to the Roderic C. Knight database.
The body, neck, and pegbox are all carved from a single piece of wood. The sound table is made of animal hide (possibly goat) stretched tight over the surface. There are three thick gut strings running from the pegs to pass over the bone bridge at the base of the instrument. (One peg is there as a spare). Underneath the gut strings are a whopping thirty-four sympathetic strings made of steel wire. A straight stick bow is fitted with black horsehair. Like the other instruments in this display, the sarangi is beautifully decorated with bone inlays and carvings.
The sarangi slightly resembles a fiddle, but is held upright in the musician’s lap. Using a palm-up technique, the player plays the gut strings with their bow. The fingers of the left hand slide up and down the side of the strings, not pressing them against the fingerboard. The sound reverberates with that of the sympathetic strings. “The vibration communicates between the upper layer of played strings and this lower level, either in unison or an octave apart” (Holroyde 258).
The sarangi’s tone is wide-ranging, sounding “sometimes like an Irish jig, sometimes deeply mellow like the violin.” It has been used specifically for vocal singing because of its ability to echo the human voice (Holroyde 257). But the instrument is sometimes regarded as being “for a lower class of musician” due to its role as accompaniment and because of its gut-strings (Ruckert 76).
