Why does a sarod sound different from a sitar?

The sarod has no frets, a goatskin belly instead of a wooden top, and a steel fingerboard that most players today stop with a fingernail. Its tone is often described as deeper and weightier than the sitar's, and its sympathetic strings are fewer and less prominent in the sound.

Why doesn't the sarod have frets?

Its fingerboard is a smooth metal plate, which replaced the frets of the rubab it grew from. Without frets the player can slide a stopped note continuously from one pitch to another, the glide called meend. Amjad Ali Khan has said he can slide over seven notes or more on a sarod, against three or four by pulling a sitar string sideways.

How many strings does a sarod have?

Usually between 17 and 25. A common layout is four melody strings, one or two drone strings, two chikari strings that mark the rhythm, and about 11 to 15 sympathetic strings. The larger Maihar-style sarod usually has 25: four melody, four drone, two chikari and 15 sympathetic. Counts vary by maker and school.

What is a sarod made of?

Usually a body carved from teak or a similar wood, a goatskin glued over the bowl, a chrome- or nickel-plated steel fingerboard, a bone or horn bridge, steel and bronze strings, and a plectrum of coconut shell. The Maihar-style sarod, and some others, also have a metal bowl, usually brass, behind the pegbox.

Do sarod players use their fingernails?

Most do today. One school stops the strings with the fingertips, the other with the fingernails, and some players use nail and fingertip together. The nail method is now much the more common; it gives a clear, ringing tone but is hard to learn. Amjad Ali Khan has said he never cuts the two nails he plays with and files them after every concert, because the strings wear little grooves into them.

Where does the sarod come from?

Most sources trace it to the Afghan rubab, a fretted lute with a skin top and gut strings, though scholars also point to other Indian ancestors. In the mid-1800s, rubab players in India fitted a metal plate over the fingerboard and changed to metal strings, which gave longer-lasting notes. Which musician or family did this first is still disputed.

Play it yourself

Sarod

A sarod has no frets, only a smooth steel plate. Press it anywhere and strike with the java; keep your finger down and slide, and the note glides with you.

open ‘Sa’263 Hz Nothing playing yet. Press the steel plate or tap Strike. Eight notes are recorded from a performance by Uma Guha. Six of them also sit on the steel plate; low Pa and low Ni do not. Any other pitch is pitch-shifted in your browser.

Eight notes from one performance: Uma Guha playing Raga Sri, 1995, each cut from a single stroke. In this recording her komal ‘Dha’ comes only inside slides, and her middle ‘Ni’ only struck together with upper ‘Sa’, so they are left out rather than faked. The dots show where each note would sit on the string; the recording does not show which string she used.

Play on the steel plate · tap any other part to look inside

Press and slide Strike here

The vibrating stretch: motion slowed more than a hundred times.Drawing: a Maihar-style sarod with 25 strings, modelled on photos; not Uma Guha’s own instrument.

Turned upright to fit your phone. Players hold the sarod nearly level across the lap.

Gold: her recorded notes. Hollow: notes with no clean single stroke in her recording, pitch-shifted from her nearest note.

Each mark is where that note would sit on the ‘Sa’ string. Positions drawn for an ideal string; the recording does not show which string she used.

The vibrating stretch: motion slowed more than a hundred times.

Drawing: a Maihar-style sarod with 25 strings, modelled on photos; not Uma Guha’s own instrument.

Left and Right arrows move to the previous or next marked note. Hold Shift with an arrow to slide. Space strikes. 0 lifts your finger for the open string.

Your line

your fingerher slide, measured

The pitch your finger sets over the last 4 seconds (worked out from the nail’s position). Her slide appears in gold when you play it; hers is measured from the recording.

Try these

Strike the open string: that is ‘Sa’.
Find ‘Pa’, about a third of the way from the nut to the bridge.
Strike ‘Ga’, keep your finger down and slide toward the nut to komal ‘Re’. Then hear her do it.
Turn on the frets and try the same slide.
Strike ‘Sa’ and slide all the way to ‘Pa’. Amjad Ali Khan says a sarod player can slide over seven notes or more. Her recorded slides are shorter, and the further you slide here, the further the recording is shifted, so a long slide sounds thinner than hers would.

Hear Uma Guha play it

Questions

Sources

Recording: “Raga Sri (a Twilight Raga)” by Uma Guha (sarod; recorded by Deb Roy), Internet Archive, CC BY 4.0 (official upload: archive.org/details/RTFM-Fair). Cut into notes and short passages, filtered to remove traffic rumble, loudness evened out; slowed copies prepared with Rubber Band where marked; pitch-shifted in your browser where marked. Clips used here: ‘Sa’ at 0:09, komal ‘Re’ at 0:04, ‘Ga’ at 2:35, tivra ‘Ma’ at 2:42, ‘Pa’ at 4:48, upper komal ‘Re’ at 5:31, upper ‘Sa’ at 5:34, a 16-second passage at 2:32 (her slide is its last 1.7 s), fast strokes at 10:50, a stroke with other strings ringing on at 4:55, and two of her slides slowed to half speed (from 2:39 and 2:46).

Drawing modelled on photos by Allauddin (CC BY-SA 3.0), Ramesh lalwani (CC BY-SA 4.0), Jean-Pierre Dalbéra (CC BY 2.0), Tim Regan (CC BY 2.0), Notnarayan (CC BY-SA 3.0), Alexkom000 (CC BY 4.0), Bhnupur (CC BY-SA 4.0), Daderot (CC0), The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CC0) and a public-domain photo of Ali Akbar Khan, on Wikimedia Commons, and on the Grinnell College Musical Instrument Collection’s description of a sarod. Also used: a photo of a java by Notnarayan (CC BY-SA 3.0), a second sarod photographed by Jean-Pierre Dalbéra (CC BY 2.0) and a second view of the Met’s sarod (CC0).

Recording: “sarod riff1.aif” by bluedotproductions, Freesound, CC0 1.0: a different sarod and player, used in “How long a note lasts”. Trimmed and filtered.

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Play it yourself

Sarod

A sarod has no frets, only a smooth steel plate. Press it anywhere and strike with the java; keep your finger down and slide, and the note glides with you.

Play on the steel plate · tap any other part to look inside

Press and slide Strike here

The vibrating stretch: motion slowed more than a hundred times.Drawing: a Maihar-style sarod with 25 strings, modelled on photos; not Uma Guha’s own instrument.

Turned upright to fit your phone. Players hold the sarod nearly level across the lap.

Gold: her recorded notes. Hollow: notes with no clean single stroke in her recording, pitch-shifted from her nearest note.

Each mark is where that note would sit on the ‘Sa’ string. Positions drawn for an ideal string; the recording does not show which string she used.

The vibrating stretch: motion slowed more than a hundred times.

Drawing: a Maihar-style sarod with 25 strings, modelled on photos; not Uma Guha’s own instrument.

Left and Right arrows move to the previous or next marked note. Hold Shift with an arrow to slide. Space strikes. 0 lifts your finger for the open string.

Your line

your fingerher slide, measured

The pitch your finger sets over the last 4 seconds (worked out from the nail’s position). Her slide appears in gold when you play it; hers is measured from the recording.

Try these

Strike the open string: that is ‘Sa’.
Find ‘Pa’, about a third of the way from the nut to the bridge.
Strike ‘Ga’, keep your finger down and slide toward the nut to komal ‘Re’. Then hear her do it.
Turn on the frets and try the same slide.
Strike ‘Sa’ and slide all the way to ‘Pa’. Amjad Ali Khan says a sarod player can slide over seven notes or more. Her recorded slides are shorter, and the further you slide here, the further the recording is shifted, so a long slide sounds thinner than hers would.

Hear Uma Guha play it

Questions

Sources

Recording: “sarod riff1.aif” by bluedotproductions, Freesound, CC0 1.0: a different sarod and player, used in “How long a note lasts”. Trimmed and filtered.

Hear it live

6 upcoming sarod concerts Sarod gharanas and styles

More instruments

Plucked strings