South Asia · India

The
Sarangi

A bowed fiddle with a forest of sympathetic strings, said to come nearer the human singing voice than any other instrument.

ForGriefMoodAching · bowed · vocal

India

Sarangi

Quick answer

The sarangi is a short bowed lute carved from a single block of wood, with three thick gut playing strings and a large bank of sympathetic strings resonating behind them. Notes are stopped with the fingernails rather than the fingertips, sliding along the string, which is why it follows the human voice more closely than any other instrument in Hindustani music. It is traditionally the accompanist to khyal singing, and it aches.

Drawn to the North Indian sarangi?From listening to playing ↓

01 · Origins

The voice's shadow

The sarangi is the great bowed instrument of North Indian classical music, and for centuries it was the favoured accompaniment to vocalists — partly because it can shadow a singer so closely. It is a short, heavy, gut-strung fiddle, played not with the fingertips but with the nails and cuticles sliding along the strings. Behind its three or four main strings hang as many as thirty-five or forty sympathetic strings, which give the instrument its weeping, resonant halo and its reputation as the hardest of all to master.

02 · The voice

Aching, sliding, resonant

To play the sarangi is to slide constantly, the fingernails dragging along gut strings to find each pitch, so the instrument bends and aches the way a voice does. The sympathetic strings ring behind every note, thickening the sound into something that seems to grieve. Like much of this music it is built on the raga, and in slow performance it becomes almost unbearably expressive — not depicting sorrow but seeming to sound from inside it. It is one of the most directly emotional voices in this whole atlas.

Watch the tradition

Watch the sarangi grieve

The sarangi makes sense when you see the nails sliding along the strings and hear the wall of sympathetic resonance behind them.

ASIAN MUSIC CIRCUIT

Ram Narayan - sarangi

A performance that shows the sarangi's sliding fingerwork and its vocal, aching tone.

Music Today

Raga Marwa - Pandit Ram Narayan (Album: Maestro's Choice) | Music Today

A second performance, useful for hearing the instrument from another angle.

A listening guide

What to listen for

Constant sliding — the nails dragging along gut strings to find each note

The thick, resonant halo of dozens of sympathetic strings

How closely the instrument shadows the contours of a singing voice

The aching quality of a slow raga unfolding

The grain of bow on gut, never smoothed away

From the listener to the player

If the sarangi pulled you in

A real sarangi is a specialist instrument. Begin by listening closely, then find the real thing when the sound has truly stayed with you.

To hear it

$95

Philips SHP9500

The sarangi's grief lives in its sympathetic-string halo and the grain of the bow — headphones keep what laptop speakers throw away.

Buy on Amazon

A real sarangi

The sarangi is notoriously hard to find well-made. Reverb's specialist sellers are the place to look.

Shop on Reverb →

Headphones & speakers — what to listen on →

Affiliate links

These are honest recommendations — the ones we’d point a friend toward. As an Amazon Associate, SlowHum earns from qualifying purchases; we may also earn from other links. It costs you nothing extra. Amazon prices are from our last check and change often. Full disclosure.

Common questions

Questions people ask about the sarangi

Why is the sarangi described as the closest instrument to the human voice?

It is fretless and stopped with sliding fingernails, so it can move between pitches continuously, and it was developed specifically to shadow singers. Its ornaments are imitations of vocal ornaments.

How many strings does a sarangi have?

Three gut strings are bowed, and behind them run a large number of sympathetic strings — commonly in the mid-thirties, though it varies by instrument — which are never touched and ring on their own.

Why is it considered so difficult?

The player stops the strings with the sides of the fingernails against thick gut, with no frets and no markers. Intonation is unforgiving and the technique is hard on the hands, which is one reason the instrument became rare.

A SlowHum sarangi piece is in the making.

We're composing a thirty-minute piece for this tradition. Subscribe to be first — and watch the performances above in the meantime.

Subscribe on YouTube

Free · No email required