Sarangi Players in 2024
As of April 2024, I am initiating this section of videos of contemporary sarangiyas, mostly young, in order to give a glimpse, all in one place, of the state of sarangi today. The tradition is alive and well, but it often suffers from a lack of exposure to vocal music due to the steady erosion of the sarangi's role as an accompaniment instrument. While some of these players remain serious about classical music, several have been driven towards fusion and film music either by their own enthusiasm for cheap thrills or by necessity. Few players can still make a living as sarangi accompanists.
Sarangi players have traditionally faced criticism from the wider musical community for their less-than-perfect knowledge of rags. In the old days this was often a function of their rxtraordinary eclecticism. A busy sarangi accompanist was exposed to diverse versions of each rag and had to find his own path through the woods. And in many sarangi families, teaching emphasised technique, but rag knowledge tended to come from passive exposure. However nowadays, because of lack of exposure to vocal music, in comparison to their predecessors, sarangiyas are often afflicted by a considerably more sketchy knowledge of rags. Nothing is being hidden—an almost infinite amount of Hindustani music is available on the internet, and they areat liberty to listen and understand more. But their traditionally cloistered existence conspires with alienation, economic insecurity and musical myopia to militate against their listening more.
It is important to note that in the case of these artists, their proliferation on the internet and social media does not usually correlate with their skill or seriousness as sarangi players. So if there is a shortage of videos for certain artists, it does not mean that they are less interesting or less masterful than others—more likely that they are just less involved in playing the game of pop success—less internet-savvy. Another consideration is that several sarangi players have only uploaded very short clips of their music. This might be because of a lack of broadband resourses, or not wanting to take the time, or embarrassment about their complate performances, or just because pop and filmy pieces naturallydemand a shorter format. In this case I have uploaded more examples.
Here I have tried to give an unprejudiced summary of what's going on in the sarangi world today. The majority of sarangi.net focuses on the sarangi world of thirty years ago. If we consider the audio sections of the site, there is fine sarangi music going back a hundred years. I encourage listeners to isten to everything and make up their own minds.
Takedown policy: These videos have been harvested from elsewhere on the internet. If anyone objects to their display here, please let me know via the Contact form on this site.
The first five pages listed here are about old friends who i have known since the 90s. So these are duplicates of their pages on the main site. Naturally their pages begin with standard-definition videos from 25-30 years ago. There are several more contemporary sarangiyas that should be included here. Please be patient. They will come!
