ResearchResearchSince the end of 1993 I have been doing research on sarangi style with emphasis on the sarangi's relationship to vocal music. During this period I have done two and a half years of fieldwork in eighteen cities of North India. I have worked with around ninety sarangi players and created a unique video archive - 450 hours of sarangi players playing in their homes, talking about their lives and music, and living. My present doctoral work focusses on a small handful of the extraordinary people with whom I have worked. I intend to do a broader more ethnographic book on sarangi after 1999-2000 during which I will finish my thesis. I show compilations from my video archive in lectures on 'The Sarangi at Home' and 'Musical Childhoods' at conferences and universities.PhD Completed August 2001
Largely because I have been living with the instrument myself for twenty-seven years and my research is a labour of love, my meetings with sarangi players have been enormously successful. I have often strengthened relationships by repairing musicians' instruments for them ( a skill at which I have developed considerable expertise) and I have distributed eagerly sought-after and prohibitively expensive harp strings to all the players with whom I have worked. Until now these have only been available to "foreign-returned" players.
Another important aspect of my fieldwork and research has been to focus on the musical enculturation of children in the homes of hereditary musicians, observing the traditional teaching situation as well as the manner in which riyaz, musical practice, is integrated with day-to-day life.
I have also conducted an organological survey, taking detailed measurements of every sarangi I've come across and correlating aspects of sarangi construction and setting-up with elements of musical style.
The sarangi players with whom I have worked include:
In Delhi: Ghulam Sabir Qadri, Mohammad Ali Khan, Rafiq Ahmed Khan, Karamvalis Khan, Bharat Bushan Goswami, Hafizullah Khan, Bapu Lal, Gana Shyam, Shiv Sevak Mishra, Mohammad Jaffer Khan, Kul Bushan Goswami, Ghulam Sabir Khan, Siddiqi Ahmed Khan, Murad Ali Khan, Latif Ahmed Khan, Ghulam Mohammed, Feroz Khan, Dildar Hussain Khan, Inder Lal Dandra, Munir Khan, Sabri Khan, Asif Ali Khan
In Varanasi: Gopal Mishra, Hanuman Prasad Mishra, Zakan Khan, Baccha Lal Mishra, Santosh Mishra, Ganesh Mishra, Mahesh Mishra, Gopal Maharaj, Fayaz Khan, Chanda Khan, Hasu Khan, Sandeep and Sangit Mishra.
In Calcutta: Mahesh Prasad Mishra, Ram Keshor Mishra, Mehmood Khan, Aginu Sarkar, Roshan Ali Khan, Channu Khan, Amjad Khan, Pankaj Mishra, Shabir Hussain Khan.
In Bombay: Ram Narain, Sultan Khan, Liaqat Ali Khan, Dhruba Ghosh, Anand Kunthe, and Iqbal Ahmed Khan
In Jaipur: Ramzan Khan, Moinuddin Khan, Rafiq Ali Khan, Feroz Ali Khan.
In Lucknow: Mohammad Khan, Bahadur Khan, Bhagwan Das Mishra, Bhola Nath Mishra, Tarkeswar Mishra, Krishna Kumar Mishra, Vinod Kumar Mishra, Archana, Keshari Prasad Mishra.
In Bhopal: Abdul Latif Khan, Abdul Samad Khan, Nazar Hussain Khan, Rafiq Khan, Sarwar Hussain, Farukh Khan, Qadir Khan, Rasool Khan (Dabra), Hamid Khan (Nagpur), Bashir Khan (Gwalior)
In Dholpur: Badal Khan
In Jhansi: Dildar Khan, Wahid Khan
In Allahabad: Kanhaiyalal Mishra
In New York and London: Ramesh Mishra
In Indore: Daud Khan, Shankar Lal Barot
In Poona: Madhukar Karilakar
In Mirzapur: Maqbul Khan
In Mathura: Hari Babu Kaushik
In Agra: Ashiq Ali Khan
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Subjects:The Sarangi at Home
Musical Childhoods
The Sarangi (lecture-demonstration)