Making music with 100 strings

The santoor-veena jugalbandi

The Saraswati veena epitomises India’s ancient classical music while the santoor is inextricably linked to the folk tradition of Kashmir. Bringing these two instruments together on stage could be a novel idea. The U.S.-based vainika Nirmala Rajasekar and Kolkata-based santoor artiste Sandip Chatterjee attempted this rare jugalbandi recently in India before embarking on their current America tour. Together they make music with 100 strings — santoor’s 93 (Sandip removed seven strings from the 100-stringed instrument) and veena’s seven strings. 

Nirmala, a ninth generation veena exponent, shared how exciting this musical association is. Apparently, the veena and the santoor came together earlier in a concert by Kannan Balakrishnan and Bhajan Sopori, organised by Sangeet Natak Akademi.    

Nirmala and Sandip performed in Delhi, accompanied on the tabla by Ramdas Palsule and on the mridangam by Thanjavur K Muruga Bhupathi. The concert had been structured with care to showcase the distinctness of the instruments and their ability to create a musical confluence. Since there are many ragas common to Hindustani and Carnatic systems, the jugalbandi was a smooth exercise.

While Nirmala chose to play an ode to Ganesh ‘Gam Ganapathe’, which she sang too (it sometimes diverted the focus on the instrument) with the mridangam enhancing the melody with rhythmic support, Sandip presented a different ‘gat’ in Hamsadhwani, ably accompanied by crisp tabla bols of Ramdas Palsule.    

Acoustically speaking, the bass sound of the veena is in total contrast to the light fluttery sound of the santoor. Also, the level of movement and dexterity in the santoor is difficult on the veena but the movement within notes possible on the veena is unachievable on the santoor, or ‘shatatantra’ veena as Nirmala prefers to call it. However both used these aspects to complement each other’s playing. 

Sandip said, “My santoor is usually tuned to ‘D’, but I had to change my pitch to play in ‘E’. ” Nirmala explained that her veena had been made shorter so that she could travel with ease. As a result, it can not be tuned lower than ‘E’. Sandip shared “instead of re-tuning the santoor to a pitch where it may not resonate well (each instrument sounds best at a certain pitch), I changed my scale and made ‘Re’ my ‘Sa’. This is difficult to sustain in a long concert but I like challenging myself.”   

Sandip’s santoor playing is unusual. He plays with one mallet, unlike the norm where both hands hold mallets to skim on the notes. “I try to emulate Ustad Vilayat Khan saheb’s handling of the ‘tarab’ (sympathetic) strings. I use just one mallet, and with the other hand pluck the ‘tarab’ wires, it sounds beautiful. My instrument has only two ‘tarabs’, I removed the other two since it resonated too much. In music, it’s not hard to find a meeting point,” said Sandip.