Santoor

Introduction:
The santoor is an Indian stringed musical instrument. It is related to the Indian shata-tantri veena of earlier times and has strong resemblances to the Persian santur. It is a trapezoid-shaped hammered dulcimer often made of walnut, with seventy strings. The special-shaped mallets (mezrab) are lightweight and are held between the index and middle fingers. A typical santoor has two sets of bridges, providing a range of three octaves.


The santoor is basically made out of wood. The framework is generally made out of either walnut or maple wood. The top and bottom boards sometimes can be either plywood or veneer. On the top board, also known as sound board, wooden bridges are placed, in order to seat stretched strings across. The strings are tied on nails or pins on the left side of the instrument and are stretched over the sound board on top of the bridges to the right side.
On the right side there are steel tuning pegs or tuning pins, as they are commonly known, that allows tuning each individual string to a desired musical note or a frequency or a pitch. The santoor is a unique Iranian string instrument that is not plucked or bowed but is played with a pair of light wooden mallets or hammers. The santoor is played while sitting in an asana called Ardha-padmasana position and placing it on top of the lap.
The santoor is a flat shaped instrument in the form of a trapezoid that means it is wider at one end and short at the other end. It is a wooden box that is broader in size for bass notes or low pitch notes and is tapered at the other side for the high-pitched notes. While playing, the broad side is closer to the waist of the musician and the shorter side is away from the musician. Both left and right hands are used to lightly strike the strikers on the strings. One can also choose to skillfully glide the strikers on the strings.
In any case, the santoor is a very delicate instrument and is very sensitive to such light strokes and glides. The strokes are played always on the strings either closer to the bridges or a little away from bridges. Both styles result in different tones. Sometimes strokes by one hand can be muffled by the other hand by using the face of the palm just to create variety.

 For more information and video on Santoor http://chandrakantha.com/articles/indian_music/santur.html

Learn Online :   http://www.santoori.com/santoor-lessons.html

Bansuri (Flute)

History:

The word bansuri originates in the Sanskrit bans [bamboo] + swar [musical note]. There are two varieties of bansuri: transverse, and fipple. The fipple flute is usually played in folk music and is held at the lips like a whistle. Because it enables superior control, variations and embellishments, the transverse variety is preferred in Indian classical music.

Playing:

Bansuris range in length from less than 12 inches (called muralis) up to about 40 inches (shankha bansuris). 20-inch bansuris are common. Another common and similar Indian flute played in South India is the venu, which is shorter in length and has 8 finger holes(This type of Indian flute is played by the famous Carnatic Musician Shashank Subramanyam). The index, middle, and ring fingers of both hands are usually used to finger the six hole bansuri. For the seven hole bansuri, the little finger (pinky) of the lower hand is usually employed .

For more articles on Bansuri please visit :http://www.bansuriflute.com/

Buy Bansuri:

you can purchase a bansuri from any music store or place an order online for this.

http://www.buckinghammusic.com/index.html 

http://bansuri-shop.wardhan.com/ 

Learn Bansuri: 

http://www.buckinghammusic.com/bansuri/bansuri.html

http://www.bansuriguru.com/

 

 

Harmonium (Baja)

Lets start our journey to know musical instruments from indian musical instruments first. First instrument is  Harmonium.

An Introduction:
A harmonium is a free-standing keyboard instrument similar to a reed organ. Sound is produced by air, supplied by foot-operated or hand-operated bellows, being blown through sets of free reeds, resulting in a sound similar to that of an accordion. There are also pumps used by your knees to give a sustaining sound.

History:
The harmonium was invented in Paris in the 1840s by Alexandre Debain, though there was concurrent development of similar instruments. Christian Gottlieb Kratzenstein (1723–1795), Professor of Physiology at Copenhagen, was credited with the first free-reed to be made in the western world after winning the annual prize in 1780 from the Imperial Academy of St.Petersburg.

Harmonium in India:
During the mid-19th century missionaries brought French-made hand-pumped harmoniums to India. The instrument quickly became popular there: it was portable, reliable and easy to learn. It has remained popular to the present day, and the harmonium remains an important instrument in many genres of Indian music. It is commonly found in Indian homes. Though derived from the designs developed in France, the harmonium was developed further in India in unique ways, such as the addition of drone stops and a scale changing mechanism.

source of Information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonium

Harmonium close up

A 1930 harmonium by Goldschmeding, from Holland

    
where to purchase:
Generally you can purchase Harmonium from any music instruments store . Except this you can purchase Harmonium online also from the comfort of your home. Here some online shops from where you can place an order to purchase the Harmonium.

http://batish.com/catalog/inst/Harmonium/                

http://www.binaswar.com/harmonium1.htm 

http://www.pakrashi-harmonium.com/ 

 Learn Harmonium:
To Learn Harmonium you can join any music classes or school.  Like...
http://www.indiaparenting.com/classes/hobby/dance/dance.shtml

http://www.tarang-classical-indian-music.com/indian_music_teachers_others_eng.htm

Some sites also give tips to learn Harmonium like...
Link1 

Link2 

Indian Musical Instruments

hii Friends,
Here is the list of some well known indian musical instruments. I will try to provide further details about each instrument best at my level.

Baja (Harmonium)	Manjeera, Manjira
Bansuri (Flute)	Mridangam
Bul Bul Tarang	Naal
Chimta (Tong)	Nadaswaram
Dhol (Bhangara Drum)	Nagaswaram
Dholak (folk Drum)	Pakhavaj
Dilruba (Bowed)	Santoor, Santur
Esraj (Bowed)	Sarod, Sarode
Ghungaru (Dance Bells)	Shankha
Harmonium	Shehnai, Shahnai
Khanjeera, Khanjira	Sitar
Khartal, Kartal	Surbahar
Shruti Box	Swarpeti, Surpeti
	Tabla
	Tanpura (Tambura, Tamboora)
	Tar Shehnai
	Vichitra (Vichiter) Veena

Musical Instruments - An Introduction

A musical instrument can be broadly defined as any device created or adapted for the purpose of making musical sounds. Once humans moved from making sounds with their bodies—for example, by clapping—to using objects to create music from sounds, musical instruments were born.

First of all History........

History

Scholars agree that there are no completely reliable methods of determining the exact chronology of musical instruments across cultures. Comparing and organizing instruments based on their complexity is misleading, since advancements in musical instruments have sometimes reduced complexity. For example, construction of early slit drums involved felling and hollowing out large trees; later slit drums were made by opening bamboo stalks, a much simpler task. It is likewise misleading to arrange the development of musical instruments by workmanship since all cultures advance at different levels and have access to different materials. For example, anthropologists attempting to compare musical instruments made by two cultures that existed at the same time but who differed in organization, culture, and handicraft cannot determine which instruments are more "primitive". Ordering instruments by geography is also partially unreliable, as one cannot determine when and how cultures contacted one another and shared knowledge.

Primitive and prehistoric

Until the 19th century AD, European written music histories began with mythological accounts of how musical instruments were invented. Such accounts included  Jubal, descendant of Cain and "father of all such as handle the harp and the organ", Pan inventor of the pan pipes, and Mercury, who is said to have made a dried tortoise shell into the first lyre. Modern histories have replaced such mythology with anthropological speculation, occasionally informed by archeological evidence. Scholars agree that there was no definitive "invention" of the musical instrument since the definition of the term "musical instrument" is completely subjective to both the scholar and the would-be inventor. For example, a Homo habilis slapping his body could be the makings of a musical instrument regardless of the being's intent.
Among the first devices external to the human body considered to be instruments are rattles, stampers, and various drums. These earliest instruments evolved due to the human motor impulse to add sound to emotional movements such as dancing. Eventually, some cultures assigned ritual functions to their musical instruments. Those cultures developed more complex percussion instruments and other instruments such as ribbon reeds, flutes, and trumpets. Some of these labels carry far different connotations from those used in modern day; early flutes and trumpets are so-labeled for their basic operation and function rather than any resemblance to modern instruments.Among early cultures for whom drums developed ritual, even sacred importance are the Chukchi people of the Russian Far East, the indigenous people of Melanesia, and many cultures of Africa. In fact, drums were pervasive throughout every African culture. One East African tribe, the Wahinda, believed it was so holy that seeing a drum would be fatal to any person other than the sultan. 

Two Aztec slit drums, called teponaztli. The characteristic "H" slits can be on the top of the drum in the foreground

 

Middle Ages

During the period of time loosely referred to as the Middle Ages, China developed a tradition of integrating musical influence obtained by either conquering foreign countries or by being conquered. The first record of this type of influence is in 384 AD, when China established an East Turkestanic orchestra in its imperial court after a conquest in Turkestan. Influences from India, Mongolia, and other countries followed. In fact, Chinese tradition attributes most musical instruments of the time to those countries Cymbals and gongs gained popularity, along with more advanced trumpets, clarinets, oboes, flutes, drums, and lutes.Some of the first bowed zithers appeared in China in the 9th or 10th century, influenced by Mongolian culture

                                                       Traditional indonesian instruments

 

 

Source of Article : http://en.wikipedia.org