# Learn Sarangi

A beginner's room for the **Nepali sarangi** (नेपाली सारङ्गी) — the four-stringed
bowed fiddle of the Gandharba, carved from a single block of wood.

Live: <https://bikashacharya.com/sarangi/> · part of
[Sangeet Yatra](https://bikashacharya.com/)

## What makes this instrument what it is

- **Four strings, and two of them are a drone.** The middle pair is tuned in unison
  to Sa and bowed along with the melody, so the tonic never stops sounding. A
  Gandharba playing alone on a hill road had no accompanist, and that constant Sa is
  what filled the space.
- **No frets.** Every note is found by ear against the drone. There is no fingering
  chart, and there cannot really be one: the instrument is not standardised, and each
  player tunes it to their own singing voice.
- **Sliding is not decoration.** With nothing to stop the finger, the hand travels
  through every pitch between two notes anyway. Meend is how the instrument gets
  around, and it is why the sarangi became the instrument for accompanying singers.

## Not the other sarangi

Most writing about "the sarangi" is about the **Hindustani classical** instrument:
three gut playing strings, stopped with the fingernails, over some thirty-five
sympathetic *tarab* that ring on their own. That is a cousin, not a larger version of
this. The Nepali sarangi has no sympathetic strings at all. See
[`anatomy.html#cousin`](anatomy.html#cousin).

## Contents

**Start here** — [Choose a sarangi](choose.html) ·
[Parts](anatomy.html) · [Hold & bow grip](hold.html) ·
[Your first sound](first-sound.html) · [Tuning](tuning.html) ·
[The left hand](left-hand.html) · [Practice routine](routine.html)

**The sound** — [The drone pair](drone.html) · [Bowing](bowing.html) ·
[Where the notes lie](swaras.html) · [Paltas](alankars.html)

**Playing Nepali music** — [Meend](meend.html) · [Ornaments](ornaments.html) ·
[Jhyaure & the madal](rhythms.html) · [Folk tunes](songs.html)

**Story** — [The Gandharba](gandharba.html) · [Players](players.html) ·
[Listen](listen.html)

**More** — [Resources](resources.html)

## Honest limits

- **Every sound here is synthesised.** There are no sarangi samples. The audio is
  accurate about pitch, interval and gesture; it is not the tone of gut strings over
  a goatskin head. Use it as a reference and listen to real players.
- **Very few transcriptions.** This tradition has no notation and folk tunes have no
  authoritative version. Resham Firiri is written out because two independent sources
  agree on it; the rest of [Folk tunes](songs.html) is studies in the idiom, labelled
  as such, plus a list to learn by ear.
- **Karkha is barely represented**, because it is barely documented. The heroic ballad
  repertoire that matters most is disappearing with the men who hold it.

Full source list and further reading: [Resources](resources.html).

## Getting started for real

[Project Sarangi](https://projectsarangi.com/) in Kathmandu teaches the instrument at
four levels and builds consistent, playable instruments — the single most useful
thing to know if you actually want to learn this. Buying from Gandharba makers is
the best use of your money.

## Local development

From the repository root:

```sh
python3 scripts/serve_site.py     # http://localhost:8766/sarangi/
```

Before committing:

```sh
python3 scripts/check_links.py
python3 scripts/check_nav.py
python3 scripts/check_practice_bar_wiring.py
python3 scripts/strip_css_shell.py --check
```

Implementation notes, including the two things in this room that are easy to break,
are in [`AGENTS.md`](AGENTS.md).