From theory — Eastern theory · Ornaments. Why the space between two swaras is part of the music.

Meend

A slide from one note to another without stopping the bow. On a piano the notes in between do not exist. On a sarangi they are most of what you are playing.

Not an ornament

It is tempting to file meend under decoration — the notes are the music and the slide is the icing. On this instrument that is backwards. There are no frets, no keys and no holes, so the hand has to travel through every pitch between two notes anyway. The only question is whether you control the journey or hide it.

Which is exactly why the sarangi became the instrument for accompanying singers. A voice does not jump between notes either. Slide, and you sound like a voice; separate every note cleanly, and you sound like a keyboard imitating one.

The same five notes, twice

First version: one bow, the hand sliding. Second: five bows, five notes. Identical pitches, and only one of them sounds like the instrument.

Hear the space between

Drag slowly from Sa to Pa. Everything you pass through is a real pitch that a sarangi can play and hold.

Sa
SaPa

With the drone on you can hear which points in the slide are consonant and which are unstable. That map of stable and unstable places is what a raga or a folk mode really is, and a sliding instrument shows it to you directly.

How to play one

  1. Start the note and keep the bow going. The bow does not stop, slow down or change direction during a meend. If it does, you have played two notes.
  2. Move the finger, keep the contact. The finger stays on the string the whole way. Light pressure — see The left hand — is what makes this possible.
  3. Move at an even speed. An even slide covers even semitones, so the middle of the slide should be the middle of the interval. Most beginners rush the start and crawl into the arrival.
  4. Land, and stop. The arrival has to be exactly in tune and it has to be still. A meend that keeps creeping past the target sounds like a mistake, because it is one.
Both notes must be on the same string. You cannot slide across a string change. So the moment a phrase contains a meend, that decides which string the whole phrase is played on — which is why fingering choices on this instrument are made phrase by phrase and not note by note. See Which string for which notes.

Short, long and returning

A step

One note to its neighbour. The smallest useful meend, and the one that appears constantly — a folk melody rarely steps cleanly when it can lean.

A leap

Sa to Pa is a fifth — a long way for a finger with nothing to aim at. Practise the arrival on its own before practising the slide.

Out and back

Leave a note, reach another, return — all on one bow, without the bow ever telling you where the notes were. This is the gesture that makes a phrase sound sung rather than played.

Practising it

  1. Drone on. Bow Sa on the thick string, held.
  2. Slide up to Re and stop. Check Re against the drone. Slide back.
  3. Ten times, then Sa to Ga, then Sa to Ma, then Sa to Pa.
  4. Then the reverse: start high and slide down. Descending is harder — the hand has less to brace against.
Sing it first. Slide the note with your voice, then copy your voice with the instrument. The voice already knows how to do this and the hand does not.

Next

Ornaments