About a musical instrument used for a Nepalese classical music
Saroud
In the age of God, it is said that his son Brahma was taught Saroud and
likewise his daugher was taught sitar. Formally, sitar is said to be the
women's instrument and saroud a men's insturment.
Saroud is made up from sandal woods. A single block is used to crave the
body of the instrument and then, it is covered with the skin of goat. It
has 6 main strings and 2 other. There are other 15 strings underneath the
upper main strings. These strings are tuned to a certain scale which vibrates
when played on the main strings, giving a kind of echo. It is played by
using the nail of the left fingers. There are no frets so, to make harmony
in this classical instrument is very hard.
Jal Tarang
It is made up of 21 differently sized special bowls filled with water for
various musical notes. And it is played by holding bamboo sticks in both
hands, then striking the bowls to create the desired harmony. This rare
instrument has been in China from ancient times but they play it without
using water.
Late Maestro and the teacher of Mr. Mohan, Ganesh Lal Shrestha was the
first to play the instrument with water. This special technique was passed
on to Mr. Mohan by him. Rare musical instrument 'Jal Tarang' needs to be
tuned into a different musical scale by regulating the quantity of water.
This is very hard as even one drop can alter the sound.
Eshraj
Rabindranath Tagore, a great British Indian poet, used eshraj in many of his songs. This brought fame to the instrument.
The body of the eshraj is carved from sandal wood just like saroud. It
has 19 strings among which 4 are main strings and are played by using a
bow. The other strings, like in saroud, gets vibrated when the note on
which it is tuned is played on the main strings.
Eshraj can be seen played with the combination of other classical instrument
but it is played without them too.
