India has produced several talented harmonium artistes, some of whom have really worked on the instrument to make it suit Indian classical music.
But, I still don’t like the sound. It feels intrusive and jarring and I feel it hasn’t adapted as well to Hindustani vocal music as the violin has to Carnatic vocal music. We have a harmonium at home and it was used and I am probably going to nick it, but my parents felt the sarangi sounded much better as an accompanying instrument, and I have inherited that prejudice. Since I have not inherited several other parental prejudices and have indeed sometimes gone out of the way to like things the parents don’t like -I tried very hard to get my ears to accept the harmonium in a Hindustani vocal concert, but they just would not accept it, or at least not in the same way they would accept a sarangi or a violin.

The problem with the sarangi-it was often played by DD and AIR when someone of importance died, and thus people associated it with mourning. This is a huge pity. Secondly, there aren’t very many sarangi accompanists and it is considered a difficult instrument to play.

Hindustani diva Kishori Amonkar is accompanied by a violinist-Milind Raikar-and the accompaniment sounds wonderful. Here is a short clip of him playing a solo in Bhoop:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4oNQoIg3oo&hl=en&fs=1]

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• Introducing Yourself to Indian Classical Music 13-What’s your frequency? The Tanpura/Tambura and finding your Sur, Shruti or Pitch