Classification and Construction of Instruments (Tat Vadya, Sushir Vadya, etc.)
What this domain covers
The exam tests the fourfold classical classification of instruments and the construction of the instruments on your syllabus, especially sitar, sarod, tanpura, flute, and tabla. You must be able to classify an instrument and justify it from its construction.
Core rules
- Tat vadya: stringed instruments; sound from stretched strings. Plucked (sitar, sarod, tanpura) or bowed (sarangi, violin, dilruba).
- Sushir vadya: wind instruments; sound from an air column. Flute, shehnai, bansuri, harmonium (bellows-driven free reed).
- Avanaddha vadya: membrane-covered percussion; tabla, pakhawaj, dholak.
- Ghan vadya: solid, non-membrane percussion; jaltarang, manjira, ghatam, kartal.
- Sitar: gourd tumba, wooden dand, tabli, tied movable frets, main strings, chikari, sympathetic tarab strings, jawari bridge, mizrab.
- Sarod: fretless metal fingerboard, skin-covered resonator, chikari and tarab, played with a coconut-shell or plastic plectrum.
- Tanpura: four strings, no frets, jawari, used as a drone.
- Flute: bamboo tube, closed at one end, finger holes, no reed.
- Tabla: dayan (wood) and bayan (metal), goatskin, syahi.
Worked example
"Classify the sarod and give two construction features that justify your answer." Reasoning: it has stretched strings and is plucked, so it is tat vadya. Features: a fretless metal fingerboard and a skin-covered resonator. The skin does not make it avanaddha, because the skin is part of the resonator, not the primary sound-producing membrane struck by the hand.
Traps
Do not classify tabla as tat because it has a wooden shell. Do not say the flute has a reed. Do not call the sitar fretless. Do not confuse tarab (sympathetic) with chikari (drone strings).