Tuning into India's many musical instruments

A folk musician in Tripura’s Sarala Gram Panchayat turns to his passion to earn some additional income when the going gets tough

The wah ya is a musical instrument of Nagaland’s Konyak tribal community, used in courtship. Listen to its sounds at the annual Aoleang spring festival

Irfan Shaikh and his community reside in the bustling lanes of Mumbai’s Dahisar. They keep the age-old tradition of dholak-making alive against modern-day challenges. A film showcasing Irfan and his time-tested craft

Listen and watch this musician play the tarpi (also called tarpa)

Watch the Subunsri and Bagurumba dances from Assam's Bodo community, with musicians on the siphung (long flute), kham (drum), and serja (violin) in attendance

Anoparam Sutar is among the last makers of Rajasthan’s iconic percussion instrument – the khartal. Others have migrated to cities to make furniture which pays better

Mohanlal Lohar has been making morchangs for over half a century. These percussion instruments can be heard across Rajasthan’s sand dunes

Percussion instruments play a big role in Assamese festivals celebrated through the year. The skilled craftsmen who make and repair these critical dhols, khols and more, say the new anti-slaughter law has led to a rise in prices, and harassment

Families in this town in Maharashtra make stringed instruments such as the sitar and tanpura. The younger generation is moving away from the crafting to learning how to play as well

Many of India’s iconic musical instruments are made from the wood of the jackfruit tree, grown across Tamil Nadu. The highly skilled makers in Panruti and Thanjavur coax ragam and rhythm from its timber

Bhiklya Ladkya Dhinda is a Warli Adivasi. The 89-year-old musician lives in Walwande and plays the tarpa, a traditional wind instrument made from bamboo and dried bottle gourd. Listen to the story of his music and faith, as told by him

In Karnataka’s Manakapur village, as demand for traditional, handmade shehnais declines rapidly, a 65-year-old craftsman resorts to a series of innovations to keep his craft alive

Rajasthani migrant, Kishan Jogi plays the sarangi on Mumbai’s local trains. He does this to honour his father's legacy but says it's difficult to make a living

Kombu artistes in Tamil Nadu are struggling without any income from temple festivals and public events during the Covid-19 lockdowns. But their worries are more about the declining art

At celebrations and commemorations during the winter months, young men and women from Chhattisgarh's Gond community travel together to perform the Hulki Mandri and Kolang dances, and sing Rela songs

Dinkar Aiwale, master craftsman and musician in Maharashtra's Kodoli village, has perfected making flutes for 1.5 lakh hours – but the work and music have faded away with the lockdown and other challanges

Maniram Mandawi, a flute-maker from the Gond Adivasi community in Chhattisgarh’s Narayanpur district, recalls a time when forests were rich in animals, trees and bamboo for his signature 'swinging flute'

At Mumbai's Azad Maidan, at a farmers' protest in late January, dhumsi and tarpa players from Adivasi communities in Maharashtra's Dahanu taluka opposed the new farm laws through song and dance

With no sales in the Covid-19 lockdown, and difficulty in procuring rawhide for their bespoke percussion instruments, the Kadachi Kollan craftspeople in Kerala’s Peruvemba village are missing a steady income

In central Chhattisgarh's Balod district, Pacharam, Babulal and Sahadev Yadav, from a community of cowherds, still perform the baans baja-geet – a traditional instrument and songs that are no longer popular

Around 1,000 farmers from various districts of Maharashtra, many of them Adivasis, are trying to join the protestors in Delhi – in vans, tempos, jeeps and cars. It is a colourful and determined caravan

Musical instruments popular with, and rooted in, Adivasi societies are in decline. And the reasons for this in West Bengal’s Birbhum district go beyond the cultural

The traditional drummers of rural Bengal are having a hard time in Kolkata this season

Several hereditary harmonium repairmen – now a very rare occupation – from Jabalpur, MP, were trapped in Renapur, Maharashtra, for over two months due to the lockdown. They tell PARI how they coped

Listen to Premlal, a farmer-musician from Chamba district, performing at a recent festival

Although their craft tradition is waning and needs state support, the Debgurus in Odisha continue making idols and objects with paddy, and go from village to village reciting the Laxmi Purana

Jesudas and his son Edwin are skilled craftsmen, known in the Carnatic music universe of Chennai and elsewhere for the mridangams they give life to, though they still face occasional communal biases

In Parappa village of Kerala, men from the Mavilan Adivasi community drum on ‘grass’ during festivals and other events, and for the rest of the year these musicians are daily wage labourers

At the farmers' rally on February 20-21 in Nashik, many came with their traditional musical instruments, adding rhythm and lyrics to the protest gathering

Every year, musicians from Dalit communities in western Odisha gather at a square in Raipur, and wait to be hired by OBC dance groups from Chhattisgarh

Agricultural labourers from Rajasthan travel to Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh in April-May every year to play the ravanahatha, a popular centuries-old folk instrument, and earn a seasonal income

The Adivasis of the Niyamgiri hills of Odisha won a victory in 2013 against mining, but the threats to their ancestral land remain. Rajkishor Sunani, poet-activist, sang about this at the recent Niyamgiri festival

Young women on the outskirts of Bengaluru excel at a Kannada drum-and-dance form long thought to be a skill for burly men. In the video here, watch the group perform with extraordinary energy and rhythm

Battling barbs from villagers, abusive husbands, and centuries-old caste prejudices, ten Dalit women in Dhibra village of Bihar have formed a band – and now have many marching and swaying to their beat

The Baul culture of music is distinctive, with a syncretic philosophy of life. In the film featured here, Basudeb Das Baul, a practitioner and teacher from Bolpur in Birbhum district, speaks of this way of life and art form

Choliya troupes in Uttarakhand integrate Scottish bagpipes into rural Indian music

Eight kilograms of mud that make beautiful music in Manamadurai, Tamil Nadu

This traditional drum is central to the culture of Manipur's Meitei community, and to music and dance

For generations, the artisans here have handcrafted the complex wind instrument. But with younger family members now switching to more lucrative professions, the craft is slowly vanishing

Listen to this traditional instrument of the Adivasi communities of Dang