Ustad ali akbar khan biography sample

His family traces its North Indian tradition to Mian Tansen, a musical genius and court musician of Akbar, a Moghul emperor of the sixteenth century.

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Tansen is regarded as a rishi , or saint, who gave new life to the classical instrumental music of India. Ali Akbar's father, the late Allaudin Khan, was the chief disciple of Wazir Khan, a direct descendant of Tansen, and is acknowledged as one of the greatest figures in North Indian music in the twentieth century. A strict teacher, Allaudin Khan taught some of the most celebrated Indian artists, including sitarist Ravi Shankar, flutist Pannallal Ghosh, his daughter Annapurna, and his son Ali Akbar.

Ali Akbar began his musical training at the age of three, studying under his father's tutelage, first learning vocal music, then studying drums with his uncle, Fakir Ftabauddin, and eventually being directed toward the sarod. The sarod is a string, lutelike instrument made of a teak or mahogany body with a goatskin hide stretched over it, and a metal fingerboard.

Ten of the strings are played with a coconut-shell plectrum and 15 are sympathetic strings, which vibrate while the melody is being played on the primary 10 strings.

Ali akbar - wikipedia

The sarod has two resonating chambers that produce contrasting types of sound. Over the course of 20 years, Ali Akbar learned more than 75, ragas from his father. Ragas are the melodic motifs that are the basis of Indian music and have remained part of an oral tradition that is customarily passed along within families. The ragas are keyed to a particular time or day or year.

Although they are a primary component of a disciplined improvisation, the musician must learn the techniques to improvise from them. Like most Eastern musical traditions, Indian music is intimately connected with religious meditation and spiritual healing. Ali Akbar Khansahib as he is properly called gave his first public performance when he was In his early twenties he became the court musician for the Maharaja of Jodhpur and was eventually conveyed the title " Ustad ," the Persian word meaning "master musician.