n the barsi of Ustad Sharif Khan, one is reminded of the tremendous changes that have racked the world of music in the subcontinent. Over the recent decades, the instruments that produce natural sounds have been on the retreat to be replaced by those that produce sound digitally.

A whole range of such instruments has been introduced. Many string, rhythm and wind instruments have become museum pieces. It is already a distant dream for the youngsters to recall the forms of music and the instruments that had been extant in our music for thousands of years.

Technology by other names has always been an overriding variable in the production of musical sounds. It was always there but its pace is becoming so fast that it escapes proper artistic digestion. With the invention of steel strings, the guts were replaced as indeed was steel on the bayaan of the tabla from wood. The tumba of the string instruments which was of gourd was replaced by that of wood and the musicologists of yore kept reminding everyone of the change in the quality of sound. Some called it change, while others saddled it with value by calling the change a lowering of the quality of sound produced in terms of its pure musicality.

It is difficult to say how great musicians of the past dealt with these changes. In our myopia, we always granted a great deal of stability to our musical forms especially those that we categorised as the classical ones. This was an answer to the fast changes that informed the new musical forms based on the changes in technology, or the recording facilities and the emergence of new forms related to these changes like the films and the radio. The invention, and then the great changes in the microphone and recording processes, also changed the way the note was applied. The intonation, too, changed a great deal because of it.

In the string instruments of yore, the sur had to be internalised to the extent of findings its correct intonation without any external support. This was introduced, as many say, with the introduction of the sitar with its frets. Similarly, the jawari or the bridge was made from either ivory or the bone of an animal like camel. It is more common now to be made of a synthetic material. The wood too is usually partal which was earlier considered low-quality.

Ashraf Sharif Khan, the son of Ustad Sharif Khan who shifted to the West some decades ago, has two faces to his musical existence. One of those is that of a traditional sitar player; the other is playing in bands and groups where his performance is drastically different. He has also performed with these groups in this country and exposed his other side to a mixed response.

Ustad Sharif Khan was born in Hissar which is now in Haryana. Ustads Qutab Khan, Badal Khan and Qaim Hussain Khan too had belonged to the same family.

After dabbling with the tabla and harmonium, he became a musician at the court of the maharaja of Poonch. He followed the path treaded by his father Ustad Rahim Buksh Khan who too was associated with the state of Poonch, and according to some accounts was the ustad of the maharaja himself. A virtuoso, Ustad Rahim Khan was from a family of vocalists but had switched to the string instruments and become an outstanding instrumentalist under the tutelage of Ustad Imdad Khan, the grandfather of Ustad Vilayat Khan. Ustad Sharif Khan became a shagird of Ustad Inayat Khan, the son of Imdad Khan.

The system of patronage changed overnight with the creation of Pakistan. The state institutions were slow to respond due to the ambiguity about the cultural assets that we were supposed to own. For Ustad Sharif Khan, the going was much tougher. He had established himself as a sitar player before partition but the lukewarm response and lack of appreciation of classical music made him look for other avenues to make both ends meet. The film was the only platform that could pay him enough to survive and continue with his passion of exploring the musical range of both the sitar and the veena. He was initially associated with Pandit Amarnath. After partition, he found creative affinity with Khurshid Anwar, for whom he played the sitar and veena in numerous compositions.

In the 20^th Century, the rise of the sitar has been attributed to three great musicians -Ustad Vilayat Khan, Pandit Ravi Shanker and Ustad Sharif Khan. All three developed distinct angs. Ravi Shanker was influenced by the sarod and Sharif Khan by the veena to extend the scope of the instruments. Vilayat Khan stuck to the inherited excellence of incorporating the gaiki ang.

The writer is a culture critic based in Lahore.