The magic of music

Some of the mystique of music lies embedded in the cost of instruments. The highest price recently attributed to a violin was a whopping 16 million dollars. The violin was made by the most prestigious violin making company Vieuxtremps Guarneri in Cremona, Italy. Violins crafted by the Guarneri family and their Cremonese contemporaries, the Stradivarius and Amati regularly fetch millions. Similarly good pianos can easily be upwards of one hundred thousand dollars. The most esteemed company Steinway is known to sell pianos within this range with no extra publicity involved. Actually advertisement is decried by these companies and considered a low-down inveigling of customers to buy, rather than the customers coming to them acknowledging their reputation.

So one wonders what is there in the instruments to be priced so highly because it is not a work of art but a means to an art. The instrument is supposed to create music and it is not music itself, but the leading producers still insist that it is a work for art because it is an extreme example of craftsmanship and not a product that rolls off an industrial assembly line. The cost of the instruments too has made many to opt for cheaper models or seek respite in mass production items which of necessity would not be classified as works of craft in them.

In the subcontinent, the famous centres of instrument making are now resting between the acute attention of a crafted work and one that is meant for wider consumption. The string instruments were made in a place called Miraj in India and the tanpuras crafted there were, and are still, probably the very best.

With the passage of time and the lesser ability of people to pay, the long and delicate processes have been cut short and compromises made. The gourd has been replaced by the hollowing of a wooden block and the quality of wood too is not what it should be. Two houses have become very famous in the making of the string instruments in India; both named after their craftsmen entrepreneurs -- Hiren Roy and Rikhi Ram. The sitar which may be the most popular string instrument to be sold in India or in the world among string instruments of Indian origin is now almost on the verge of mass production and can be purchased off-the-shelf in many outfits spread across the country as well as in some parts of the world. It is affordable and can be used by amateur players. Rikhi Ram’s family had connections with Lahore, with the passage of time in post-independence India their enterprise grew and the company innovated with many an instrument, and achieved success to a certain degree. Transistor sitar, tamboori, swarsangam, rikhi veena, mohan veena and vishwa veena can be some innovations cited.

Harmoniums, used by the rank and file mostly as an accompaniment to vocal music, are also on the verge of mass production. Though it is used across the subcontinent it is widespread in Punjab and other areas that Sikhs inhabit because it is mostly used by them in their liturgical music. For them this instrument may have some religious association or fallout of its association with their most revered personages, so it has a thriving market in Amritsar and Delhi. But still the reeds that are used in the harmonium are the German ones -- the very famous and known to musicians were called Jubilet reeds. Probably the same set of reeds is still used by many in the harmoniums, only the outer wooden casing is replaced and the bellow strengthened to prevent air leaks.

Some of the instruments have iconic value like they have some mythological association like the dambroo and murli/bansuri or it may have been made famous by an outstanding musician. The instruments used by famous musicians are sold at fabulous prices but the reason is not the quality of music that it produced but its association with a maestro. In the west, too, many of the instruments used by famous musicians fetch fabulous prices, more as a memento than anything else.

In the pre-machine age the instrument makers worked in very close association with the players. In many cases the instrumentalist himself was a maker of the instrument and since the demand was not across the board, it was a specialised craft rather than a mass produced one. But over the years or one would say centuries, the instruments may have remained a craft rather than become an industrialised product even though the parts used in it may be the fruits of developing technology.

Even now the two famous companies cited at the beginning of the piece consider themselves to be super craftsmen rather than anything else. They meet musicians and then create instruments according to their desire, for the best instruments are those that are customised according to musicians’ needs. This could be the reason for their high prices.

In Lahore, Muhammed Ramzan, Ziauddin and those at the Bombay Music House have struggled for survival due to lower demand. Many musicians and vocalists get their instruments from India while local producers have sold to those who can afford just that. Their problems have been compounded by the production of digital sound.

With the Chinese invasion all this has changed. Cheap mass produced pianos and guitars have flooded the market for usage by the ever growing middle classes. Its compromise on quality has been offset by growing consumption figures. Instruments sold in millions of dollars are now sold in thousands of dollars but one hardly knows about the Chinese companies that produce these models. Whereas once the brand or the company was the reason to go and buy instruments, with Chinese versions it is difficult to identify and flaunt around instruments. Earlier, to possess a branded instrument was sufficient reason to be smug about it than the excellence of music.

One wonders whether the Chinese have turned their sights on the mass production of sub-continental musical instruments. The day they do so, in earnest, all will change including the way we intone our music.