references?

[Hertaldis M G Offermann]

On Wed, 3 Jan 1996, vidya wrote:

> > 6. Why have accompanists low social status in the music community, like
> > tabla and sarangi in Hindustani music?
> 
> This used to be the case, I suppose, in the past. It's not true any longer. 
> The simple reason for low status is the fact that sons of dancers and 
> courtesans would take to musical accompaniment as a profession, and the 
> social hierarchy placed such people on a low status. In other words, the
> low social status of accompanists in the past, is an effect of parentage. 
> Though this is closely correlated with their profession, the mere fact of
> being a sArangiya or a tabaliya is not causative of low social status. 
> 
> The current situation is very different. Tabla players like Zakir Hussain
> and Swapan Chowdhary are almost glamorous cult figures in India now. In
> fact their status is rather high nowadays, within Indian society. The
> sarangi on the other hand is not a very popular instrument, and very few
> people take to it. It has also slowly yielded place to the harmonium as
> an accompaniment of choice for vocal music. If the sarangi is used in
> Hindustani music nowadays, it is increasingly as a solo instrument, and less
> as an accompaniment. 
> 
> S. Vidyasankar
> 


You might be right that in the present the status of accompanists is not 
important anymore.
But first, I'm looking for facts form the social history of the music 
community in Hindustani music.

I had during my last travel in India a discussion with a sarangiya in 
Varanasi about his music tradition and the gharana aspect. Earlier I read 
that gharanas can only established by vocalists and solists in the 
Hindustani music context.
But this sarangiya argued that he is a member of the Banaras gharana and 
that there are 8 gharanas in Uttar Pradesh established by sarangi-players.
Later I had another discussion with a vocalist from Bombay who denied 
this fact told me by the sarangiya.

I tried to go further and to find answers to this two opposite facts. I 
think I should get some answers by doing research about the social 
situation when the court music developed, khayal came to the courts, 
courtesan tradition influenced the musical life in Northern India etc.

The answer to the question about caste, do musicians have their own caste, 
and differ the caste of vocalists from the caste of accompanists? might 
give some new lights.

I do know, that tablayas established their own gharana (Kippen's book: 
The tabla of Lucknow), but I don't understand why the sarangiyas did't 
got the chance. And if sarangiyas established their gharanas, why 
vocalists deny them. This one discussion with the vocalist and professor 
from Bombay is not the only reference I got about the attitude of 
vocalists to sarangiyas. In literature you can find the same attitude.

Regards
Hertaldis