Instruments in songs: Piano, Harmonium, Sitar, Flute, Harmonica

Harmonica songs

Thumbnail image for Harmonica songs May 14, 2024

In my series of articles on musical instruments starting from the grand piano I have gradually covered smaller instruments, the last being the flute. I end the series with a still smaller instrument. Harmonica is a pocket-sized most intimate instrument as you play sliding it over your lips and blow air into its holes. Behind […]

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Krishna and Flute

Krishna with Flute September 6, 2023

Wishing everyone a very Happy Janmashtami with best songs on Krishna and the flute Thanks to several TV serials, Amar Chitra Katha mythology comics, and other sources everyone knows Lord Krishna story by heart. The cruel King Kans marries off his dear sister Devki to his close friend Vasudev (वसुदेव), and decides to drive them […]

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The Gravitas of Sitar in Songs

Thumbnail image for The Gravitas of Sitar in Songs August 7, 2021

Sitar makes a very conspicuous presence on the screen due to its size. But it conveys an entirely different image from the piano or the harmonium. If piano is aristocracy, harmonium is plebeian. And what about the sitar? It is elegant classicism; it is not about the social, but musical status. There is gravitas in […]

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Baaja that was Harmonium that was Music

Harmonium Pooja April 22, 2020

From time to time the importance of music instruments in our film songs have come in for some serious discussion on SoY. Some years ago, a reader Rohit Kumar (who seems to have gone off-radar) mentioned the strong association of some music directors with specific instruments, such as Roshan and flute, OP Nayyar and sarangi, […]

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The lost world of piano when it was more than a musical instrument

The Grand Piano and Love Triangle March 26, 2020

Do you remember when we last saw a piano song in Hindi movies? In my recollection, Parineeta (2005) was the last movie which had a piano song, Piyu bole, in the classic style. And there is a reason for that: the story is set in the early 20th century in which the hero was from […]

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