The Saraswati veena is the principal plucked instrument of Carnatic music. A long-necked lute about four feet in length, it is played seated, across the lap. Much of its character comes from the way its frets, strings and bridge are made.
How it is built
The main resonator is a rounded body hollowed from a single block of wood, traditionally jackwood. A long hollow neck runs from it to the pegbox, which usually ends in a carved yali, a mythical creature’s head. Beneath the upper end sits a second, smaller resonator, made from a gourd or, on some instruments, papier-mâché.
Twenty-four metal frets, twelve to the octave, are set on ridges of a wax compound along each side of the neck. Four melody strings run over the frets. Three more strings run along the side, over a curved metal arm attached to the bridge, and are struck as a drone and to mark the rhythm. The bridge’s slightly curved top lets the strings buzz faintly against it, which gives the tone its brightness.
How it is played
The right hand plucks the melody strings with the fingernails or with wire plectra, while the little finger strikes the side strings. Players call the pluck meetu. The left hand stops the strings on the frets and can also pull them sideways. Pulling a string across a fret raises its pitch smoothly. This lets the veena produce gamaka, the movement between notes that Carnatic music depends on, even though the instrument is fretted. A plucked note fades within seconds, so phrasing is a balance between fresh plucks and movement within a single one. The veena is often associated with tanam, the pulsed improvisation that follows the alapana in a ragam-tanam-pallavi.
Other veenas
“Veena” names several instruments. The rudra veena, or bin, of Hindustani music is a stick zither with two large gourds. The chitra veena, also called gottuvadyam, is a fretless Carnatic instrument played with a slide. The vichitra veena, also fretless and slide-played, belongs to Hindustani music.
At a veena recital, much of the gamaka you hear can be seen in the left hand.
For other instruments of the Carnatic stage, see Meet the Art Forms.
Image: Jayanthi Kumaresh with the Saraswati veena, 2018. Photo: Vinay Dutta, CC BY-SA 4.0
