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Vilayat Khan

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Vilayat Khan was born in 1928 in Gouripur, in present-day Bangladesh, and died in 2004. He came from a family of sitar players: his father Enayat Khan and his grandfather Imdad Khan were famous. His father died when he was ten, so he was taught by his uncle, his maternal grandfather and his mother. As a boy he wanted to become a singer, but his mother felt that he should continue the family tradition on the sitar. He made his first record when he was eight. He gave his last concert at the age of seventy-five.

Music and breakthrough

Khan is regarded as one of the greatest sitarists of his time. He helped develop the gayaki ang, a style of playing in which the sitar imitates the singing voice, so that the instrument almost seems to sing. He invented a technique for bending the note after plucking the string. He improvised a great deal and liked to play without the tanpura drone, filling the silence with strokes on the chikari strings. At the same time he remained a traditional interpreter of great ragas such as Yaman, Todi and Darbari.

Influence

He also left his mark on film. He wrote the music for Satyajit Ray's Jalsaghar from 1958, for which he won a silver medal in Moscow, and for The Guru from 1969 and Kadambari from 1976. In 1951 he was probably the first Indian musician to play in England after independence.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to the music of Jalsaghar and notice how the sitar imitates the singing, gliding tone of a human voice. Can you hear where a note is bent after the string is plucked?

Discography

Studio albums

In School of Rock

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Mentioned in other articles

See also

Categories: ArtistsParallel cinema (Bengal)