Art & Culture Quiz: Musical Instruments and Artists

The correct answer is B, Sushira vadya. Sushira means hollow, and the class covers every instrument in which a column of air inside a tube is set vibrating. The bansuri, the shehnai, the nadaswaram, the pungi, the algoza and the conch all belong to it, and so does the harmonium, whose reeds are sounded by air from a bellows.

Option A, tata vadya, is the class of stringed instruments such as the sitar, the sarod, the sarangi, the veena and the santoor. Option C, avanaddha vadya, covers the instruments with a stretched hide, that is the drums, among them the tabla, the pakhawaj, the mridangam and the chenda. Option D, ghana vadya, covers the solid instruments of metal, clay or wood that sound when struck or shaken without any tuning, such as the manjira, the ghatam and the jaltarang. All four names come from the same classification, so they are always offered together.

The correct answer is C, Shehnai. Bismillah Khan played the shehnai, a double reed wind instrument long associated with weddings, temple processions and auspicious beginnings in north India, and he is credited with carrying it from ceremonial use onto the classical concert stage. He spent his life in Varanasi and received the Bharat Ratna in 2001.

Option A, the sarod, is the fretless plucked instrument of Allauddin Khan, Ali Akbar Khan and Amjad Ali Khan. Option B, the sarangi, is the bowed instrument said to come closest to the human voice, whose best known player is Ram Narayan. Option D, the santoor, is the struck string instrument of Kashmir that Shivkumar Sharma established in classical concerts. Every option names a real instrument with its own famous player, so the question is a straight test of the artist and instrument table.

The correct answer is A, Santoor. The santoor is a trapezoid wooden box carrying many strings over small bridges, struck with a pair of light curved mallets. It comes from Kashmir, where it was used in Sufiana music, and Shivkumar Sharma is credited with adapting it for Hindustani classical performance. Bhajan Sopori is the other well known name on the instrument.

Option B, the sitar, belongs to Ravi Shankar, Vilayat Khan and Nikhil Banerjee. Option C, the flute or bansuri, is the instrument of Pannalal Ghosh, who brought it into classical concerts, and later of Hariprasad Chaurasia, who often performed alongside Shivkumar Sharma. Option D, the veena, has its own line of players, from S. Balachander and Chitti Babu on the Saraswati veena to Asad Ali Khan on the rudra veena. Note also that the santoor, although struck, is counted among tata vadya because its sound comes from strings.

The correct answer is B, Sarod. The sarod is a plucked instrument with a metal fingerboard and no frets, which lets a player slide continuously between notes and gives it its deep, singing tone. Amjad Ali Khan belongs to a family line of sarod players, and the other great names on the instrument are Allauddin Khan of Maihar and his son Ali Akbar Khan.

Option A, the sitar, is a fretted instrument with sympathetic strings and a gourd resonator, made famous worldwide by Ravi Shankar. Option C, the tabla, is a pair of drums, the wooden dayan and the metal bayan, whose best known players are Alla Rakha, Zakir Hussain and Kishan Maharaj. Option D, the shehnai, is the reed wind instrument of Bismillah Khan. Candidates often swap sitar and sarod, so fix the difference: the sitar has frets and the sarod does not.

The correct answer is C, Ghana vadya. The ghatam is a clay pot with nothing stretched across its mouth. The player strikes the body of the pot with fingers, palms and wrists, and changes the tone by moving the mouth of the pot against the stomach. Because the solid body itself vibrates, it falls in the ghana class along with the manjira, the jaltarang and the morsing. Its best known player is T. H. Vikku Vinayakram.

Option A, avanaddha vadya, would require a stretched hide, which the ghatam does not have; the mridangam, the kanjira and the thavil of the same Carnatic ensemble do belong there. Option B, sushira vadya, covers wind instruments such as the nadaswaram and the flute. Option D, tata vadya, covers stringed instruments such as the veena and the violin. The pot shape misleads students into calling it a drum, which is exactly the error the question is set to catch.

The correct answer is A, Kerala. The chenda is a cylindrical drum hung from the shoulder and struck with curved sticks, and it carries the sound of Kerala's temple festivals, of the percussion ensemble called Chenda Melam, and of Kathakali and Theyyam. The maddalam accompanies it in Kathakali, and the mizhavu, a large copper drum, belongs to the older temple theatre Koodiyattam.

Option B, Odisha, has the mardala, the drum of Odissi dance. Option C, Manipur, has the pung, played and danced with at the same time in the Pung Cholom. Option D, Assam, has the khol of Vaishnava kirtan and the dhol, pepa and gogona of Bihu. Each of the four states has a signature drum, and the paper usually tests them by naming the dance or the festival rather than the drum, so learn drum, dance and state as one line.

The correct answer is A, Bansuri. The bansuri is the bamboo transverse flute, a sushira vadya with no reed, in which the player changes notes by covering the finger holes. Hariprasad Chaurasia is its best known modern exponent, and before him Pannalal Ghosh is credited with making the longer bass flute fit for full classical performance.

Option B, the sarangi, is a bowed string instrument played with the fingernails pressing against the strings, whose great name is Ram Narayan. Option C, the mridangam, is the barrel drum of Carnatic music and Bharatanatyam, associated with Palghat Mani Iyer and Umayalpuram Sivaraman. Option D, the rudra veena, is the deep stick zither of the dhrupad tradition, played by Asad Ali Khan and by members of the Dagar family. All four are classical instruments with clear artist pairs, which is what this question tests.

The correct answer is B, Rajasthan. The ravanahatha is an ancient spike fiddle with a coconut shell resonator, played with a horsehair bow that usually carries small bells, and it belongs to the folk musicians of Rajasthan, where it accompanies the ballad of Pabuji. The kamaicha of the Manganiyar communities and the pungi of the snake charmers come from the same desert tradition.

Option A, Punjab, has the tumbi with its single string, the paired flutes called algoza, the chimta and the dhol of bhangra. Option C, West Bengal, has the dotara of the Baul singers, the ektara and the dhak of Durga Puja. Option D, Manipur, has the pena, a small bowed fiddle, and the pung drum. State examinations are especially fond of this pairing, so the instrument and its home state should be memorised together.

The correct answer is A, Thavil. The nadaswaram is a long double reed wind instrument, the loudest of the classical wind instruments, and in Tamil Nadu it is played as a pair with the thavil, a barrel drum struck with one hand and a stick, at temple processions and weddings. The ensemble of the two is called the periya melam.

Option B, the pakhawaj, is the barrel drum of the Hindustani dhrupad tradition, played with chautaal and dhamar. Option C, the dholak, is the two-headed drum of folk and light music across north India, used at weddings and in bhajan and qawwali. Option D, the khol, is the clay-bodied drum of Vaishnava kirtan in Assam, Bengal and Odisha. The nadaswaram and thavil pairing is the southern counterpart of the shehnai with the nagada in the north, and both pairs are asked.

The correct answer is B, Sitar. Ravi Shankar played the sitar, the long-necked fretted instrument with a gourd resonator and sympathetic strings that ring on their own. He was a disciple of Allauddin Khan of Maihar, did more than anyone to make Indian classical music known abroad, and received the Bharat Ratna in 1999.

Option A, the sarod, was the instrument of Ali Akbar Khan, the son of the same teacher, and of Amjad Ali Khan. Option C, the tabla, is associated with Alla Rakha, who often accompanied Ravi Shankar, and with Alla Rakha's son Zakir Hussain. Option D, the violin, came to India from Europe and is now the standard melodic accompaniment in Carnatic music, played by Lalgudi Jayaraman and L. Subramaniam, with N. Rajam known for it in the Hindustani style. Because these musicians performed together, the paper counts on candidates mixing them up.