Gharanas & musical lineages

Hindustani music is taught person to person. Browse the traditions by voice, instrument or place, and open one to read who is documented within it.

About this guide

The names of these traditions — gharana, bani, teaching line, regional style — describe different things, and each entry says which it is. Where a teaching link is shown, a sentence in a named source supports it. Where it is not, we say so, and the claim stays unpublished.

This is growing research rather than a complete map. Not every instrument organises itself into gharanas, many musicians here do not yet have a page of their own, and dates, founders and teaching links are left out wherever a source has not yet settled them. Additions are read by an editor before they appear. Carnatic traditions are a later phase.

2 traditions

Places recorded with a source: where a tradition grew, and the later centres it moved to. A musician's current home is never used.

Showing 2 traditions

Vocal gharanas — khayal, thumri and tappa

Khayal and the lighter classical forms. A gharana here is recognised by how it opens a raga, shapes a taan and treats the words — usually named after the town where its founding family settled.

gharana · Khayal vocal

Bhendibazaar gharana

A Mumbai gharana known for breath control, long unbroken phrases and an interest in merging ragas.

Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh · 4 musicians documented

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Instrumental gharanas and teaching lines

Sitar, sarod, bansuri, sarangi, shehnai, santoor, violin and harmonium. Some are full gharanas with their own baaj; others are teaching lines, where the transmission is documented but no house name is claimed.

teaching lineage · Sarangi

Delhi and Moradabad sarangi lineages

The sarangi grew up accompanying singers, and its teaching lines follow those households rather than one founding name. Solo sarangi is a twentieth-century development.

Delhi, Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh · 7 musicians documented

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