Ustad Abdul Karim Khan

Abdul Karim Khan was born on 11 November 1872 at Kirana in the Shamli district of present-day Uttar Pradesh, into a family of hereditary musicians whose line was traced to the brothers Ghulam Ali and Ghulam Maula. His first training came from his father, Kale Khan, and from his uncles Abdullah Khan and Nanhe Khan; alongside voice he learned sarangi, been, sitar and tabla, and the sarangi player's ear for a continuously bending line never left his singing. He began his public life as an instrumentalist before turning to vocal music.

Singing with his brother Abdul Haq, he came to the notice of the court at Baroda and was appointed a court musician there. At Baroda he met Tarabai Mane, of the Mane family; their marriage cost him his position, and the couple settled in Bombay. Tarabai left him in 1922, and writers on his music associate the quieter, more inward quality of his later singing with that separation.

Invitations to the Mysore court brought him into regular contact with Carnatic musicians, and he became, by most accounts, the first Hindustani singer to study that system seriously — his sargam singing and his use of ragas such as Abhogi and Hamsadhwani come directly from those years. Mysore conferred on him the title Sangeet Ratna. Travelling south, he would break the journey at Dharwad, where he taught the disciple who became best known of all, Sawai Gandharva. In 1913 he founded the Arya Sangeet Vidyalaya at Poona. He spent his last years at Miraj and died on 27 October 1937 at Singaperumalkoil railway station while returning from a concert tour of the south. Commemorative concerts are still held at Miraj each year.

What distinguishes his singing is the unhurried opening of a raga in vilambit laya: a slow, note-by-note approach in which the melodic shape is allowed to declare itself before any display of speed. He cultivated a light, sweet voice deliberately and kept it that way through disciplined practice. His thumri stands apart from both the Purab and Punjabi manners, moving at the same leisurely pace as his khayal. Among the earliest Hindustani musicians to record commercially, he left discs that still define what Kirana singing is expected to sound like.