उस्ताद इमदाद खान

Ustad Imdad Khan (1838–1920) was a legendary sitarist and surbahar player who founded the Etawah gharana, one of the two dominant schools of sitar playing in Hindustani classical music. He revolutionized the sitar by introducing and developing the bowed-string techniques (meend, krintan, zamzama) that became hallmarks of the Etawah style. His 1904 gramophone recordings represent the world's first successful preservation of Indian instrumental classical music.

Born in Etawah, Uttar Pradesh, Imdad Khan came from a family of musicians but was largely self-taught, developing his own revolutionary techniques for the sitar. He worked with various nawabs and royal patrons, gradually building a reputation as a master musician.

Imdad Khan spent much of his career in the courts and salons of North India, teaching and performing. In December 1904, at age 66, he was recorded by William Sinkler Darby of the Gramophone Company, producing six historic sitar and surbahar recordings that would become among the rarest and most studied documents of Indian classical music.

Imdad Khan died in 1920, but his lineage and teachings were carried forward by his sons and students, establishing a dynasty of Etawah-style musicians. His gramophone recordings are studied intensively by musicologists and contemporary sitar players as foundational documents of the tradition.

Bowed-sitar playing with emphasis on meend (glissando), krintan (oscillation), and zamzama (rapid repetition). This approach creates a vocal-like quality.

Imdad Khan (1848–1920) is the fountainhead of the Etawah (Imdadkhani) baaj — the gayaki-ang approach that taught the sitar and surbahar to sing like the voice. The first major Indian instrumentalist to record (1904 cylinders and discs), he turned plucked-string playing from stroke-craft into vocal phrasing; the lineage he founded — Enayat Khan, Vilayat Khan, Shahid Parvez — remains one of sitar's two great rivers.