The Instrument in the Cupboard: What to Do With an Old Harmonium, Sitar or Tabla

Houses are being cleaned out this fortnight. Diwali falls on 8 November, the cupboards come open, and behind the suitcases there is an instrument nobody has played for twenty years: a harmonium under a bedsheet, a sitar in a case with a broken hinge, a pair of tabla with the skin gone grey and hard.

The question that follows is always the same. Can it be made to play again, and is it worth doing. Here is how we would answer it.

First, do nothing to it

An old instrument is usually damaged in the week after it is found, not in the twenty years it sat still. Most of what gets done out of enthusiasm in the first hour only makes the repair longer.

• Do not oil anything. Oil does nothing for seasoned wood and it ruins leather, cloth and skin.
• Do not force a peg. A seized friction peg pushed hard will split the peg box, which is a far worse repair than the peg it was meant to fix.
• Do not pump a dry bellows hard. Perished cloth tears along its folds, and a small hiss becomes a long split.
• Do not wet a tabla skin to soften it. It will not come back.
• Do not bring old strings up to pitch. Rusted strings at full tension on an instrument that has dried out is one of the ways a belly cracks.

Open the case, open a window, let the instrument come back to room humidity for a few days, and look at it in daylight.

What to look at

A harmonium

Pump gently, before you touch a key, and listen. A hiss, or the feeling that you are working harder than the volume deserves, is the bellows cloth. Cloth perishes long before the wood does, and re-clothing a bellows renews the whole instrument.

Then go through the keyboard a note at a time. A note that does not sound at all is, nine times out of ten, dust caught between the reed tongue and its frame rather than a broken reed. A note that sounds sour against its neighbours is a tuning job; reeds drift over decades. A key that stays down or feels heavy has usually swollen and is rubbing, or a felt washer has compressed.

Look at the reed board for rust. A mildew smell with white bloom on the cloth tells you the bellows will be re-clothed whatever else is decided. Most of what you will find is ordinary, and harmonium repair sets out what is routine.

A sitar, tanpura or sarod

Sight along the neck from the peg box, as you would check a plank. A neck that has taken a bend or a twist is the one fault that can end the conversation.

Then the tabli, the flat wooden belly, and the joint where it meets the gourd. A hairline crack along the grain is common in an instrument that has sat in a dry room, and usually repairable. A crack that has opened, with the edges no longer meeting, is serious. Press gently around the bridge feet to feel whether the belly has sunk under them.

Rock each fret with a fingertip; loose thread is nothing. Turn each peg gently and note which slip and which have seized, because most pegs that misbehave want reshaping rather than force, and our page on shaping a new peg covers that job. The rest of the yearly round is in sitar maintenance.

Tabla and baya

Look at the skin first. Splits anywhere around the braided ring, or syahi that has flaked or lifted at its edge, mean the head is finished and the drum needs a new one, which is tabla reheading. Fine crazing across the syahi with age is normal and not on its own a reason to rehead.

Then look past the skin at the shells, which matter more. Heads are replaceable; shells are not. A crack running through the wooden dayan shell, or a badly dented baya, is usually what decides whether a drum is worth the work at all.

What is routine, and what is not

Routine, on any instrument old enough to be in a cupboard: reed cleaning and retuning, easing keys, new bellows cloth and valves, strings, new pegs, fret tying, recutting a jawari that has worn flat, and reheading. Recutting a worn jawari is the single thing that most transforms a tired sitar, and it is part of our sitar setup.

Serious, and worth knowing before you spend on carriage: a crack that has moved, a twisted neck, a split peg box, a reed board rusted through, a cracked shell. None of these is impossible. Some cost more to put right than the instrument will ever be worth.

Who made it decides most of it

A good Miraj or Kolkata instrument, or a harmonium from a maker with a reputation, is usually worth the bench time even when the list of work looks long, because what comes back is a better instrument than anything new at the same outlay. An anonymous factory instrument bought as a gift in the 1990s often is not, and we will say so.

Look inside the harmonium case, or on the peg box, for a label or a stamp. Our guide to makers will help you place it, and the name is worth finding before anything else is decided.

Showing it to us

You are welcome to bring the instrument to our Mumbai showroom. We will look at it with you and tell you honestly whether it is worth the work.

If you are elsewhere in India, write to us first, before you pay to send anything, so we can tell you what it is likely to need. Photographs that genuinely help:

• the whole instrument in daylight, front and back
• any label, stamp or inscription, close up and in focus
• a harmonium with the bellows drawn open
• a sitar sighted along the neck from the peg box, and the belly and gourd joint
• a tabla head from directly above, and the whole shell from the side

A short video beats any description, and you can send it on WhatsApp to 98335 99433.

If the instrument is outside India

Sending an instrument to Mumbai and back for repair almost never makes financial sense, because freight both ways usually comes to more than the work. So we do it the other way round: we diagnose over a video call, tell you which parts you need, send them, and talk your local craftsman through the job.

Heads, strings, pegs, bridges and bellows cloth go worldwide from Mumbai, insured. We cannot accept returns on international orders, so sizes are worth settling first; with tabla heads in particular, send us the measurement and we will confirm it before anything is despatched.

If it turns out to be past saving

Sometimes it is, and we would rather say so than take the work. If you decide to replace it instead, we deliver across India in seven to ten days, and ship worldwide from Mumbai, insured and braced for the journey. Payment is by UPI, card, cash on delivery or EMI.

Where to start

Let the instrument stand in the open for a few days. Find the label. Take the photographs above. Then ring or send a WhatsApp message to 98335 99433 with one line about what it did the last time anybody played it. We will tell you what it needs, what it does not, and whether we would spend the money ourselves.