The swarmandal is a plucked box zither of Indian origin and used as an accompanying instrument for the vocal classical music of Northern India. Modern swarmandals are similar to western zithers in shape and construction. In fact, autoharps with the chord bars removed are sometimes used as an equivalent instrument in India today.

These past few months I have been working with Purnash, a popular musician and multi-instrumentalist who performs in venues across Asia, the subcontinent, and beyond. We have combined our ideas to reinvent the swarmandal and build a hybrid that he has named “Raagaharp”. Raagaharp has a diatonic tuning schedule in the key of Eb for for his vocal range, and a combination of specially constructed lock bars for the deletion of specific notes within the immense variety of ragas he performs.

I am only familiar with western musical concepts as they apply to folk and old time music. I cannot understand or explain ragas. They are described as improvisations on a construct of modes, scales, and notes, each to affect the emotions of the listener…. and there are hundreds of them!

The strings are played open. According to the musician, for a given raga he will mute some notes and re-tune some strings. He does this on-the-fly (imagine doing this between autoharp tunes!). To change the instrument’s setup between ragas, we arrived at the idea of a combination of fine tuners and lock bars.

The lock bars of an autoharp function much like their adjoining chord bars… held aloft by springs when not in use and locked down by some sort of a wedge. The swarmandal’s lock bars will be swapped in and out as needed and seated, without springs, against the strings  by a magnetic cover.

The fixture can hold one or two bars at once and also serves as a hand rest. Inlaid in the underside of the cover are two strong magnets for attachment. The cover is easily removed and replaced for changing out the bars.

The bars are made of curly maple and felted in combinations of single and double notes. There are only seven notes in the scale but only six different notes will be muted since the keynote, Eb, will always be open. Six different bars are sufficient but I made an additional six bars with double notes.

Autoharp chord/lock bars reside on the ‘harp and are seldom removed unless they need attention. The swarmandal’s lock  bars will be constantly swapped in and out. To protect the fragile felt blocks I made a case to house the twelve+ bars and included extra felt for future wear.

I included my usual tuning strip/duster that can be temporarily inserted underneath the strings as a guide for tuning. The strings are mostly in pairs and tuned to only seven notes. The notes are labeled on the strip and lock bars according to the Indian Solfeggio system….

Eb is S    F is R   G is G   Ab is M   Bb is P   C is D   D is N

I address musical notes as sharps and naturals from A to G. The completion of this task required some careful translation. For example, a note like Eb to me is D# but on the tuning strip it appears as S.

The musician finds the sound of most swarmandals to be unpleasant and for his custom instrument he requested a warmer, less brilliant sound, particularly in the treble area. I tried to accomplish this with an African mahogany soundboard and by using Delrin rod for the bridge caps. Delrin is a hard plastic material that will render less sustain than the harder brass rod that I usually use.

At his request, I applied a matte lacquer finish over a specially formulated Benjamin Moore color called “Hale Navy”. This color seems to appear blue under some lighting and black under others. Obtaining this color in spray form was pricey but the attractive appearance is worth the excessive cost.

I admit, there is little difference between this Indian zither and the autoharps that I have been building over the years. Creating this instrument and listening to Indian music has been a wonderful exposure to Eastern musical culture enabled by an amazing musician and new friend.