Amjad Ali Khan, who has both continued and extended the art of Indian classical music on the sarod, will perform a concert at 8 p.m. July 30 at the Pabst Theater, 144 E. Wells St.

Western observers often liken the sarod, which is smaller than a sitar, to a lute or a guitar. It has a fretless metal fingerboard that produces a resonant sound and encourages sliding glissandi.

The Indian string instrument called the sarod looks a bit like a lute. Its rounded back is wooden, and its flat belly is made from goat skin. It has an unfretted, steel fingerboard and 25 steel strings, and in the hands of Amjad Ali Khan, its sound is delicate and highly expressive. He is a sixth generation sarod player from a family credited with creating the instrument, adapting it from the Afghan rabab.

Khan’s ensemble for this India Music Society concert will include his sons, Amaan Ali Khan and Ayaan Ali Khan, the seventh generation of his family to play sarod, and tabla player Vineet Vyas.

When Mr. Khan feels like talking about his craft, you listen. During the first half of his concert at Carnegie Hall on Saturday night, he quietly explained that there are two ways of playing the sarod. One way is with fingertips pressed on the fingerboard. He demonstrated some dull-toned melodic lines. Then he did it his way — taught to him by his father — using the grooved edges of the fingernails on the first two fingers of his left hand. The tone was focused and bright and singing, closer (for American ears) to the sound of bottleneck slide on a dobro.

Ustad Amjad Ali Khan – Master of Sarod-Live in Cologne

Source/Credits: JSOnline.com and Pabsttheater.org