Shehnai

Taken from field recording notes made by Alain Danielou in the 1950s. Reprinted from: The Historic Series: World Library of Folk and Primitive Music - compiled and edited by Alan Lomax on Rounder Records Rounder Records: www(dot)rounder(dot)com

"The Sahnai is a double-reed instrument membranophone that belongs to the shawm (or oboe) family that spread from western Europe all the way to the suona in China. One of the earliest pictorial representations of this instrument is found in gandhara bas-reliefs (northwest Pakistan) from about the beginning of the Christian Era, where a straight blown instrument having a flaring bell is depicted with the player's fingers clearly splayed to stop holes on the instrument."

"The penetrating sound of the sahnai is regarded as being auspicious, thus the instrument is associated with temples and shrines as well as with such occasions as weddings and festivals. Only in the last seventy years or so has the instrument been adapted to classical and light classical music."