Types of instruments used in East Indian folk music are varied. All types of instruments are used to get the best of the musical output. The various instruments used for the folk music are of various types. The instruments include percussion, wind or air and string instruments.
Percussion Instruments in East Indian Folk Music
Percussion instrument in the use of folk music is very important indeed. Various instruments are dhak, dhol, khol, tabla etc. The making of a giant drum needs a heavy round skin and straps of rope/ thread to tighten it in an indigenous method. Heavy wooden block was readily made available by felling a tree, and ultimately it was given a cup-like shape with a huge cavity on one side. The name dhol is familiar in different regions of India, though shapes of the instrument differ a little in size. It is fairly a common name for drums.
Khole, one of the most important instruments used in Padavali Kirtan, has been converted into a folk instrument played to devotional folk-songs and panchali singing in Bengal.
Tabla and bayan (dagga, dugi), the most popular percussion instrument all over India, is considered as the main Tala Yantra of today. The high status of this percussion instrument is derived from its technical and artistic development.
String Instruments in East Indian Folk Music
String instrument in East Indian folk music is considered as the principal music producing instrument. Sarinda, the other string instrument which is played by bow, and is familiar in East Bengal (Bangladesh) where it is used in Bhatiali songs, was described by 19th century western musicologists in their works. Ektara, the handy drone-instrument of various shapes and sizes, is popular all over India under different names. Another tata yantra which is no less than an avanaddha instrument is named as khamak by Bauls of Bengal, (specially the bauls of Birbhum). A string runs inside a cylinder at the bottom to which a skin is fitted.
Wind Instruments in East Indian Folk Music
Wind Instruments used in the various forms of East Indian Folk Music are one of the oldest Indian musical bases known under different names. The variety of bamboo flute (Tripura bansuri) is now-a-days claimed to be a peculiar contribution of Tripura because of the fact that peculiar bamboo stems are available in Tripura jungles.
Shehnai is an imitated instrument from original Shehnai Surna of the Muslim period and is used in special rituals. Shehnai is based on the usage of two reeds at the mouth fixed on a tube the resonator.
