meend
A smooth, continuous glide between notes in Indian classical music, essential to raga expression.
In Depth
Meend is the most important ornament in Hindustani music, creating fluid connections between notes rather than discrete steps. On the sitar, meend is produced by pulling the string sideways along the fret, stretching it to raise the pitch smoothly through intermediate microtones. On the sarangi or voice, it is a seamless slide. The character of a raga is often defined by its characteristic meend patterns, and a musician's meend reveals their training lineage and emotional depth.
A sitar string can be deflected over two inches along the fret during a meend, stretching the pitch up to a fifth above the fretted note, far exceeding any string bend in Western guitar.