(fl early 19th century). Indian sitār player. He was descended from the most famous of all Indian musicians, the Mughal Emperor Akbar's court musician Tansen, through the rabābiyā line of Tansen's son Vilas Khan. Although accounts of his immediate ancestors differ, he is believed to have been the son of Firoz Khan alias Adarang, the pioneer of khayāl singing. He was succeeded by his son Bahadur Khan (d c1841) and his sister's son Dulha Khan, who were prominent sitār players in early 19th-century Delhi. By far the most famous of the early sitār players, he was based in Delhi, thus the style of playing which he pioneered is known as either the masītkhānī bāj or Delhi bāj (see also Khan, Ghulam Raza).
His major contribution to the sitār repertory was the introduction of the gat-todā; todā refers to the improvised extension or development of the gat). His gat compositions combined fixed stroke patterns with rāg melodies inspired by or borrowed from dhrupad (vocal) compositions; they were generally set in the 16-beat Tīntāl and played at a medium-slow tempo. The stroke pattern now regarded as standard for a masītkhānī gat is shown in ex.1. This is one of the bases of contemporary sitār and sarod technique in virtually all traditions. Most modern instrumentalists play these compositions at a much slower tempo than would have been common in Masit Khan's time, and consequently this basic stroke pattern is frequently elaborated.
S. Dhar: Senia gharana: its Contribution to Indian Classical Music (Delhi, 1989)
A. Miner: Sitar and Sarod in the 18th and 19th Centuries (Wilhelmshaven, 1993)
A.D. Sharma: Musicians of India Past and Present (Calcutta, 1993)
MARTIN CLAYTON