Narayan relocated to Delhi following the partition of India in 1947, but, wishing to go beyond accompaniment and frustrated with his supporting role, moved to Mumbai in 1949 to work in Indian cinema.

[5][6] At the age of six or so he found a small sarangi left by the family's Ganga guru, a genealogist, and was taught a fingering technique developed by his father.

[7][8] Narayan's father taught him, but was worried about the difficulty of playing the sarangi and its association with courtesan music, which gave the instrument a low social status.

[8][10] After Uday Lal died of old age, Narayan met travelling singer Madhav Prasad, originally of Lucknow, who had performed at the court of Maihar.

[14] Following Prasad's death in Lucknow, Narayan enacted the ganda bandhan with another teacher who gave him lessons, but soon left for Lahore and never performed the ritual again.

[13] Narayan travelled to Lahore in 1943 and auditioned for the local All India Radio (AIR) station as a singer, but the station's music producer, Jivan Lal Mattoo, noticed grooves in Narayan's fingernails:[14] sarangis are played by pressing the fingernails sideways against three playing strings, which strains the nails.

[18] Singers of the city complained that he was not a dependable accompanist and too assertive, but he maintained he wanted to keep vocalists in tune and inspire them in a cordial contest.

[22] Other tabla (percussion) players and singers, including Omkarnath Thakur and Krishnarao Shankar Pandit, expressed admiration for Narayan's playing.

[23] Narayan became frustrated with his supporting role for vocalists and moved to Mumbai in 1949 to work independently in film music and recording.

[26][27][28] The Mumbai film industry offered a good salary and obscurity for work that would have lowered his stature among classical musicians.

[29] For the next 15 years he played and composed songs for films, including Adalat, Gunga Jumna, Humdard, Kashmir Ki Kali, Madhumati, Milan, Mughal-e-Azam, and Noor Jehan.

[35] His first solo concert at a 1954 music festival in the Cowasji Jehangir Hall, Mumbai, was cut short when an impatient audience, waiting for performances by famous artists, drove him from the stage.

[19] Narayan later gave up accompaniment; this decision carried a financial risk because interest in solo sarangi was not yet substantial.

[25][39] The European tour included performances in France and Germany (sponsored by the Goethe-Institut) and at the City of London Festival, England.

[44][45] Narayan's style is characteristic of Hindustani classical music, but his choice of solo instrument and his background of learning from teachers outside his community were not common for the genre.

[48][51] Narayan often completed performances with ragas associated with thumri (a popular light classical genre), which are referred to as mishra (Sanskrit: mixed) because they allow for additional notes, or with a dhun (song based on folk music).

[52] Derived from paltas are lengthy note patterns called tans, which contain characteristic "melodic shapes" and were used by Narayan for fast playing.

[54] Magriel described four stylistic choices by Narayan that deviate from tradition and were not commonly adopted by sarangi players: extended alap without accompaniment, replacing the usual fast section of the alap (jhala) with a set of tans, performing gats influenced by an instrumental playing style while the fixed composition is based on vocal performance, and a fast repetition of scales that expands the sound into the higher and lower register as a stylistic device.

[82][83] He received the Kalidas Samman from the Government of Madhya Pradesh for 1991–92 and was presented with the Aditya Vikram Birla Kalashikhar Puraskar in 1999 by P. C. Alexander, governor of Maharashtra.

[88] A sarangi owned by Narayan is on display in a gallery of musical instruments of the Sri Shanmukhananda Fine Arts & Sangeetha Sabha in Mumbai as of December 2020.

[39] Lal became an acclaimed musician, toured with instrumentalists Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan in the 1950s, and helped popularise the tabla in Western countries.

[91] When Lal died in October 1965, Narayan had difficulty performing and struggled with alcoholism, but overcame the addiction after two years.

[75] In 2009, Narayan performed at BBC's The Proms in the Royal Albert Hall, London, with Aruna, and he played at the 2010 Sawai Gandharva Music Festival, Pune, with Harsh.