The tar shehnai, also spelled tarshenai[1] or sometimes tar shehanai,[2] is an esraj (an Indian bowed instrument) whose sound is amplified by a metal horn attached to its sound board.
[2] The instrument sounds similar to a violin[4] or to a shehnai (an Indian reed instrument like an oboe or shawm).
[3] A tar shehnai played by Dakshinamohan Tagore is used in Satyajit Ray's film Pather Panchali to accompany the scene in which Harihar and Sarbajaya weep over the death of their daughter Durga.
Ray considered Tagore "one of [the instrument's] best exponents", and found its high, "piercing" sound "suggestive of grief".
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