Unheard Amritsar

Amritsar is home to rare traditional instruments: the rabab, sarod, tarshehnai, and taus. Played for centuries in sacred spaces like the Golden Temple, they and the musicians behind them remain almost entirely unknown to the wider world.

Unheard Amritsar documents, distributes, and sustains these sounds. We built a low-cost publishing pathway registered with the Indian Performing Rights Society, helping 42 professional players release music on Spotify and major platforms while keeping 100% of their earnings. The sample packs we produced are now used by artists with over 300,000 monthly listeners, proving that there is real commercial demand.

We also train student volunteers to run outreach and recording sessions independently, so the project sustains itself beyond any one person's involvement.

Our goal is not preservation alone. We want these instruments to reach new audiences, generate income for the artists who play them, and demonstrate that tradition and contemporary music can meet in the middle.

We hope to prove that with the right systems, the unheard can become impossible to ignore.

Find out more: instagram.com/unheardamritsar , unheardamritsar.life