What is "jugalbandi"

A jugalbandi or jugalbandhi ( Kannada: ಜುಗಲ್‌ಬಂದಿ, Devanagari: जुगलबंदी, Urdu: جگلندئ‍) is a performance in Indian classical music, especially the Hindustani classical music, that features a duet of two solo musicians. The word jugalbandi means, literally, "entwined twins." The duet can be either vocal or instrumental.

Often, the musicians will play different instruments, as for example the famous duets between sitarist Ravi Shankar and sarod player Ali Akbar Khan, who played the format since the 1940s. More rarely, the musicians (either vocalists or instrumentalists) may be from different traditions (i.e. Carnatic and Hindustani). What defines jugalbandi is that the two soloists be on an equal footing. While any Indian music performance may feature two musicians, a performance can only be deemed a jugalbandi if neither is clearly the soloist and nor clearly the accompanist. In jugalbandi, both musicians act as lead players, and a playful competition exists between the two performers.