Narayan's compositions are from the singing repertoire of his teachers and were modified and adapted to the sarangi. He has created original compositions and in performance varies those he was taught. Narayan disfavors the creation of new ragas, but developed compound ragas, including those of Nand with Kedar and Kafi with Malhar. Narayan uses a sarangi obtained from Uday Lal and built in Meerut in the 1920s or 1930s in his concerts and recordings. He plays on foreign harp strings to produce a clearer tone. Narayan experimented with modifications to his instrument and added a fourth string, but removed it because it hindered playing. In the 1940s, he exchanged gut with steel for the first string and found it easier to play, but reverted to using only gut strings because the steel string altered the sound. 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. Contributions and recognition Narayan increased the status of the sarangi to that of a modern concert solo instrument, made it known outside of India, and was the first sarangi player with international success, an example later followed by Sultan Khan. Narayan's simplified fingering technique allows for glide (meend) and affected the modern sarangi concert style, as aspects of his playing and tone creation were taken up by sarangi players from Narayan's recordings. Narayan taught at the American Society for Eastern Arts and the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Mumbai in the 1970s and 1980s, where he gave the first master class for sarangi. Narayan privately trained sarangi players, including his daughter Aruna Narayan, his grandson Harsh Narayan, and Vasanti Srikhande. He also taught sarod players, including his son Brij Narayan, as well as vocalists and a violinist. In 2002, he taught 15 Indian students and more than 500 students in the United States and Europe had studied with him. Indian music in performance: a practical introduction, released in 1980 by Neil Sorrell in cooperation with Narayan, was described as "one of the best presentations on modern North Indian music practice" by Hans Neuhoff in Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Narayan argued that appreciation of the sarangi and him came only after acknowledgment by the Western audience. He attributed the lack of sarangi students to a lack of competent teachers and said that the