Thumri has been an integral part of Kathak dance. This genre claims about two vocalists of stature Girija Devi who was born on 1929 and Shobha Gurtu who was born on 1925. Both these singers were devoted to the practice of the Varanasi tradition of Thumri and its allied genres, such as dadra, caiti, kajan, and others.

Amongst the leading khayal exponents, the notable performers of the bola-banao Thumari, are Pandit Bhimsen Joshi born on 1922, Ustad Niyaz Ahmed Khan born on 1928, Parveen Sultana born on1948 and Prabha Atre born on 1932. Other younger male vocalists, like Rashid Khan, Ulhas Kashalkar, and Ajoy Chakravarty perform Bandisa Thumris with great competence, distinguishing them astutely from the chota khayal.

It has been noticed that not more than one in twenty vocal music concerts in contemporary Hindustani music ends with either a Bandisa Thuman or a bola-banao thumri. Around the middle of the twentieth century, the thumris share of the tailpiece position was at least five times greater than it is today.

Two factors have predominantly influenced the emergence of thumri substitutes in the tailpiece position - the de-emphasis of the romantic element in the concert hall context, and emergence of western state of Maharashtra as the home of khayal vocalism.

Due to Maharashtra`s ascendancy over the Khayal platform, the tailpiece position has increasingly been taken up by classicist renderings of bhajans that have been composed by the major poets of the Bhakti Movement. It has also been affected by the folk devotional genres from Maharashtra such as abhangas and kirtanas, and semi-classical songs from the Marathi drama and theatre, called natya sangita. Most of these thumri-substitutes have few features of either the bola-banao or the Bandisa Thutnans. They fill a part of the aesthetic space earlier occupied by the thumri.

However, the aesthetic space the thumri occupied cannot disappear with the eclipse of the genre. The encroachment into this space began around the middle of the last century when the Varanasi bola-banao tradition was in full bloom, and originated from the classical as well as the light music ends. Thumri was also affected by the growth of ghazal with Begum Akhtar as its high priestess. Inspired by her music other notable singers like Jagjit Singh; Mehdi Hassan also substantially widened the scope of ghazal and made it popular among the people.