Shankar Guitar
Shankar Guitar
Dr. Kamala Shankar has worked on the Hawaiian guitar and created an instrument that can lay claim to features that make the sitar and the sarod so popular with the classical musician Shankar's guitar is made from a single piece of hollow wood, and has no joints. Quick link: Kamala Shankar's homepage
Meend over matter Dr. Kamala Shankar of Varanasi takes a step forward in adapting the guitar to Indian classical music. The guitar, like the violin, came to India from the West. It has found innovative practitioners, like Brijbhushan Khabra and Vishwamohan Bhatt, who have coaxed Indian classical music out of it. Yet the guitar is nowhere as popular as the violin on the classical music circuit. Invariably, its capacity for playing graces is compared with that of the sitar and the sarod, and the Western import is found wanting. Its tone cannot match the deep-toned dignity of the sarod or the fluid lyricism of the sitar.
Dr Kamala Shankar, well-known guitarist who plays Hindustani classical music, has designed a new instrument that seeks a better status for the guitar. Her instrument lays claim to some of the features that make the sitar and the sarod so popular with the classical musician.
Innovation of "Shankar Guitar" - by Dr. Kamala Shankar
"Doctorate" in Hawaiian Guitar "By the grace of Lord Shankara of Varanasi, I have created a modified version of the Hawaiian guitar, Dr Kamala Shankar told The Music Magazine. And she has named it Shankar Guitar, after the deity who presides over the holy city she lives in, Varanasi.
Shankar's guitar is made from a single piece of hollow wood, and has no joints. Wood knobs replace the normal steel ones. The tarabs (sympathetic strings) are an addition, and they too are strung from wooden knobs. Shankar's guitar looks like the normal guitar, but one end gets a lotus leaf design. The instrument has four main strings, four chikari strings and 12 tarabs. "The most important feature is its pure and natural tone," says Kamala Shankar. "It overcomes the problem of metallic sound that used to make Hindustani classical guitarists unhappy."
In the earlier guitars she used, Kamala Shankar says, the quality of wood - ply mostly - was poor, and the joints were not stable, resulting in the scales going offkey. This was what prompted her to modify and innovate. So how is Shankar's guitar different from Vishwamohan Bhatt's innovation, the Mohan veena? "My instrument has a fully hollow body, a thicker sound board and base, and the walls are made of solid wood. The Mohan veena uses plywood," says Kamala Shankar.
Pandit Rajeev Janardan, eminent sitarist and Kamala's husband, looked closely at the normal guitar, and came to the conclusion that a sitar designer may be able to overcome its drawbacks. That decision took them to Bishan Das Sharma of Rikhi Ram Musical Instrument Manufacturing Company, Delhi. "He is a very reputed instrument maker who makes sitars for Pandit Ravi Shankar, Ustad Vilayat Khan and other big artistes. He was kind enough to co-operate with us, and design a guitar just for me," says Kamala Shankar.
She feels the new instrument achieves better sustain than other guitars. "The sitting posture becomes comfortable because of its flat base throughout, and the strong, single-piece structure holds the tuning better and makes the instrument crack resistant." Jerks or minor mishandling, she feels, will not badly affect its performance. And above all, its has an "Indian touch" to its tone which "our ears are so used to". To acknowledge that it is a modified Western instrument, Kamala Shankar has retained "guitar" in its name and not changed it to veena.
http://www.themusicmagazine.com/shankarguitar.html