|
|
|
A Look At Guitars
- The Hawaiian Guitar
Indian
Music instrument tradition is coming
through ages, say from the Vedic period. There seem various differences in
the main structure and the style of playing the instruments due to the
capability of an artiste and changing time necessities. Amongst this group
Guitar is still a puzzle for the
researchers and its artistes too. It’s not clear whether it’s imported from
Europe or is origin of India and migrating for several years, it has been
reconstituted through bilateral exchanges. This article, highlighting the
new awareness in this discussion, will be fruitful for musicologist and
artistes.
“Hawaiian Guitar has completed almost
100 years in 20th Century proving its significance. It has extensively
traveled and have tasted the new mountains of fame, not only in its origin
but in whole world, may it be Indian Classical, filmy or English Classical
or say it Pop.
The question occurs, why only Guitar? Probably the reason for its popularity
in the first half of 20th Century was its portability and cheaper option as
compared to Piano. It was more famous often a recording of Joseph Kekaeu on
Hawaiian guitar, probably it was due to its melodious sound. That’s why this
Guitar is named after Hawaiian and is addressed or origin of Guitar. It
would rather justify saying a process, not invention. Many Indians give
credit to an Indian sailor Gabriel Davison to play this instrument with a
steel bar. He was rather adopted this technique from
“Vichitra Veena” of “Gohuvadyam”.
The advance form of this instrument could be seen in
Indian Classical music and movies with
a variety of names. The history of its entrance in India is very
interesting.
Young Classical guitar player Sh. Debashish Bhattacharya claims on the basis
of his own research that Guitar entered in India with Taan Mae and Band in
1931 from Calcutta. This confirms Gremmie Mass, who happened to be a student
of Tan Moe. He forehanded his style to his students and then Guitar was more
famous like Calcatian Babu Style.
On the contrary Sh. Chakrapani Singh claims that Guitar is very similar to
the ancient Veena “Kacchapi”, later on
being migrated to various places and changes, it reentered in India with
name “Guitar”. In my own opinion, this is not because in “Manasollaas”, the
technique to play veena like tortoise (Korma), and its making, which
resembles like today’s Guitar and sarod.
In 11th chapter of Manasollaas, this has been described that wood and iron
may be used to make koorma Veena, its frat board danda and frame should be
made of Khadir’s wood, the distance between the frat board should be 72
fingers, the garbharandhra of both sides should be opened the back of veena
should like back of korma etc.
Actually the most of the today’s Guitar resembles old Kacchapi Veena. It
may be changed with time, could migrate, and could reenter in India with new
frame and new name. This fact is supportive because there are few names of
guitar artistes in the court of Babar with the name of vocalists,
instrumentalists and dancers.
This means that before the arrival of Sh. Tao Moe guitar had entered in
India, because time of Babar is 1526 A.D. That’s why it is better to think
that Guitar is a modified form of ancient Kacchapi Veena and probably has
some impact of Rawab and Sarod of Afghanistan and Baluchistan.
Whatever the changes and modifications are seen in this instrument, these
are all due to the particular style of playing of each artiste and his
limitations. It may be said that further development of this instrument be
left for future. It is said that Sh. Brij Bhooshan Kabra has established
this instrument in Indian classical Music, but this fact is acceptable only
as partial truth. If we see from history, this credit foes to Sh. Gopal
Singh, son of Sh. Parbatsingh, of Gwalior, who was a student of us tad Hafiz
Ali Khan. He used to play in AIR during 1950.
This time is between 1935 to 1950, Dr. Chakrapanisingh also confirms this.
My grandfather Pt. B.N. Kshirsagar confirms these facts too. He had stayed
in Gwalior between 1932 to 1944. Under the tutelage of Pt. Krishnrao Shankar
Pandit and Pt. Raja Bhaiya Poonchwale. A few people know that there was
tarab and Chikari in the Guitar of Sh. Gopal Singh.
Guitar, in its struggling period was more famous in
filmy music then Classical. Sh Sunil Ganguli, Hazara Singh and
Ven Shipley are the famous filmy Guitar players of the era.
Dr Kamala Shankar describes in her delegation paper of Chennai Music Academy
that the attempt to adopt Guitar as Classical Guitar was done by Sh. Nalin
Mazmudar of Allahabad, before fifty years. The time should be almost 1945 to
1950 in random. Sh. Brij Bhooshan Kabra stands next to the time, so it’s not
agreeable that he is the founder of guitar, though he made some changes in
the instrument. Many artistes adopted his style, can be assumed as a new
chapter of guitar.
Sh. Vishwamohan Bhatt modified guitar
according to his style. Concept of drone strings, tarab under the main fret
board for greater sustainity makes it significant. Whereas Sh. Kabra’s style
was gayaki, Sh. Bhatt balanced his playing with
gayaki and tantrakaree. His guitars are famous with the name
Mohan veena. Sh. Satish khanwalkar used
mijrabs to play this instrument to find the techniques of sarod, sitar and
guitar at one time.
Music is an art and constantly developing. Person and his thoughts are very
important in art. That’s why Sh. Debashish Bhattacharya made a few changes
again and used Chikari in front of guitar to play extreme laya patterns and
compositions. He calls his guitars anandi,
chaturangi etc. Sh. Chakrapani Singh has added 32 additional
strings and calls his guitar Kacchapi.
On the basis of above discussion, it may be said that
Sarod and Guitar can be transformation of Kacchapi Veena, to add of less
strings or tarab are due to the artistes necessity but only for those
reasons, the tradition and tendency to establish this instruments with new
names hammer its originality from India.
One should not disagree to believe this originality from India and we should
be opened to accept the developments / modifications with its technique and
frame. The decision is in your part, say it Kacchapi or Indian Classical
Guitar.
Thanks to:-
1. Sh. Chakrapani Singh
2. Dr. Kamala Shankar
3. Sh. Debashish Bhattacharya
Ref:- 1. Manasollaas – pages 85-86 , Vadyaadhyaya 16, shloka – 586 to 597.
2. Mughalkaleen Bharat - Pages 595 to 596. ( Shaikhee Nai and Shah Kulee
were guitar artistes in Babar’s Court)
Contributed by - Deepak Kshirsagar
is a young instrumentalist - Indian Classical Guitarist from Rajasthan
and is trained under Pt. B.N. Kshirsagar, Shri Sateesh Khanwalkar and
Pt.Vishwa Mohan Bhatt.
Deepak
can be contacted at
ddk5275@gmail.com
Ph : 91-291-2631560
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Want
to contribute an Article to musicalescapades.com?
Email us
with - Article Title, Article Content, Your Name, email id and brief
profile to
contact@musicalescapades.com
Share your musical escapades with us! - Do you know how to play a
raag on your guitar / keyboard / violin? Do you sing classical songs which
are based on ragas? If yes, write in to us with your experiences and tips at
contact@musicalescapades.com
|
|
|
