Sunday, September 22, 2013
KAMALA SHANKAR was
born in 1966 in the Tanjore district of Tamil Nadu). She is a Hindustani
classical guitar player. Shankar is the first woman to
have been awarded a doctorate in guitar.
Kamala was trained in music by her mother from the age of six, and
went on to study with khyal singer Channulal Mishra and
sitar maestroBimalendu Mukherjee. She received a doctorate of music (guitar
playing) from vichitra-beenkar Gopal Shankar Mishra at Banaras
Hindu University, and also holds bachelor's degrees in both vocal music and
zoology. Dr Kamala Shankar has been awarded the India's National Award in Music
titled " Rashtriya Kumar Gandharva Samman" .
The guitar has only recently begun to be adopted to Indian
classical music, and many players modify the instrument with their own
developments to better suit the idiom. In this, Shankar is no exception. Her
model, the Shankar guitar (built by Bishan Das Sharma of instrument
makers Rikhi Ram and Sons, New Delhi), is made from a single block of
wood, with thicker walls and no sound hole. It has four melody strings,
four chikari (rhythm strings) and 12 taraf (sympathetic
strings). The guitar is named after Shankar Bhagwan. Shankar calls it
a "modified version of the Hawaiian guitar".
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