Cultural Scene : Shivkumar-Santoor's rare exponent
BOMBAY :
The study of Indian instrumentation has been vast. Many instruments have come into existence, quite a few have been fallen into disuse. The "shata-tantri-veena" is one such obsolete because of its non-compliance to reproduction of the melodic character of the musical 'gamakas'.
A few musicians might have attempted at reincarnating it's importance through folk music and allied media. The gypsies too travelling abroad had inducted much of the tantri-veena techniques in the cultures of China, Greece, Russia, Iran, Germany and Rumania.
Shivkumar Sharma, a Dogra Brahmin from Jammu, is a rare exponent today on this exacting Veena, renamed as Santoor (meaning, 100 strings) by the visiting Persians. To Shivkumar goes the credit of having given Santoor a concert-status, ever since he took to it from early boyhood.
In Shivkumar's Santoor technique, one discerns the distinctive patterns of classical brilliance, the vigour of soft-splendour range and welled-up virtuosity to improvise on meend.
His recital Sunday at the IMC Hall under the aegis of the Sur-Singar Samsad proved his genius, purposeful in techniques and profound in aesthetics.
Enchanting,
When I called on Shivkumar, it was at the music-recording of Raj Kapoor's "Bobby' on Wednesday evening at the Famous Cine Laboratories. Shivkumar was instantly involved in the Lakshmikant Pyarelal orchestration. The music of the Santoor was something enchanting and effervescent to the tempo of filmic creation.
But Shivkumar firmly assures me that filmic-contracts were just casual against his passion for classical programmes. He received many offers, some even for music-direction, but Shivkumar was quite 'choosy'. He has been contented to make Santoor just an orchestral medium to bring the pristine appeal of its classical mood
The film break came in 1954 through Mrs. Madhura Jasraj, who introduced Shivkumar's Santoor ability to her father, Director V. Shantaram, later to be cast in the music of "Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baje".
Shivkumar started his career as a singer under his father, Pandit Uma Dutt Sharma. Later he took to tabla, in which he became versatile and has accompanied such stalwarts like Bhimsen Joshi, Ravi Shankar, Halim Jaffar Khan, Hirabai Barodekar, Begum Akhtar, V.G. Jog and others.
But Santoor continued to be the family choice in the musical learning, and gradually Shivkumar attained a thoroughbred talent on it. In course of time, he decided to give a popular shape to the Santoor.
He launched on experiments with Santoor. Today he can boast of many modifications on this once obsolete instrument. He has developed his Santoor to shift to 3 octaves as against the original 2 and has achieved remarkable coherence to the komal and tivra. He has reduced the stringed group to only 3 instead of 4, blending it with tonal colour in order to enhance the tempo of the faster taans. The brass-strings have been replaced with the steel-types, and the bridges raised to 29, instead of the original 25.
Reproduction
Shivkumar is particularly happy that the typical staccato sound of the Santoor in the sargam reproduction has been given a technical innovation so as to enable the meend to flash simultaneously to effect. The three-stringed formula makes viable for a meaty alap. He recalls how at the Shiraj International Music Festival in Iran in 1969, fellow Santooriyas from other countries evinced interest in his experiments and innovations.
Unlike the regular stringed varieties where plucking is done by fingers, the Santoor is played with two strikers. In this, Shivkumar compares Santoor to the western Piano, which according to him, is just a mechanized form of Santoor.
He appreciates talam (time measure) in the Carnatic music, evidencing highly-evolved in the aesthetics.
He was very happy to have toured abroad with Palghat Raghu in 1968. In his opinion the Western ears are sharpened to the finer aspects of our music, and his own recent tour of America and Europe, Shivkumar observed how the foreigners outlined the rhythmic beats of the Indian music.
He was especially amazed at the way the West has taken to vegetarianism.
In fact, the question that confronted him commonly in the western world was: "Are you a Hindu?". Shivkumar cites that it is a "brave new world" preparing for a cultural fusion all over.
By Bachu Vishwanath, The Times of India
©COPYRIGHT 1997 Shivkumar Sharma Associates