Tarun Bhattacharya

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Pandit Tarun Bhattacharya is an Indian classical musician who plays the Indian Santoor, a type of hammered dulcimer. He has studied with Ravi Shankar and played with other Indian classical musicians such as Ronu Majumdar and Vishwa Mohan Bhatt. He has recorded and played both solo compositions and jugalbandis with instruments as diverse as shehnai and bansuri. Although he plays primarily in the Hindustani tradition, he has been known to perform Carnatic ragas as well.

Stylistically, Pandit Bhattacharya differs from many other santoor players in his varying uses of tones and timbres. While he has a well-developed and well-utilized hammering technique, including the sliding/glissando technique pioneered by Shivkumar Sharma, he also uses his fingernails in picking patterns by hammering with one hand and plucking with the other. An additional technique involves carefully placed palm mutes during dramatic sections such as a tihai to produce a staccato melodic conclusion. Perhaps his most unusual and stirring contribution to the santoor's legacy is a modified string at the bottom of the instrument, tuned to a very low pitch, which he presses on and bends during compositions to provide a meend-like robust underlayer or phrase ending.

Pandit Bhattacharya has also modified his santoor to include small blocks beneath each string which facilitate "fine tuning" during performances, since the santoor, with its 90-plus strings, goes out of tune frequently.

[edit] Discography

• Song of Nature, Flame of the Forest (1992), Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, mohan veena, Ronu Majumdar, bansuri
• Essence of Jugalbandi (1993), Ronu Majumdar, bansuri
• Sargam (1995)
• Kirvani (1996), featuring an original raga and three shorter pieces.
• Mental Bliss (1998), Bikram Ghosh, tabla
• Santoor (2000)
• Hypnotic Santoor (2001)
• Transcendence (2005)

[edit] External links

• Tarunji home page
• Biographical sketch at MusicalNirvana.com