| Tarun Bhattacharya | |
|---|---|
| Genres | Indian classical music |
| Instruments | santoor |
Pandit Tarun Bhattacharya is an Indian classical musician who plays the santoor,[1] a type of hammered dulcimer. He has studied with Ravi Shankar[2] and played with other Indian classical musicians such as Ronu Majumdar[3] and Vishwa Mohan Bhatt.
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Tarun Bhattacharya was born in Calcutta, India.
Bhattacharya has recorded and played both solo compositions and jugalbandis with instruments like shehnai and bansuri. His versatility has also grown with his role in the first ever santoor-vocal jugalbandi with Anurag Harsh. Although he plays primarily in the Hindustani tradition, he has been known to perform Carnatic ragas as well.
Stylistically, Bhattacharya differs from many other santoor players in his varying uses of tones and timbres. He has a developed technique, including the sliding/glissando technique pioneered by Shivkumar Sharma, but also uses his fingernails in picking patterns by hammering with one hand and plucking with the other. An additional technique involves palm mutes during dramatic sections such as a tihai to produce a staccato melodic conclusion. Perhaps his most unusual and stirring contribution 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.
Bhattacharya has also modified his santoor to include small blocks beneath each string which facilitate "fine tuning" during performances, because the santoor, with its 90-plus strings, goes out of tune frequently.