Of course, I said yes, and the rest is history," he laughs. "It was bought for my elder brother but he never picked it up. It sank without a trace, much like the instrument that is threatening to disappear from the music scene. You don’t think of a banjo or a mandolin when you think of a rock star image, which everyone strives for," he explains. Burman compositions, was the harmonica, more commonly known as the mouth organ. But so many other instruments get sidelined, and it is these instruments that I want to showcase in my pieces," explains Tushar, who has used the sarangi in his compositions and plans to add elements of shehnai and the Carnatic veena to his future projects."Mastering a sarangi takes as long as 15 years, so sarangi players enter the business much later," explains Pt Dhruba Ghosh, principal of Bhavans College. In fact, I only play on two strings, tuned to the same frequency, whereas other players use six," he explains. I once saw a young boy playing Re Ma Ma Re Ma Ma Re and I wanted to play like him, so I taught myself. "I was very happy to hear the accordion being played in Itti Si Hasi in Barfi. I started learning singing more seriously and started to pick up the keyboard and other instruments.
A few exponents of these however, still exist — not all of them are professional musicians, but share the love, respect and a high degree of proficiency in their respective instruments. Raman laments the fact that most people don’t pick up instruments like mandolins or banjos because they are too focused on image. I also lived quite close to the music hub of Calcutta in those days, so I observed musicians and wanted to play like them. "I think this is more of a rediscovery of musical instruments, rather than a revival. My mother bought me my first accordion from her savings when I graduated from school and I fiddled with it till I became quite proficient.HarmonicaAn instrument, which often accompanied the accordion in many R. They’re just being brought back to the mainstream now," he adds.While Raman Iyer plays the mandolin, an eight-string fretted string instrument (which looks a lot like a guitar) as part of Neeraj Arya’s Kabir Café, physiotherapist Dr Deepak Kachalia’s banjo gathers dust through most of the year. "Your cuticles are cut repeatedly during the first few years and it is very painful. "My mother had a harmonium and I used to play that. I took to learning sarangi when I was 14 and became fascinated with it," he recalls. "Any kid who wants to learn an instrument goes for a guitar or a keyboard or drums. My warden found me crying one day and asked me what the matter was.The exponents:SarangiPerhaps one of the most historically important instruments to have been sidelined over the years is the sarangi, a string instrument that is played with a bow.Pt Dhruba Ghosh MandolinAnother string-based instrument which is struggling is the mandolin.
Tushar takes popular Hollywood-based music themes like the Game of Throne theme or the Harry Potter background score and gives them an Indian spin using a mix of Hindustani and Carnatic instruments. "I was studying in Ramkrishna Vidyalaya Mysore, where I got a scholarship, but we had to study electronics, art or music as a compulsory course. The instruments are so exquisite in themselves that I believe they will always be around. Music teacher Amitabh Chakraborty’s mouth organ has also mostly become a hobby to be pursued at leisure. A trained ear like mine can catch what is the actual instrument and what is the artificial note created by a keyboard. "This is the best time for instruments to make a comeback because the visual medium is coming up. "The mouth organ would be leading the orchestra with a piano accordion in the background and congos or bongos as accompaniments.AccordionAnother self-taught musician whose love for a rare instrument has been kept alive through electronic music is Ashok Sen, who plays the piano accordion.Ashok SenWhile even five years ago, these individuals were despairing that they would probably be some of the last musicians to play their instruments, most now agree that a new era of revival might be upon us. I never took classes or anything. I am the child of a single parent and my mother could not have afforded an instrument. I told him I don’t have an instrument to play. "
I used to play at our garbas and other functions before, but nowadays you can’t dance late into the night like earlier, so people don’t ask me to play at their functions much.The social media has been another medium for musicians to showcase their talent and, among the forerunners of these online projects is the India Jam Project, helmed by composer Tushar Lall. "I realised that the mouth organ was going out of fashion. I even had my own group of musicians with whom I used to play," he recalls, adding that he accompanied ma-ny a singer whoemulated Kishore Kumar, as well as Rani Mukerji’s mother Krishna Ray. Unlike with the violin or the cello where a musician presses down on the strings, a sarangi player must put his fingers between the wood and string and press upwards, making this one of the most difficult instruments to play. "When most people think of Indian MJ376/S series of CNC horizontal band saw machine instruments, they simply think of the sitar or the tabla, because of maestros like Ravi Shankar and Zakir Hussain. Now, I perform as a singer and teach singing as well as guitar and keyboard," he says. Music teacher and part-time performer, Amitabh Chakraborty learned how to play this instrument at the age of 10, with dreams of being a part of an orchestra.