Bihag Desh

Review

Bhatt plays traditional ragas with a slide on lap-style guitar he calls the Mohan vina, with many additional strings — Accoustic Guitar July/August 1991

Product Description

Rag Bihag is an important evening raga. The rasa (mood) is romantic combined with pathos, as in longing for one’s lover. Basically following a major scale, it omits the second, third and sixth while ascending, and goes through both a natural and augmented fourth.

From the Artist

“Although guitar is a foreign instrument, he has a tremendous command over it. He has given a new dimension to it by merging the sound and style of guitar, sitar and sarod. The effect of his playing is unique.”– Padmavibhushan Ravi Shankar

About the Artist

Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt was born in 1952, of a musician family of Jaipur in Rajasthan. He received his initial training from his older brother Shashi Mohan, and is now a disciple of Ravi Shankar. He has modified his guitar by adding several chikari (drone strings tuned to the tonic), and eight sympathetic strings tuned to the scale of the raga being played, which ring out in the background when their note is struck on the main strings. This hybrid instrument, which Vishwa calls the Mohan Veena, is played like a Hawaiian slide guitar, and is ideally suited for the sustained, sliding notes of vocal style Indian classical music. Sukhvindar Singh, from Ludhiana in the Punjab, is one of today’s leading young tabla players. Learning first to play the pakhawaj (the large double headed drum used to accompany Dhrupad vocal music) under Nihal Singh, he received a thorough training in the Banares tradition from his guru Kishan Maharaj.