Ulhas Bapat, 62, a senior santoor player based in Mahim, is an innovator

The art of fine tuning

Ulhas Bapat, 62, a senior santoor player based in Mahim, is an innovator. He began his forays into music as a tabla student. He was trained by Ramakant Mhapsekar, who used to accompany singers such as Shobha Gurtu and Kishori Amonkar and play for film recordings.
But Bapat heard the santoor maestro Shivkumar Sharma and was captivated. “Shivji had played a brief background piece for the film Pakeezah,” says Bapat. “It bowled me over.”
He learned ragas from vocalists such as Wamanrao Sadolikar and K G Ginde and the intricacies of instrumental music from leading sarod player Zarine Sharma. But he sought to create his own identity by devising a new technique of tuning and playing. “My system of tuning is chromatic, enabling me to play any raga without having to retune the santoor,” explains Bapat.

This is in contrast to most santoor players, who need to tune their instrument each time they play a new raga. While this allows them to play faster, Bapat’s method allows him to play a series of ragas without having to stop to retune. He plays audience’s requests one after the other or together as a ragamala, a garland of ragas.
Bapat also stands out for being able to create meends, the glissandos integral to Hindustani music, even though the santoor does not lend itself to the production of these continuous glides.
Bapat has also been a favourite of composers like RD Burman, Khaiyyam, Ravindra Jain and Vanraj Bhatia. This evening, he plays as part of a festival of music organised by the Khayal Trust in collaboration with Kalabharati. He will be accompanied on the tabla by Makarand Tulankar. Tomorrow, Vijay Koparkar, 50, an energetic singer from Pune and Borivli-based flautist Rupak Kulkarni (about whom we wrote last week) will perform.