Mohan veena

A Mohan veena is either of two distinct Indian classical instruments: a modified sarod created by the well-known sarodiya Radhika Mohan Maitra, or a modified Hawaiian guitar created by Vishwa Mohan Bhatt.

Radhika Mohan Maitra with his Mohan veena

VishwaMohan's instrument

Bhatt's instrument is a modified Archtop guitar and consists of 20 strings - three to four melody strings, four to five drone strings are strung from the peghead, and twelve sympathetic strings strung to the tuners mounted on the side of the neck. A gourd (or the tumba) is screwed into the back of the neck for improved sound sustain and resonance. It is held in the lap like a slide guitar. It is under tremendous tension; the total strings pull to be in excess of 500 pounds. Performers include Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Salil Bhatt (who went on to invent the Satvik Veena, a derivative of his father's Mohan Veena), Manish Pingle (toured UK in 2015 with Michael Messer), and Canadian blues singer Harry Manx. There are variants of the Mohan Veena in India, such as the Chaturangui (created by Debashish Bhattacharya), Hansa Veena (created by Barun Kumar Pal), and Shankar Veena (created by Kamala Shankar).

External links

• Rare Strains
• Ranjan Veena
• Writeup about Mohan Veena on Music Aloud