Ranjan veena

Ranjan Veena by Pandit Niranjan Haldar

Ranjan Veena is a plucked string musical instrument invented and patented by Pandit Niranjan Haldar, a retired senior Grade-A artist from All India Radio (Indore, India).

Invention

Haldar has more than 40 years of experience in Indian and Western Classical music^[1] and has performed at various concerts and events such as Vichitra Veena for Akashvani, Doordarshan and Sangeet Natak Academy. He drew inspiration from Vichitra Veena.

After a decade of work he created a smaller musical instrument with a unique tonal quality that is a combination of the veena, sitarganduitar.^[2] The instrument is played with picks on fore-finger, middle-finger and thumb.^[3] On the Ranjan Veena, an experienced musician can play all the Indian Classical Instrumental techniques: Meed (Slide) Gamak, Krintan, Gitkari and the fast Taans.

Structure

• Type: finger picking instruments
• Picks: 2 Finger Picks, 1 Thumb Pick & Stone/ Glass slide
• Size (L*B*H): (1100mm X 330mm X 150mm)
• Weight: 3.6 kg (7.93 lbs)
• Main Strings: 5; Secondary/ Chikari Strings - 4; Sympathetic Strings - 12; Octave Range - 4
• Tuning Knobs: 21 (Indian design with guitar-like mechanism)
• Fret: with 19 reference frets.

References