The Journey to Sapt Guitar – Part-2

An Ode to Indian Classical Music – The Journey to Sapt Guitar, Part 2

Like I mentioned in Part-1, in 1999, I decided to wind up other activities and plunge full time into my pursuit of music. This immediately started paying dividends. In the year 2000, my next big milestone arrived when I created “Nachoo Mein Saari Saari Raat”– a Shubha Mudgal album from Virgin records. While all the songs in this album had a strong influence of my new love for Indian ragas/folk music, one of the songs especially depicted this new style of playing Indian ragas on the nylon string guitar. The track was called “Soona Soona Lage”. It was recorded LIVE with tabla and vocals and the result were amazing! Everyone who listened to the track was blown away and was convinced that this style of music was going to be the future of the music industry.

After this there was no looking back. Some of my notable Bollywood films are ‘Zubaan’, ‘Gutargu’ and ’99.9FM’.

In this journey, I met notable Sitarist Ustaad Shujaat Khan, a seventh generation musician and son of the legendary musician, Ustaad Vilayat Ali Khan Saheb. This was the first of its kind ‘jodi’ playing sitar and guitar anywhere in the world. We both were driven for our passions towards Indian classical music. Besides our respective instruments, our passions included a love for singing. Soon, our ‘jodi’ received positive acclaim and we created many successful music albums together along with live shows. Some of our famous albums during that period are ‘Sukoon,Stillness of Sound, Beyond love etc.

The reason why I didn’t opt for playing Indian instruments like sarod or sitar instead of a nylon guitar is that I always was in love with the sound of the guitar. Indian music is in my DNA so it’s not the instrument in itself but, it’s the heart and soul of the player who is playing the instrument.

My next and perhaps the most crucial step to the birth of Sapt Guitar was an incident which happened in June 2019. It so happened that my old Nylon guitar needed repairing as some frets required to be changed as they had thinned down. Luthier told me that he will take all the frets out and then redo them. Instinctively or maybe some divine force guided me to ask him to make it a fretless guitar. The Luthier, though surprised, smiled and agreed to make it a fretless guitar as he knew my passion about experimenting with my music and instruments.

So I got the fretless guitar back on the day of “Guru Purnima”, another subtle sign from the heavens. On that auspicious day, I played the first ‘avatar’ of Sapt Guitar for the first time. I found it really tough to play as the normal resonance (remember it’s a fretless guitar) was missing. But practice makes perfect and so I started my riyaaz with renewed passion and devotion. The practice made me realise that a metal fingerboard may be the answer to providing the missing resonance that was required. Moreover, the metal fingerboard would have given the instrument the softness of the Nylon string guitar along with the depth and power of an instrument like the Sarod.

My practice since last year on my fretless has fulfilled this quest. Nevertheless, I still felt the need of an additional base string to increase the range of my playing which led to a seven-string fretless Nylon guitar. I now had what I had desired and the last step left to refine my Sapt Guitar was to  find an accomplished guitar Luthier who could make a fretless nylon string guitar as per my requirements. This search also culminated when I found Mr. Daniel Zucali, a world renowned Luthier from Austria with whose help my Sapt Guitar was born. I hope that my forthcoming music and compositions will add a new dimension and chapter in the path to excellence for musicians, singers, composers and listeners alike.