Where can I get my hands on a Mohan Veena?
The Mohan Veena is not being manufactured commercially at the moment. They’ve all been hand made by a craftsman in Calcutta (whom I spent some time with after studying with VM Bhatt). There is probably less than two dozen in circulation. I’ve heard that there is a company now selling mock Veena’s on ebay. I’ve played one of them once and couldn’t get much sound out of it because the tarap bridge wasn’t formed well enough to allow the sympathetic strings to sing properly. Also the overall craftmanship was pretty rough. But for someone who doesn’t know how it should sound or how to get the strings to sing out, or who has no training in Indian classical music, or even how it should be tuned, it should sound okay. I recommend to anyone that does get a chance to play one that they get an introduction to Indian music and Indian slide guitar technique if possible. For instance, Indian slide guitarists play in a circular fashion, which is very different than western slide players. Actually the
