A hand drum is any type of drum that is typically played with the bare hand rather than a stick, mallet, hammer, or other type of beater.
Trilok Gurtu is an Indian percussionist and composer whose work has blended the music of India with jazz fusion and world music.
The mridangam is a percussion instrument of ancient origin. It is the primary rhythmic accompaniment in a Carnatic music ensemble. In Dhrupad, a modified version, the pakhawaj, is the primary percussion instrument. A related instrument is the Kendang, played in Maritime Southeast Asia.
Talvin Singh OBE is an English musician, producer, and composer. A tabla player, he is known for creating an innovative fusion of Indian classical music and drum and bass. Singh is generally considered involved with an electronica subgenre called Asian Underground, and more recently as Indian and/or Asian electronica.
The kanjira, khanjira, khanjiri or ganjira, a South Indian frame drum, is an instrument of the tambourine family. As a folk and bhajan instrument, it has been used in India for many centuries. The kanjira's emergence in South Indian Carnatic music, as well as the development of the modern form of the instrument, is credited to Manpoondia Pillai. In the 1880s, Manpoondia Pillai was a temple lantern-bearer who sought to study drumming. He modified it to a frame drum with a single pair of jingles and brought the instrument to a classical stage. It is used primarily in concerts of Carnatic music as a supporting instrument for the mridangam.
V. Selvaganesh is an Indian percussionist working in the Carnatic tradition and one of the leading kanjira players of his generation. He is also known as "Chella S. Ganesh."
Glen Velez is a four-time Grammy winning American percussionist, vocalist, and composer, specializing in frame drums from around the world. He is largely responsible for the increasing popularity of frame drums in the United States and around the world. Velez is married to Loire.
Pete Lockett is an English percussionist and recording artist. Lockett is known as a versatile and prolific percussionist, collaborating with many artists. He is well-versed in percussion traditions from music cultures around the world, from traditional Carnatic and Hindustani music of North and South India to traditional Japanese taiko drumming, with a style ranging from blues, funk and rock to classical, folk and ethnic and from Arabic to Electronic. His instruments include tabla, mridangam, kanjira, ghatam, vocal percussion, dholak, naal, bhangra dhol from north and south India; darabuka, req, bendir, frame-drums from the Middle East; congas, bongos, timbales and berimbau from Latin American; as well as the Irish bodhran, Nigerian udu, West African djembe, Japanese taiko, Western drum set, and many custom percussion effects and self-built instruments. He also works extensively with electronics and samplers, both live and in the studio, to create densely alternative percussion fabrics.
Jamey George Haddad is an American percussionist who works primarily in the fields of jazz and world music and specializes in hand drums.
Trichy Sankaran is an Indian percussionist, composer, scholar, and educator. He was awarded the Madras Music Academy's Sangeetha Kalanidhi in 2011. As a mridangam vidwan, he has been called a "doyen among the percussionists of India" in Sruti magazine. Since the early 1970s, he has performed and recorded in a number of cross-cultural projects. In 2017, he was awarded the "Tiruchirapalli Carnatic Musicians Lifetime Achievement Award".
Remember Shakti is a quintet which combines elements of traditional Indian music with elements of jazz. The band consists of English guitarist John McLaughlin, and Zakir Hussain (tabla), U. Srinivas (deceased) (mandolin), Shankar Mahadevan (vocals), and V. Selvaganesh, who are of Indian descent. The band's name is derived from John Mclaughlin's acoustic Indian fusion band Shakti which was active in the 1970s. McLaughlin and Hussain were also members of that band, along with violinist L. Shankar and percussionists T.H. "Vikku" Vinayakram and R. Raghavan. The word Shakti translates in Sanskrit to "power" or "goddess of power".
Thetakudi Harihara Vinayakram, also known as Vikku Vinayakram, is an Indian percussionist. He is also known as the God of ghatam. He plays Carnatic music with the ghatam, an earthen pot, and is credited with popularising the ghatam.
Palghat T. S. Mani Iyer (1912–1981), born Thiruvilvamalai Ramaswamy was one of the leading mridangists in the field of Carnatic music. He, along with his contemporaries Palani Subramaniam Pillai and Ramanathapuram C. S. Murugabhoopathy, are revered as the "Holy Trinity of Mrudangam". Mani Iyer was the first mridangist to be awarded the Sangeetha Kalanidhi (1966) presented by the Music Academy of Madras, the Padma Bhushan (1971) and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards(1956) presented by the Government of India.
Ghatam Giridhar Udupa is an Indian percussionist and a leading exponent of the ghatam. He is one of the members of Layatharanga, a team of Indian classical musicians who have embarked on the task of blending different forms of classical, folk and world music. In 2015 he founded and has since served as the director of The Udupa Foundation, a registered charitable trust with the aim of promoting music, performing arts and culture.
Sivamani, commonly known by his stage name Drums Sivamani, is an Indian percussionist. He plays many instruments including drums, octoban, darbuka, udukai, ghatam and kanjira. He performed drumming during the IPL Championships in 2008 and 2010. He is affiliated with the Chennai Super Kings team, but gained recognition through his role as A. R. Rahman's lead percussionist. They have been close friends since childhood. In 2019, he was conferred with Padma Shri.
Govinda Rao Harishankar, was a player of the kanjira, Khanjira or Khanjari, a tambourine-like frame drum used in the Carnatic music of South India. He is the only kanjira player to be awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, the highest national recognition given to performing artists.
Konnakol is the art of performing percussion syllables vocally in South Indian Carnatic music. Konnakol is the spoken component of solkattu, which refers to a combination of konnakol syllables spoken while simultaneously counting the tala (meter) with the hand. It is comparable in some respects to bol in Hindustani music, but allows the composition, performance or communication of rhythms. A similar concept in Hindustani classical music is called padhant.
River Guerguerian is a multi-percussionist, composer, and educator. Canadian-born, River is of Armenian-Egyptian descent and currently lives in Asheville, North Carolina.
T. S. Nandakumar is a well known Indian versatile carnatic music percussionist. He is primarily adept in playing the mridangam.
