Sameep Kulkarni

Sameep is born in the family of musicians and educationalists. His sister is a professional classical singer and C.S. Intermediate. (Disciple of Dr. Ashvini Bhide-Deshpande). His mother has learnt classical music from Ustad Sayeeduddin Dagar. His aunt is trained classical singer (Disciple of Pt. Kishori Amonkar. His father is violinist and mathematician. (Disciple of Ustad Faiyyaz Khan) 

Sameep also plays electric sitar by putting the electronic pick up on it and attaching electronic processor and amplifier to it. He takes out sound effects like ‘Chorus, Distortion, Delay, Chords and Compression’ using the processor.

Sameep has the special quality of playing the sitar with ‘TRANSPOSING THE SCALE’. He can play in different scales when the sitar is tuned to base scale C#, which is also called as ‘Murchhana’ in Indian Classical Music. Different instruments in the world can be imitated on sitar by attaching processor to it. Sameep has done experiments like jugalbandhi (duet) with female vocalists, male vocalists, different instruments like santoor, flute, violin, harmonium, drums, dholak, saxophone, guitar, synthesizer, bongo, conga, tabla, mandolin, and different dance types like kathak, bharatnatyam, oddici, etc. Sameep has experimented fusion of sitar music with the other art forms like ‘Painting’. He has done fusion concerts with Mr. Shrikant Sathe, the renowned painter. Sameep belongs to the rotary club family and has done several performances for various rotary clubs all over India.

Sameep plays sitar with ‘Gayaki Anga’. For his sitar, it is always said that ‘strings which sings’. For him, ‘bending techniques’ come with ease while playing. He can take out ‘meend’ of 5 notes just from single note by stretching the sitar string. Taking out ‘meend’ at high speed is his specialty. His mastery over ‘Development’ of different ragas at such young age is really appreciable. He plays ‘Gandhar Pancham type’ sitar which was invented by Ustd. Vilayat Khan.

He also manages to play ‘Chords’ on sitar while playing with western instruments in fusion concerts. Along with classical music, Sameep also play different music types such as semi-classical, thumari, dadra, zula, bhajans, light, film songs, gazals, pop, jazz etc. on sitar. Using processor with sitar, he is able to do scale shifting and also he can produce sound of many other instruments such as guitar.