Vishwa Review
from Ragas for Guitar by Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers
Accoustic Guitar, July/August 1991
On the other side of the globe, a brilliant gu1tarist named Vishwa Mohan Bhatt continues the Indian tradition of importing and transforming foreign instruments; violin and mandolin, for instance, have taken on new identities and playing techniques in India. Bhatt plays traditional ragas with a slide on a lap-style guitar he calls the Mohan vina, which has a slew of additional strings: eight tuned on the peghead plus 12 sympathetic strings that run below them. Slide is a perfect vehicle for snaking Indian melodies, and Bhatt has developed a mastery of the instrument that has to be heard to be believed.
