The wooden frame - made from one piece - is approx. 15 - 20 cm in diameter. Traditionally the skin was made from lizard but that is not allowed anymore due to species protection. Instead, the kanjeeras of our supplier Paloma have a goatskin. The skin may be uneven, this is not a quality defect. A resounding metal bell is fit into the wooden frame.

PALOMA is the international brand name for instruments made by Haribhau Vishwanath from Mumbai (formerly Bombay). Haribhau Vishwanath was founded in 1925 as a small repair business and developed into one of the leading Indian harmonium manufacturers in the course of decades. In addition, Haribhau Vishwanath makes shrutiboxes, santoors, swarmandals and some drums. Haribhau Vishwanath is also an active musical instrument trader and supplies us with some rarely demanded instruments where a direct purchase from the manufacturer is not profitable. Thanks to his good infrastructure and long experience with instrument manufacturing, trading and international shipping, Haribhau currently supplies all common harmonium models and many other instruments constantly in a high quality regarding workmanship. In addition, he excels through attractive innovations, like e.g. the harmonium Compactina or a particular silk-mat finish. Haribhau Vishwanath is a partner of India Instruments since 2005. Today the company is run by Ashish Diwane.

Measure: diameter 15 - 20 cm, frame height 5.5 cm, frame thickness 1.5 cm
Each instrument is individually hand-crafted and might differ from our description

The frame of the kanjeera is held in one hand so that the fingers of the holding hand assert pressure onto the skin,  thus changing the pitch while the fingers of the other hand strike the skin. Sometime before playing, the skin is moistened with water. It then swells, looses some tension and can thus generate incredible bass notes. To generate higher notes, the skin is simply tensed by the holding hand.

Teaching material can be found in the Media section.