Kanjeera

The kanjeera is a small frame drum from South India. It is handy, cheap and flexible and can create an amazing bass.

EU: 69 €
incl. VAT, plus 8.20 € shipping within Germany / 23.10 € within Europe
Non-EU: 57,98 €
plus 23.10 € shipping within Europe / overseas on request

The kanjeera is used in classical South Indian percussion ensembles together with the drum mridangam, the clay pot ghatam and the jaw's harp morsing. By using the South Indian rhythm language Konnakol and a differentiated fingering technique, fascinating and complex rhythms can be played on it.

Sound sample played on one of our Kanjiramodels by Manicknam Yogeswaran

Features

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.

Manufacturer / Supplier

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.

Size

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

Playing Technique

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

Teaching material can be found in the Media section.