The Indian percussionist T.H. Vinayakram (Vikku Vinayakram) is famous for playing which instrument?

Explanation

Thetakudi Harihara Vinayakram, born in 1942 and popularly known as Vikku Vinayakram, is the most famous ghatam player in the world. He is often described as the "God of Ghatam" for his mastery of this unusual instrument.

The ghatam is one of the oldest percussion instruments of India. It is a large, narrow-mouthed earthenware pot, made of clay mixed with brass or copper filings and baked, which gives it a special ringing tone. It is used mainly in Carnatic music, as an accompaniment to the mridangam. The player sits with the pot on his lap, with its mouth facing his stomach, and strikes the outer surface with the fingers, thumbs, palms and heels of the hands to produce a wide range of sounds. By pressing the mouth of the pot against the stomach, the player can also change the pitch of the bass sound. The town of Manamadurai in Tamil Nadu is famous for making ghatams.

Vikku Vinayakram was born in Tamil Nadu and learnt the ghatam from his father, T.R. Harihara Sharma, who was also a musician and teacher. He became the leading ghatam player of Carnatic music, accompanying the greatest musicians of his time. He also became world-famous through his work with the fusion group Shakti, founded in the 1970s by the British guitarist John McLaughlin, the violinist L. Shankar and the tabla player Zakir Hussain. He won a Grammy Award in 1992 for the album "Planet Drum", with the American drummer Mickey Hart and others, which made him one of the first Indian musicians to win a Grammy. He received the Padma Shri (2002) and the Padma Bhushan (2014).

Why not the other options?

• ✗Mridangam is linked with players such as Palghat Mani Iyer and Umayalpuram Sivaraman.
• ✗Kanjira is linked with players such as Pudukkottai Dakshinamurthy Pillai.
• ✗Tabla is linked with players such as Zakir Hussain and Alla Rakha.