Unknown guitar at rural fingertips
Aravinda HETTIARACHCHI
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Amaranath Ranatunga
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Any genius of any subject matter is an extraordinary being in living.
Yet they cannot reach that extraordinariness without working hard.
Amaranath Ranathunge is a genius in his classical and flamenco guitar,
and is, most obviously, an extraordinary being in living.
Amaranath is a simple but an immeasurable man who came through a
history of a thorny life piercing two different approaches in guitar;
Classical and Flamenco. Thus he stands unyielding on playing, teaching
and composing as one of the best Classical and Flamenco guitarists in
South Asia today.
He started this long career at the age of eight in the 1950's. He is
still competently committed to this twofold way of guitar and practises
it for nearly between five and eight hours everyday. Consequently, his
first specialized harvest came out as a Sinhala book named 'Classical
and Flamenco Guitar' in 2007 attached with a CD which comprised a
variety of filtered music pieces played by himself.
This book and the CD, in a deeper sense, was a historical conjuncture
in Lankan history of guitar music though it didn't acquire that much of
massive hype as in a developed country.
It is natural that the guitar culture of this country didn't take
this difficult and refine task of Amaranath into consideration because
33000 out of 35000 guitar players in this country still veil themselves
that 'you can be a guitar player by knowing to play just a few chords of
it'. Yet, according to him, guitar is an instrument or a practice far
beyond this classification of error. It has been accepted as a
self-sufficient main subject in most leading universities in the world.
Hence Amaranath, as the first Lankan to lecture on classical and
flamenco guitar in a university of this country (University of Visual
and Performing Art, Colombo) with an original syllabus developed by
himself for a four-year degree, has exposed some masterpieces composed
by some world class composers: three foreign traditional pieces and
three of his own compositions blended with the classical and flamenco
fine-tuning.
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Amaranath’s students |
After three years of public silence, Amaranath is again going to
blossom with his second endeavour; a CD called 'Guitar Unknown' has been
launched with new sounds and rhythms created by him.
This is a neo invention to the classical and flamenco guitar
connoisseurs in the whole world for the reason that he is the first to
introduce this type of experiment by blending the sounds and rhythms of
entirely contrasting modes in guitar music classical and flamenco
together.
The CD also comprises seven of his own unique compositions. In
addition, it contains 12 music pieces with his playing: eight world best
compositions, two medleys (one medley is made out of three Lankan songs)
and two traditional pieces of overseas.
This realistic wisdom of Amaranath tuned under the US classical
guitarist Mervin Sanders (in 1964) who then visited to spend couple of
years in this isle. Thereafter he continued learning the classical
guitar under Indrani de Silva of Ceylon Royal school of Music (in 1978).
At that time the Classical Guitar has been trained only up to grade
eight standard in Lanka. Therefore Amaranath had no choice rather than
waiting for another free wind from the Euro-Us sky. Yet he didn't stop
practising long hours a day.
Fortunately Fredric Bruno, the Mexican Flamenco guitarist, came to
Lanka to compose Sea Symphony by experiencing the south coastal area of
this isle. There Amaranath had the chance to learn flamenco guitar
unofficially up to the standard of 'Master of Art' within one and half
years under Bruno. There was no way of learning the flamenco guitar in
Lanka until the University of Visual and Performing Art officially
accepted it as a subject in 2007.
In yesteryears, it was a case of spending a huge sum of money to fly
overseas Australia, America or Spain to learn it. But today, through the
hard life and labour of Amaranath, this dream has come true. Amaranath's
extraordinary way of non stop action took this precious gift to our
country.
The Amaranath Guitar Foundation will be established to spread the
good news of Classical and Flamenco by carrying out concerts to the
remote and intricate areas such as Galle, Matara, Jaffna, Baticlow,
Kandy and etc in near future. The foundation teaches free and provides
guitars, books and CDs for the students with financial difficulties in
these areas. Later Amaranath is hoping to set up an Institution of
Learning Classical and Flamenco Guitar Island wide. Thus all the people
who are interested to involve in this task of classical and flamenco
guitar can contact him through www.guitarnath.com to contribute him in
every possible way to achieve this target.
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[ Guitar facts]
*The ancestors of the modern guitar can be
traced back to the stringed instruments played across Central Asia
and India, in ancient times.
*The oldest iconographic representation of
the guitar is a 3,000 year old carving of a Hittite or ancient
Anatolian bard playing the instrument.
*The modern guitar is believed to have
descended from the cithara brought to Hispania by the Romans, in 40
AD.
*The various references to the guitar in
ancient times included guitarra, gitarre, guitare, qitara, cithara,
kithara and sihtar.
*Traditionally, guitars were constructed
with combinations of various woods. The strings were made of animal
gut.
*The musical instrument has a mention in
records maintained by the Moors, Viking incursions and in
traditional Norse carvings.
*Dimension standards of the modern guitar
were established by Antonio Torres Jurado, between 1817 and 1892.
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