Ten String Magic: How L. Shankar reinvented the violin

On 13 February 2026, L. Shankar takes over the Royal Opera House stage with the instrument that has come to define his career: the 10-string, double-necked stereophonic electric violin known as the LSD.

Developed in 1978 with New York luthier Ken Parker, it entered the wider public ear in 1981 - heard on Phil Collins’ Face Value and on Shankar’s own Who’s to Know. Shankar has described it as an instrument that can travel from bass weight to treble brightness, letting one player cover a far wider register without switching instruments mid-piece.

His father, V. Lakshminarayana, trained him in Carnatic music, where pitch behaves like speech: a note stretches, turns, and settles with intention. Shankar absorbed that discipline to a degree that the technique seems to vanish in performance.

Shakti became the fiercest arena for that approach. With John McLaughlin, Zakir Hussain, and T. H. Vikku Vinayakram, the group played with the pressure of a high-wire act. The violin sits inside dense rhythmic cycles and still holds its clarity. McLaughlin’s guitar carved sharp patterns; Shankar replied with curved Carnatic phrases; the percussion treated time as elastic. Even at high tempo, every turn felt deliberate. Over time, Shakti reshaped what “fusion” could mean and raised the bar for ensemble improvisation. 

In 1979, Shankar toured with Frank Zappa as his electric violinist, learning how quickly a band can shift register, mood, and volume. The next decade brought ECM recordings. Pancha Nadai Pallavi, recorded in 1989 and released in 1990 with Zakir and Vikku, moves through long forms without losing tension. Raga Aberi later earned a Grammy nomination for Best World Music Album. 

His credits also extend far beyond the classical circuit, including studio work with Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins. The through line stays consistent: he treats tone as language, and rhythm as a partner with teeth.

Friday’s show comes with one simple instruction—follow the line of his sound. Listen closely to the silence around it. When the phrase bends, notice how it returns. That return is where the discipline lives, and where the freedom becomes audible.