Udi Hrant Kenkulian

Udi Hrant Kenkulian (Armenian: Հրանդ Քենքուլեան; Turkish: Hrant Kenkülyan; 1901 – August 29, 1978), often referred to as Udi Hrant (lit. "oud-player Hrant") or as Hrant Emre ("Hrant of the soul") was an oud player of Turkish classical music, and a key transitional figure in its transformation into a contemporary style of popular music. He was an ethnic Armenian citizen of Turkey who spent most of his life in Turkey and wrote most of his lyrics in Turkish. He concurrently composed and performed in Armenian as well, although to a much lesser degree. Kenkulian recorded numerous sides in the United States and Europe during his travels in the mid-20th century.As an oud player, he was a major innovator, introducing left-hand pizzicato, bidirectional picking (the tradition had been to use the pick only on the downstroke), double stops, and novel tunings (sometimes using open tunings or tuning the paired strings in octaves instead of to a single note). According to Harold G. Hagopian, he was most respected for his improvisational taksim.