He died after brief illness at his residence at Virar on the outskirts of Mumbai. He was 83.
Born on March 27, 1929 at Nagpur, he learnt harmonium from renowned maestro Pt Bhishmadev Vedi and later went on to modify it into what he called 'sanvadini'.
Receipient of several awards, Chimote had worked with the likes of Naushad, Hemant Kumar, Bade Gulam Ali Khan, Ustad Amir Khan among others.
According to music experts, harmonium had its origins in Europe and it was widely used by western musicians for accompaniment rather than as a solo instrument.
But Indian musicians mainly used harmonic patterns based on 'natural scale' of tuning system and thus it was necessary that harmonium to be used in Indian classical music should be tuned in natural scale. This concept was originally thought of by late Pt Bhishmadev Vedi but actually implemented in reality by Pt Chimote, they said.
