At 15, he discovered his fascination for Indian classical music when he first heard Remember Shakti (album),[4] by John McLaughlin, Zakir Hussain, Vikku Vinayakram and Hariprasad Chaurasia.

At the Conservatory he studied with Tom Martin of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, while the sitar player Peter Row taught him the fundamentals of Indian classical performance.

While on tour with Amma, he had the opportunity to perform with David Balakrishnan of the Turtle Island String Quartet and study with saxophonist George Brooks.

[citation needed] As a clarinetist, Tucker has shared the stage with such legendary artists as Zakir Hussain, Hariprasad Chaurasia, and Raghu Dixit and recorded with music director Amit Trivedi for Coke Studio (India) .

The series has been featured on the front page of YouTube, MTV India, and has recently been included in the Smithsonian Museum’s exhibition on Indian American Culture.

Tucker blends Classical Indian music, jazz and popular music to create a unique and original fusion sound, both in solo recordings and with some of the most talented and accomplished young Carnatic and Hindustani vocalists and instrumentalists, including Vidya and Vandana Iyer, Jomy George, Nirali Kartik, Mahesh Vinayakram, B. Sree Sundarkumar, and others.

In 2014, Vidya Iyer and he co-founded the ShrutiBox Music, Inc. Shankar Tucker was an invited speaker at TEDxGateway conference in Mumbai and TEDxCEG in Chennai.