Carnatic music on keyboard

[ahilaj]

Dear all
There are thousands of lessons, materials, videos in the net for learning western music on keyboard. But no such thing is available for carnatic music. Only on keyboard satya's site, fingerong for sarali varisai is given . on another site, only swaras for the keys with figure is given
Pl let me know if any book, study materials, lessons or video is available for practising carnatic music on keyboard.
Thank u
Regards
Ahilaj

[raguanu]

Whether or not keyboard is suitable for Carnatic music at all is the question. As I've mentioned in the other post, all swarasthanas sound wrong on a keyboard. This image shows how much each swarasthana deviate from regular keyboard notes:



That is for the plain steady notes. Producing gamakas is either impossible or problematic on keyboards. I'd like to quote a few passages from T.M.Krishna's book, A Southern Music, on using keyboard to play Carnatic music.

Some musicians have tried presenting Karnatik music on the harmonium. This is not just unnecessary but inadvisable. We need to recognize that the instrument in its present form is incapable of rendering the gamakas that give Karnatic music its aural identity. Then why even attempt such an experiment? In such cases, musicians are primarily relying on the listeners' natural ability to imagine gamakas between the gamaka-less svaras being rendered on the instrument. Memory completes every musical experience. But this cannot - and should not - be a reason for musicians to render Karnatik music on instruments that are incapable of expressing that which defines the music. Instruments such as the jalataranga also fall into this category. A lack of continuity, which is the quality Karnatik music needs, haunts these instruments.

Though the above passage is about harmonium, the same applies to keyboards without pitch bend. What about keyboards with pitch-bend? Krishna continues:

With the use of pitch bender (a device on keyboards that allows for the rendition of the moving forms of svaras with continuity), musicians are able to render svaras in the Karnatik sense. Svaras can turn, swerve, bounce and glide; they are not rigid frequency positions. Yet there is a problem. While I recognize that this is a far better proposition than a keyboard without the pitch bender (the pitch bender itself comes with different settings and possibilities depending on the keyboard), my concern is subtle. I have spent a lot of time listening to ragas and compositions being played on this instrument. While the gamakas appear - at and times even pass as - correct, they are actually distorted. The distortion is not a result of the keyboard's sound, but due to the sound of the gamaka.

On the keyboard, gamakas do not have the necessary 'feel' through their movements. It sounds like a contrived connection between two positions. There is also an obvisous, and unnecessary, emphasis at the two end points of a gamaka movement, which sounds artificial. When sung or heard on the vina or violin, the gamaka is both smooth and rounded, without unnecessary pressure at any unsuitable point.

And more importantly,

The danger here is that if musicians and listeners get used to this approximation of svaras, the aesthetic quality of the music will be manipulated.

I'm in total agreement with T.M. Krishna in his stance about keyboard as a (not-so-suitable) musical instrument to play Carnatic. However, there is another popular usage of keyboard that he didn't address directly. Keyboard is used as a teaching aid. It is forced upon vocal and other instrument students because it is easy. In this context, the magnitude of _danger_ that TMK cautions become enormous because such students are systematically conditioned to like and imbibe swaras that are plainly wrong and don't belong to Carnatic music.

@ahilaj, I'm sorry for being so critical and not supportive of your objective. But, (borrowing from TMK again) how much will the keyboard affect musicality? It's a question we must bend our minds to.

Thank you,
Ananth Pattabi
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[msakella]

A little school-going kid starting with the learning of alphabets needs a slate and slate-pencil only but not a nice paper and Parker-pen to start with. To bring out from the most harmful tentacles of the so-called music-cheaters and to make his/her work and learn on his/her own independently the keyboard having the facilities of metronome and transpose is helping the kid a lot in getting along with the precise rhythm and note right from the first day of learning.

Professional performers or freelance music-teachers cannot understand the problems of the poor aspirants like the regular, professional and honest music-teacher. Like the teacher in motor-cycle-driving who sits on the pillion only, the true music-teacher sings less than 1% but initiates the kid work for more than 99% and learn music. If needed please refer the videos of http://www.rasikas.org/forums/viewtopic. ... 71#p282771 & http://rasikas.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=25807. amsharma