Guess the Violinist

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bilahari
Posts: 2631
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 09:02

Guess the Violinist

Post by bilahari »

I've been meaning to do this for a while now. Let's try to guess violinists from audio clips and use the exercise to discuss different techniques and styles of playing.

In the first edition, I have supplied three clips.
https://archive.org/details/Track1_20170417

The violinists covered in these exercises are not limited to any time period. My apologies for the poor sound, but it's difficult to obtain clips that are both good in sound quality and representative of various violinists' manner of playing.

Let's go!

varsha
Posts: 1978
Joined: 24 Aug 2011, 15:06

Re: Guess the Violinist

Post by varsha »

PARUR school - could be anybody- clip is short to find out
DWARAM - Mangathayaru or the adorable genius himself
Mysore Nagraj ( early )

others please pitch in
wonder why you cant get better samples.the editing here has robbed the track of the soul :)

srikant1987
Posts: 2246
Joined: 10 Jun 2007, 12:23

Re: Guess the Violinist

Post by srikant1987 »

I'm thinking it's MSG. It's so "clean"!

Track 2 is a duo I think, perhaps as Varsha says, father and daughter.

I couldn't identify the last one by myself, but what Varsha says makes sense. Scratch that, younger Mysore Nagaraj should be more Parur I guess.

bilahari
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Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 09:02

Re: Guess the Violinist

Post by bilahari »

#3 is difficult. I could not identify it myself, and there are only subtle clues. I have added a different track to help identify the violinist (Track 3_v2).

srikant1987
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Joined: 10 Jun 2007, 12:23

Re: Guess the Violinist

Post by srikant1987 »

#3_v2 is RKSK! :D

uday_shankar
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Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 08:37

Re: Guess the Violinist

Post by uday_shankar »

varsha wrote: 17 Apr 2017, 09:07 PARUR school - could be anybody- clip is short to find out
DWARAM - Mangathayaru or the adorable genius himself
Mysore Nagraj ( early )
Uncanny. Made the same guesses for all three...without seeing this post. I tried to cheat a little bit and tried to google early Mysore Nagraj solo without Manjunath to see if I can find that same Kamboji clip...Since there are two violinists in Clip2, Dwaram and Mangathayaru...

srikant1987
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Joined: 10 Jun 2007, 12:23

Re: Guess the Violinist

Post by srikant1987 »

OK, when I say RKSK it could also be Varadu. RKSK somehow comes immediately to my mind, since I get to see him more, since I like good violin solos and don't compulsively attend Sanjay concerts.

bilahari
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Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 09:02

Re: Guess the Violinist

Post by bilahari »

Varsha and Uday: Do you want to revisit your guess for #3 in light of new evidence? :)

Both clips for #3 were recorded after 2010.

uday_shankar
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Re: Guess the Violinist

Post by uday_shankar »

OK :)... Nagai Sriram.

varsha
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Joined: 24 Aug 2011, 15:06

Re: Guess the Violinist

Post by varsha »

nAgai muralidharan

srikant1987
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Joined: 10 Jun 2007, 12:23

Re: Guess the Violinist

Post by srikant1987 »

Finished listening to the whole #3_v2. The mridangam seems to be TVG, so I'm revising my answer to Varadu and not RKSK.

sureshvv
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Re: Guess the Violinist

Post by sureshvv »

#3 sounds like TNK

VRV
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Joined: 04 Feb 2010, 19:03

Re: Guess the Violinist

Post by VRV »

Bilahari, For sure not TNK. I have not heard Varadu enough to say it is him.

shankarank
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Joined: 15 Jun 2009, 07:16

Re: Guess the Violinist

Post by shankarank »

No 1 could be Kanyakumari - before the electric era ;) - the emoting suggests that!

bilahari
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Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 09:02

Re: Guess the Violinist

Post by bilahari »

Answers:

#1 is none other than the great MSG sketching kAnaDa. Of course, it is easy to immediately identify the Parur stamps: (1) the school uses more and more elongated glides than others between notes, which is probably what more than anything gives the school its characteristic touch; (2) phrases often taper neatly, gently touching the notes rather than with rigid finger stops; (3) ample use of flat notes and a very minimalist approach to gamakams, without ever overdoing oscillations (notes may oscillate two or three times but never more than that) and anuswaras. The timing inherent in fingering phrases like 1:24 are very characteristic of the school. Of course, there is a rather qualitative judgement in deciding that the Parur artiste in question is MSG himself. As Srikant implies, the level of technical perfection here can really only point to MSG: note the beautifully even and strong tone, the impeccable shruti, and accurate fingering and glides.

#2 is indeed Dwaram and his daughter, Mangathayaru, in a duet for AIR playing AnDolika. I have not heard much of Dwaram's music other than what Cool has shared over the years and what is available on YouTube, but three features of his music always strike me: (1) the incredibly bright sound of his violin. 'Brightness' is a feature largely intrinsic to the instrument in question, and I can't really explain it very well. It's a sound that's sort of piercing and clear; in contrast, a really dark sounding violin essentially sounds like the viola, I suppose. The brightness in Dwaram concerts is accentuated by the high shruti. (2) Dwaram's bowing is always impeccable: there is force in his bowing, which results in a crystal clear tone, and there is great control over the bow, which results in an even tone. (3) The raga development and even the playing of individual notes in a phrase are slower. I suspect this arises from a primarily solo career; in contrast, accompanists who doubled as soloists often just play more quickly likely from the restrictions and proportions they're used to in their role as accompanists. The fingering itself appears to favour hard stops rather than glides/'soft stops' to create phrases/play anuswaras. When I say a hard stop, what i mean is that you can hear the finger striking the fingerboard in playing a note, much like a plucked note on a vINa. In a simple phrase like P(,NP) G,R in kApi, the finger strikes the N audibly. In other schools, you can quickly glide to and from the N from the P or just lightly touch the N.

#3 is S. Varadarajan sketching kAmbOji in a concert accompanying Sanjay, and then playing hecharikkaga in an AIR solo accompanied by TVG (kudos to Srikant for identifying both violinist and mrudangam vidwan in this piece). Since Varadarajan does not come from one of the major schools, his technique does not have the distinct stamp that would enable us to point a finger to, say, the Parur or MC or Lalgudi or Narayana Iyer way of playing. We can certainly exclude certain schools immediately: he does not have the characteristic glides or soft touches or S-P-S phrases reminiscent of the Parur school. He does not have the mellinam-vallinam bowing and rich vibrato of the Lalgudi school. He does not have the viralaDi nAdwaswaram-type technique of the MC school. As Suresh indicated, his technique is probably closest to the TNK school: there is forceful bowing and a lovely tone, there are hard stops audible in the fingering, and the technique is generally minimalist. Of course, there are noticeable deviations from the TNK style, although these are very subjective: the tone is not as thin as TNK's, not all anuswaras are played as hard stops, and the content of the music is different. At this point, I would have narrowed the field to Varadarajan, RKSK, and Charumathi Raghuraman, although I would not have been able to correctly identify the violinist from that shortlist. RKSK has a very similar technique, although his music is a little more 'busy' than Varadarajan's. Charumathi's tone in recent years has been a little thicker, and she is relying less on hard stops. But these are again really subjective. Nagai Sriram and the Nagai school in general do not use hard stops but rather rapid gentle stops to accomplish complex fingering phrases. See here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4EqcHGJqbM

Edition 2 coming up soon.

bilahari
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Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 09:02

Re: Guess the Violinist

Post by bilahari »

I don't know what early Nagaraj sounded like, so can't really comment on that.

If it's anything like this video (Harishankar is on stage, so presumably pre-2002), it's still very Parur:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNontpQi-oQ

varsha
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Re: Guess the Violinist

Post by varsha »


ramarama
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Re: Guess the Violinist

Post by ramarama »

Srikant: What was/were the obvious TVG giveaways?

And thanks Bilahari for that long exposition on the trademarks of these styles - good to learn that these "younger" violinists (after the "trinity") also have identifiable and distinctive styles, even if they are obvious only to the highly sensitive and trained violinist's ear :D

Separately, what does one make of the modern phenomenon of violinists either separating into accompanists and soloists/duettists or branching off into vocal music? Market forces in action here? I understand it is increasingly tough for female violinists to have a sustained career as both male and female singers often prefer male accompanists?

semmu86
Posts: 960
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 09:39

Re: Guess the Violinist

Post by semmu86 »

ramarama wrote: 19 Apr 2017, 12:25 Srikant: What was/were the obvious TVG giveaways?
There are many, but would like to hear Srikant's version ;)

srikant1987
Posts: 2246
Joined: 10 Jun 2007, 12:23

Re: Guess the Violinist

Post by srikant1987 »

It was pretty much fluke. :oops: :roll:

There's something about the way he joined in. And then the thoppi usage around 4:06, 4:38, 5:11 (hE sugaNasAndra), again 5:55 (very Kerala / kathakali effect :D ) ... I also notice the "swaram-showing" (?) around 4:41 occurs a few times. I never associated this with TVG but maybe it can be? Let's see Semmu's version, after my scribble pad. :|

And to a great extent the Varadu and TVG guessing fed into each other ... RKSK for example articulates srpmmggr very differently. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HB341ykmN_k

bilahari
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Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 09:02

Re: Guess the Violinist

Post by bilahari »

Varsha, thank you for early Nagaraj. Seems to me that their music started out very much in the Parur mould and then gained a fair bit of Lalgudi influence...and I can't quite describe what it is these days. ;)

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