A Kanyakumari 60 violins at Shanmukhananda, Mumbai

[shankarabharanam]

Surprisingly the concert is being live streamed here.. Mumbai's popular music lovers place the Shanmukhananda Fine Arts is celebrating their 60 years... Yesterday listening to the Vysarpadi Kothandaraman's Nadaswaram concert was a treat..

Here is the link to the live concert

http://www.chellavideos.in/Liveshow.asp.

I got to know about it very late and hence couldn't share it earlier. The concert hasn't begun... All music lovers can enjoy

[PUNARVASU]

Heard it was 'woooow' concert. Sorry to have missed it as I am out of Mumbai.

[anonymityatlast]

Sorry to have missed it as I am out of Mumbai.

You could have seen the live streaming!

[bilahari]

Thank you for the link, shankarabharanam. I watched a little of this webcast - a vAcaspati was going on. I wonder why AK and several members of her school grip the bow so far from the frog...

[PUNARVASU]

With the time difference of 12 1/2 hrs. ,by the time I saw this post, it was too late.

[shankarabharanam]

Thanks to a Comcast outage I couldn't watch the complete concert.. By the time they solved the issue it was too late.. But happy that Shanmukhananda is also into live streaming.. I just hope people carry on this good effort for music lovers like who are far away the land of the Obamas .

@Bilahari: No clue.. May be a violin expert can explain much better.. But I like AK a lot except that these days the amplified sound from her violin is too loud and the original sound of the violin is lost.. Sadly from the time I started listening to carnatic concert she has been using that violin.. But love her old recordings .

[vasanthakokilam]

I was at a concert at the Academy by Kanyakumari and Embar Kannan in 2010. The sound of the two violins were very good but somewhat different. When Embar played by himself, it was a bit softer and that was more to my liking. I agree with the excessive amplification curse.

[mahavishnu]

VK: Indeed and sometimes when she leads a trio with Embar Kannan and Sanjeev, they play in different stAyis. It creates an almost orchestral effect. Most of her studio recordings are extremely well-balanced.

Bilahari: Excellent observation. I am also puzzled by the grip position that they (AK's school) have on the bow as well. I can imagine that it changes the wielding moment of the bow, so one can control the torque more accurately (of course, only if one is used to that technique). But if you look at Kannan's grip in this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff7l0eur610), his fingers are more spread out on the frog end of the bow. Then again, this is on an electric silent violin, not sure if this changes the dynamics considerably.

A very interesting thesis on violin bowing and the underlying biomechanics can be found here: http://www.speech.kth.se/prod/publicati ... s/3321.pdf

[bilahari]

Mahavishnu, thanks for that illuminating paper! Just took a cursory look, and will return for a closer read later.

In AK's case, I suspect that the grip does have to do with better control over the torque, though as Srikant and I have discussed offline, there are bows of varying lengths available, so why would she prefer to grip a full-length bow further from the frog, rather than a fractionally shorter bow AT the frog? I think the groove of the frog makes it more convenient for the bow to be gripped there, rather than further along. Then again, one can be conditioned to hold any thing in any way. For someone who enjoys the use of the entire bow, it just strikes me as a sacrifice of space available for bowing.

Bowing is something that is of prime importance in violin playing, given that much of the sound is attributable to that and fingering, but it often saddens me that CM violinists place far more importance on fingering techniques (gamakas, brighas), than they do on bowing, which almost entirely controls the timbre of one's music. It is perhaps analogous to vocalists worrying more about bringing out rAgam through a variety of gamakas than about voice culture. I know this is a valid and longstanding criticism of Carnatic vocalists, especially in contrast to their HM counterparts. It is no surprise, then, that the same attitude prevails amongst violinists.

The major takeaway from the paper you have attached, for me anyway, is the importance of bowing force in determining the brightness of the tone. According to the thesis, the high static friction (bow on string) of the bow with greater bowing force results in a brighter timbre, though there are upper limits to bowing force as well. The paper claims that the brightness of the tone directly correlates to bow-bridge distance (distance between the bow's position on the string to the bridge above it), which is definitely surprising, given I have been taught to specifically bow closer the bridge, and from my own observations of a thicker tone from violinists who bow closer to the fingerboard. The paper suggests that violinists who decide to bow closer to the bridge unconsciously use a greater bowing force which is necessary at that position, and that it is this bowing force ultimately that results in a brighter tone. It is possible, then, that violinists who bow closer to the fingerboard (and there are violinists who criminally bow ON the fingerboard, even!) tend to use a lower bowing force, and thus have a duller tone.

Many CM violinists are also not conscious about keeping their bow perpendicular to the strings while bowing, and their bow often slips up and down the strings. My recommendation is that if musicians were to all apply a greater baseline bowing force while playing, the static friction would also reduce the slippages. I have been consciously increasing my bowing force over the last several months (it is not easy after being trained to be unmindful of such things for years), and I have been amazed at how much better my technique is because of this singular improvement!

Incidentally, with all the electric violins I have heard (AK, Embar, G-K), I have found a thicker, duller timbre. I wonder if this is an unavoidable distortion of the actual sound of a violin.

Schoonderwaldt also comments on other components of the bowing technique: (a) tilt - how much the bow is angled in comparison to the string (i.e., how many hairs are in contact with the string), (b) skew (at what angle the bow is played relative to the string; a non-perpendicular bow actually generates force along the string), (c) bowing velocity, and (d) bowing position (frog to tip). The author says that (a) and (b) are merely secondary contributors to sound, and that skew can be used to manipulate bow-bridge distance.

While bow-bridge distance and bowing velocity are not as important as bowing force, they do affect the sound produced. An increasing bow-bridge distance (i.e., bowing further from the bridge, towards the fingerboard) and a decreasing bowing velocity (the bow is drawn across the strings slower) result in a better tone. These aspects can be manipulated per the musician's needs.

The author observes that these aspects of bowing are closely related to the mechanics of the way the violin is held. It would be interesting to study variables like tilt and skew in the Indian manner of playing.

As an unabashed admirer of the Narayana Iyer (TNK, Rajam) school's tone (and music in general), I have gathered from several TNK sishyas that he always emphasises bowing with great force. Indeed, the bright and pure tone of his violin is an affirmation of the conclusions of this paper.

(Sorry to hijack this thread - please move these posts to Technical Discussions if you see fit.)

[srikant1987]

The paper claims that the brightness of the tone directly correlates to bow-bridge distance (distance between the bow's position on the string to the bridge above it), which is definitely surprising, given I have been taught to specifically bow closer the bridge, and from my own observations of a thicker tone from violinists who bow closer to the fingerboard.

I don't consider 'bright' a completely positive adjective for the tone. It is not something like 'clear', you know?

Anyway, the bridge basically arrests the motion of the parts of string close to it more than that of the string away from it (not unlike a door hinge). This might result in, ceteris paribus, larger amplitude of the string vibration being available more easily when bowing away from bridge -- likely why you get brighter tones. I think this brightness can soon become 'twangy'.

The vertical (perpendicular-to-fingerboard) separation between strings becomes less and less as they go down from the bridge to the pegs. As a result, it is hard to keep the bow cleanly on one string if you go too far down -- and it is almost impossible to do that when also using generous bow pressure. Putting loads of pressure with the bow on such places will also cause the string to move downward (towards the fingerboard), further increasing chances of bow running over multiple strings.

Empirically, it's especially more important to bow closer to bridge on thinner strings, and we can bow a little away from the bridge on the others. The thinner strings become twangy a lot more quickly.

[mahavishnu]

For someone who enjoys the use of the entire bow, it just strikes me as a sacrifice of space available for bowing.

Bilahari: Yes, I agree fully. The beauty of the full bow is especially evident in Smt N Rajam's music.
I too wonder why one would give up on valuable bow real estate for the sake of torque/precision and if there is more to this tradeoff... Perhaps Sri Sanjeev (who is a forumite) can tell us more about the choices made in the AK school's technique.

Here is a beautiful demo of the full bow technique (that you spoke so highly of) by Kala Ramnath (also from the Narayana Iyer school) in a video posted by Peter de Rooij. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzO7JERS_ng Such superb tone!