Chitravenu 2: New and improved !

[uday_shankar]

Dear fellow Rasikas
Since my somewhat hurried and haphazard demo in Cleveland, I’ve had a chance to work a little more on the never ending issues surrounding the acoustics, design, fabrication, playing technique, optimal choice of range and shruti, intellectual property, etc etc over the last six months. Here’s a little demo (forgive the spiel in the first five minutes, there’s always the need to shake one’s hips in the hope that some “angel investor” might find this the cat’s whiskers he/she was looking to bestow his/her munificence ).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qxhn1YIR ... load_owner
Progress in these kinds of things seems necessarily slow…after all, so much is uncharted territory. As always, thanks to maestro Chitravina Ravikiran for the profound and dhruva-like inspiration that forms the backdrop of this effort …and my wife Radhika for the unwavering commitment to excellence in this process.
The video was made with a cheap GoPro fish eye lens spy camera sitting on a ladder in a grungy soundproof electronic music room in the basement of a colleague who plays eardrum shattering rock music . But this is not about the quality of the video or the beauty of the surroundings.
Feel free to give me any kind of feedback (the more negative the more useful, usually!) either here or privately via [email protected].

NOTE: BEST HEARD WITH HEADPHONES, OTHERWISE FLUTE OVERTONES GET SMOTHERED

Thanks
Uday

[cmlover]

Congratulations Uday on that followup on Chitravenu.
You are more relaxed and getting proficient in teaching your brainchild the baby steps.
You handled the difficult Begada admirably with all its nuances.
You have captured the fundamental spirit of CM which is essentially Analog and not Digital unlike
the other msical genres.
The gamakam possibilities are almost infinite in that milieu which will be discovered by future performers
on this instrument ....
The dual octave is for me a distraction though Shashank exploits it dexterously. Again I noticed some
(apa)swarams creeping in during the transitions which probably mostly due to some nervousness
I know little about HM to comment but the sound was divine - Pannalal would have loved it as would
swargIya MAli who defied the digital constraints of the original instrument.
Wish you good luck in the Development and Marketing of this stellar addition to Instrumental CM.
My hearty Blessings

CML

[S.NAGESWARAN]

Congratulations to Sri Udaysankar for the invention of the chitravenu.

A sample demonstration of the instrument in our Global rasikas meet 2013
at Sri Chitraveena Ravikaran's home on 15.12.2013 is welcome.

Our fellow rasikas will be happy to see the instrument and playing a demo song will be nice.

S.NAGESWARAN.
18.10.2013.

[vasanthakokilam]

Uday: Congratulations on version 2. It sounds great. The HM slow meend and chitravenu are an ideal match. That sounded so peaceful and beautiful. One thing that I noticed on the CM side is, in some sequences, the transition created some whistle like sound. I will listen again and see where it is. It may just be a playing artifact. The begada came through so well. While the meend on the HM side was remarkable, on the CM side when you played with short and rapid notes, starting at t=597 ( as per youtube ) for the next 30 seconds or so, it sounded quite voice like. it is almost as if someone is singing with muffled words. Quite stunning.

I was wondering about that simultaneous two octave thing. I am glad you mentioned it. In some places, it sounded like you had an accompaniment playing at a lower octave!!

Congratulations.

[uday_shankar]

Thanks cmlji, Nageswaran sir and vk.

vk
No recording does justice either to the instrument or the fledgeling "player". All flutes, particularly metal flutes, particularly the thick walled metal contraption that is the current chitravenu, are notoriously poor performers in cold weather. This "recording" was in a cold basement room. In a "settled" situation like a warm, humid room in Madras, no air/"pisuru" will escape. It is also related to the water that I spray for sealing the contact. In a humid place like Madras, it evaporates much slower. In a cold and dry Pittsburgh basement, it dries out rapidly and that causes great problems. Hence you can see me struggling on in spite at mel Sa between the pallavi and anupallavi. Again, when I have to choose between correct swarasthana and good tone, I would choose the former. Again, it is so hard to find the "sweet spot" of correct shruti with a higher pitched flute...for Carnatic music, I am overblowing at 3 kattais to bring it in the range that we are familiar.

A question was asked via email about the sharper tone used in Carnatic music. In fact, I am using the same linear range of the flute for both Carnatic music and Hindustani, but I am blowing one octave higher for Carnatic music. The reason is that the nuances of CM come out much better only above a certain pitch. One would be hard pressed to bring out these nuances clearly in the lower octave.

[cmlover]

I see you are wrestling with two problems.
Technical - relating to the design and operation of the instrument. You should consult sound engineers designers.
Perhaps the lubricant problem can be solved using other than water, for example 3 in 1 machine oil.
Perhaps the metal can be replaced with plastic...
The size of the instrument should be reduced so that it can be handled easily. As an engineer you should explore
various design curves and optimize. Perhaps a curved design instead of linear one may be better. It does nt
have to look like a conventional flute!
Processing - relating to performance. Don't be obsessed with purity of the shruti at this stage. In fact
don't be obsessed with CM or Hm. If you can play nice "filmy" tunes/songs it will become popular and
even a craze among the youth. This instrument is closer to human voice as Vk rightly observes.
Try to exploit that feature....
Good luck

[mahavishnu]

Congrats on the 2.0 demo, Uday!
Look forward to seeing the instrument sometime. Perhaps this December in Chennai...

[uday_shankar]

A couple of below 10 year olds wondered why the "shruti was sometimes slightly off" in the Begada piece. Indeed ! Shruti with this takes time to "settle down". Ideally I need a continously adjustable shruti box that I can keep tweaking till things settle down. I make small markings along the pipe for major notes which assists the playing for a beginner. So what happened here is that due to the cold, the marking alignments kept changing a little bit (my practice and hand memory is still at a stage where the markings and eye judgment matter a lot). The E-Sswar shruti box is fine tunable only in discrete steps and it turned out that my ideal flute shruti for the moment was "between" two successive steps! So I chose what sound liked the "lesser" of the two evils.

In the so-called "Hindustani" section, I was able to do better because in the lower octave it is easier to adjust blowing and continuously align with the shruti. It is also true that the flute warmed up (warming increases shruti of a flute esp. in the higher octave) a bit and things "settled" down.

[Sivaramakrishnan]

Uday,
Nice that you posted a demo of the Chitravenu.
And as I told you during my visit to your house recently, do not be carried away by the 'closest to human voice' concept at this stage! Well and good if it occurs naturally. Please carry on with your pursuit.

[Nick H]

In "Chiravenu 2.0," are the listeners supposed to provide the content? lol

I had missed this thread due to being away from home for a couple of weeks, and am glad to see it now. Hope to see you and the instrument, in the flesh/metal soon

[varsha]

ಸಪ್ತಸಾಗರದಾಚೆಯೆಲ್ಲೋ
ಸುಪ್ತಸಾಗರ ಕಾದಿದೆ
ಮೊಳೆಯದಲೆಗಳ ಮೂಕ ಮರ್ಮರ
ಇಂದು ಇಲ್ಲಿಗೂ ಹಾಯಿತೇ?
--------
Beyond Seven Seas, yonder
Sleeping Sea awaits
Mute whispers of waves never risen
Sailed hither now, oh, did they
-------
from a great piece of poetry by Goalkrishna Adiga
------
https://archive.org/details/YavaMohana

good luck to you . Sailor Uday . Would love to hear you play this song some day

[uday_shankar]

do not be carried away by the 'closest to human voice' concept at this stage!

No doubt! My goal will always be a modest one...it should sound good and one should be able to play "effective" and attractive music on it. The details can be filled in by anybody who plays it.

in the flesh/metal soon

LOL...sounds robotic almost ?!

Would love to hear you play this song some

You should come home sometime...I can try it out right away.

[Rsachi]

Uday,
I was waiting to come back from travels so I could watch the video with the bandwidth I have at home.

I am not familiar with your earlier demo's and am not a musician. So I cannot comment much.
But here is my feedback :
A. The basic sound production is very good.
B. You seem to have many great ideas on how to make it work so I am sure it will go far.
C. For a demo, next time, kindly think of playing a simple ragamalika song with a clear tala pattern, swaras, or even a song like Bhavayami or SriVishwanatham or Bhaja Govindam etc. So we can feel the gamut of musical textures.
D. As I was telling someone I know well (he's an expert like you), I feel the maximum scope for innovation in Indian instruments is in the veena.
E. Imagine if you could sit and play your instrument with two hands, facing the audience, with two parallel rows of slides with parallel synthesisers sounding like veena and flute, it would score on many fronts:
Audience will enjoy the look too.
You will use both hands, to better effect.
Your eye contact with listeners will help.
You can sing along.
You can cover a similar range of slide motion.
You can even add tala string effect.
If the instrument has a shiny wooden shape like a slender veena it will be very appealing.

All in all a very fine experience. Begada and Darbari Kanada are my favourites!

All the very best in your endeavours.

[uday_shankar]

Thanks Rsachi for the many good suggestions; as regards synthetic sound, however one of the guiding priciples is that chitravenu is an acoustic instrument...I may end up using electronics for other purposes but the basic sound production will be acoustic and rely on the embouchure, breath and motor skills of the player. Besides there are already keyboards with pitch benders, and now continuum keyboards, which can produce any tonal shade with a real time button press. I doubt if there's anything I can add to all that.

[Rsachi]

Missed that point!
Ok thanks for the clarification.
Can you then nuance two different wind tonalities, eg nadaswaram and bamboo flute!?
If blowing is mandatory, maybe you need to find something important to do for the right hand, too.
You seem to be blowing with much ease, which is very impressive for the design. I remember loooong back Prof Sambamoorthy demoing an easy-to-blow flute.

[uday_shankar]

Can you then nuance two different wind tonalities, eg nadaswaram and bamboo flute!?

The design can accommodate different types of mouthpieces, including nagasvaram, but I wouldn’t push that option because it is very hard to "maintain pitch" with a nagasvaram mouthpiece. Given that it is equally hard to hit the correct pitch with the slider, that's double jeopardy. Even the flute mouthpiece is much harder than sliding string instruments like violin and chitravina. Nagasvaram is one of the hardest instruments to play in the world and a large part of it is that reed mouthpiece known as Seevali in Tamil. Because of the difficulties, there's usually a lot of apashruti in general in nagasvaram music which we overlook due to the overall grandeur and appeal (part of this is also due to the use of shruti box whose pitch is fixed, rather than use as shrruti reference the “othu oodal” or the companion nagasvaram who blows the SA constantly; othu oodal takes care of inherent drifts in nagasvaram shruti due to various factors such as weather, energy of the artist, etc.. and was traditionally the only method for nagasvaram, but everything changed in the 20th century). However, clarinet and recorder mouthpieces work well and make some really nice sounds…I will post demos by and by with those. Here's a picture of the different types of mouthpieces claimed in the patent:

If blowing is mandatory, maybe you need to find something important to do for the right hand, too.

i.e., the “non-playing” hand, since the instrument can be configured for right handed or left handed play. Future "enhancements" to the design will leave the non-playing other hand with plenty of work (watch this space ). I don't have complete skills for this yet but the idea for this version is that the other hand keeps taalam...something that Carnatic instrumentalists would welcome. There's a video of flute Mali on youtube where he keeps trying out the same sequence again and again, and finds all his time keepers inadequate…including the morsing vidvan Pudukottai Mahadevan, super disciples N Ramani and T S Sankaran, Ghatam Chellappa and God knows who else in the audience, leave alone poor mridangist Shri Mannargudi Easwaran. The standoff is arguably posturing on the part of the great Mali, whom nobody had the courage to tell off, but all that can be avoided if the instrumentalist is forced to keep taalam with his own hand. The buck will stop right there, so to speak !! .
More such information interspesed with boring legalese can be found in the patent application:
http://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/d ... &recNum=54

[Rsachi]

Very interesting Uday.
I wish you success.
The proof of design is adoption. IPhone is a gold standard.
You will have to seed its adoption with some really competent players (including yourself) constantly playing it to audiences to show its potential.