Violin accompaniment for the Carnatic bamboo flute

[Rsachi]

Dear rasikas,
I wanted your views and thoughts on a topic that comes up often in my mind.



Over so many years, I am simply blown away by the bamboo flute playing Carnatic music. All it takes is just a sruti-aligned, pleasant manodharma of a flautist to take me to the stratosphere of joy. And luckily, we have had some ever-greats of Carnatic music wielding the flute over the years.

Now the question that often comes up in my mind is:

1. What makes even a good violinist's accompaniment to the flute sound jarring to me? Discordant? It is not apaswara, or lack of manodharma, or any jarring gymnastics. It is just the timbre and texture and that "pleasant feeling" that the flute invokes in me being affected adversely by the violin.

I link three recent concerts, all excellent flautists, accompanied by excellent violinists.

https://youtu.be/OhDM-AlZ7Qc?t=5778

https://youtu.be/mGQKqFTd2kQ?t=1702

https://youtu.be/HJ3nOgz3VVc?t=4351

Please listen and let me know what you think.
I have noticed that astute violinists refrain from bowing while the flautist is waxing eloquently on his instrument, and they look for those gaps and pauses to fill in. So perhaps the violinists know the issues and how to overcome them.

It is not the pitch or the mic menace that is occasioning this problem for me. I feel it is the very soundscape of the flute and the violin.

Thoughts!? Views?

PS: Or is it my hearing? Or a kink in my brain'?

[Nick H]

Oddly, it is violin and veena and violin that does it for me. Or I suppose I should say doesn't do it for me!

I don't recall being irritated by Flute/veena. My guess is that the flute tone is much "purer" with fewer harmonics, and that the more complex sound of the violin, for you, is out of place with that.

With the veena, I find the different strings too much the same, but too much not the same. And they seem to be often not quite in tune with each other. As I do not have a good sense of pitch, maybe I'm hearing something entirely different, but that is how I feel it.

When I was a youngster, back in London, I was never really comfortable playing morsing with the flute. I think that I felt that its too-many-harmonics didn't match.

[Rsachi]

Nick,
A great start to the discussion. Yes, I can readily see how the morsing and the flute don't go well, and yes, veena-violin is a No-no for me too.

[rajeshnat]

Sachi
THe aspect of violin intrusion is felt every where but I guess you are right it may be felt most in flute . At your leisure just hear the series of KSGOPalakrishnan - A kanyakumari -guruvayoor durai us tours of early 80's , they are splendid . When the turn of AK comes she is so crisp and the tone is wonderful but when KSG is soulfully searching with his bamboo , AK just completely refrains. Also some concerts where Delhi sundarrajan refrains when KSG plays - I guess the flutist has to completely RELAX and put the violinist in the trap .

In the last concert that I heard of Jayanth - BU Ganesh Prasad in sandiego, BUGP was wonderfully pausing at the right time , I am assuming the violinist has to get used to flute vidwan/vidushi and at times when flutist changes the flute , the callibration has to be more fine tuned . At times when the longer bansuri flute is taken,if the violinist intrudes then the concert hits a rock bottom because the longer serene blow gets lost in violin intrusion.

[Rsachi]

Rajesh,
Great points! So you have also noticed this. Interesting. I will try and get hold of JAJ BUG recent ones. Aren't they currently in US?

[varsha]

PS: Or is it my hearing? Or a kink in my brain'?

Kink definitely.
Prerequisite for this kind of stuff.
at age ten I would sit dreamily "hearing" grandama blowing into a fire under a handey in the bathroom.
at age thirty I would sit dreamily "hearing" the tanpura in a cinni fan.
at forty I would sit dreamily "hearing" the best machine produced on a hydraulic broaching machine.
Walter Mittys...all of us

Oddly, it is violin and veena and violin that does it for me.

me too.

[shankarank]

Hello sound curators! How did violin fare with voice then? How about voice and flute with violin?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAWwS62Fo84

[shankarank]

at age ten I would sit dreamily "hearing" grandama blowing into a fire under a handey in the bathroom.

There existed would be organizers in the U.S who have asked "kuzhalUta ivvaLavu paNama?" when quoted the fee for a concert!

Artiste name withheld!

[arasi]

Then there was Mali playing the flute, T.Rukmini accompanying him. Sweet.

When young Kanya kumari accompanied MLV, it was sweet. Thinking also about her playing for Mandolin Srinivas--I don't know, it didn't work for me. It was just me?

[Rsachi]

Shankarank,
yes, that was an exciting concert with five great musicians together, "Charukeshi from PanchapungavAh"!

One of the links I gave also had voice,venu and violin..

[SriKrishnan]

I see it more as the choice of the violinist not intruding with the Manodharma of the main artiste. In the recordings of Shashank & Sruthi sagar, we can see that the Swara kalpana starts and when the main artiste is playing, the Violinist does not play along. This can be clearly seen while Keerthana sings also.

It is same in the past too, even with Vocal concerts. Just listen to the KVN- MSG concert - at 54th Minute. KVN starts Swara Kalpana in Kapi & MSG does not play along.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZCwz7Jae6k

Of course the timbre of the flute and Violin is different, you will find that the Violinists play in the lower octave to complement.

Regards,
Sri krishnan

[varsha]

Hello sound curators! How did violin fare with voice then? How about voice and flute with violin?

https://archive.org/details/RKTViswaHome

[Rsachi]

A very interesting Mali TNK Kambhoji alapana shared by Vid. Manoj Suva in his blog:
Listen to Mali kambodhi by Manoj Siva 3 #np on #SoundCloud
https://soundcloud.com/manoj-siva-3/mali-kambodhi

His blog also shares many interesting tidbits:
http://nmanojsiva.blogspot.in/2014/09/v ... 0.html?m=1
Sri Munirao has advised me to listen to Vid TNK and Vid Dwaram, his daughter, accompanying Mali. Also Smt T Rukmini. I have heard them live and in recordings long back, but shall re-discover... Surely many treasures there.

[shankarank]

The violinists of yester years it seems did not settle for what violin could produce for them by default. They tried getting closer to Nadaswaram - even as they were far away from it - a touch of wind-ishness. Referring to this: https://youtu.be/AD_Brma-yX8?t=3572

and also somewhere in the tOdi Alapana in Part 2.

Well oh, may be the old tapes sound windish never mind -

[Nick H]

a touch of wind-ishness.

Now that you come to mention it, I recall saying to one violinist, post-concert, "I'm amazed that you made your violin sound so much like the flute!"

So you have reminded me to remind myself that I am sometimes very happy with violin accompaniment to flute. Just as experienced accompanists learn to change not only their style but even their tone according to the vocalist, it seems that they can do so even more, if they are willing and have the skill, with different instruments

[Rsachi]

Nick,
We also need to recognise that Sri TNK was perhaps the greatest master of violin tonality in Carnatic music ever. As he has said himself, his father trained him to reproduce ANY kind of music on the violin. And Mali took to him when he was some 12 years or so...
And I have heard Mali himself played the violin rather well and was mentored by none other than Dwaram.

What great musicians we have had amidst us....

[varsha]

How did violin fare with voice then?
What great musicians we have had amidst us....

http://www.mediafire.com/file/rrxb5dtyy ... sAstri.mp3
unbelievable tone