Electric instrument such as veena and violin

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ganesh_mourthy
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Joined: 02 Sep 2007, 23:08

Electric instrument such as veena and violin

Post by ganesh_mourthy »

Though not an ardent fan of the electric instruments earlier , I now find often times the sound quite enthralling. If we were to argue about the originality of sound, I think an instrument per se is some form of unique human creation. So, this these electronic thingies are one notch up, that is all. I would like to try my hand on an affordable electric violin, since that is what I play.

please listen to the below

https://gaana.com/song/om-namaha-3

and the below one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA_90aTbQdQ

only an electric instrument can do justice I feel .

SrinathK
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Joined: 13 Jan 2013, 16:10

Re: Electric instrument such as veena and violin

Post by SrinathK »

A pure electric violin is another beast - they even cut away the body in some models so that you can reach high positions with no need for stretching or contorting. As a practice tool, it will be useful for a traveling musician as it makes almost no volume without a pickup (but only an acoustic can teach you how to properly handle the bow). And it's actually a very nice instrument to play, requiring little maintenance.

The bad apple is the acoustic violin with a contact pickup - to imagine what happens, close your nose and try singing nasally. That whole top plate is muffled. Not sure if putting the contact on the ribs or the tailpiece is any better - I have tried putting it on the scroll and it works well, at least as well as the speakers will make it sound...

The sheer warmth and tonal colours of the best wood is a very individual and natural sound. The sound of electric instruments in comparison is absolutely 'techno' (I have no way to describe this, but listen to it, it's all metal) - especially the electric violin and guitar. One irritating thing though is that the pickup easily captures every scratch and the sound of the fingers sliding up and down the fingerboard (A zzzzzzttt sound like rubbing sandpaper, harsh on my ears) and even the strings sliding on the frets. Some of the more recent electric violin models however, sound almost astonishingly like acoustic violins (mainly in the higher notes, the bass still feels electric and needs more body).

For plucked string instruments though (like Shrinivas' "mandolin" guitar), the sound of the electric is in many ways superior to the original (particularly the ability to sustain a note and give some more flesh and roundedness to the sound), although that sliding noise never got totally eliminated. The electric Veena doesn't seem to suffer from that sliding noise issue though. It sounds great btw, a bit more metallic, more string, less body, but still very natural and a stronger and livelier sound - just a bit warmer and it would be perfect.

shankarank
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Re: Electric instrument such as veena and violin

Post by shankarank »

kaNTam is fine, but no SArIram ( from SarIram!) ?

What is wrong with this ? No pickup is used. I see that his son's vINA is getting the better Mike volume!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS1O_I3y2L4

Even the Mridangam with somewhat far away mike is delectable to listen to.

But this, below with pickup is picking up the blares:

https://youtu.be/jZE80yzzWpM?t=173

and then here - amplified by the veenarray

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTUURX8MzAo

We know what happened! gAyaki style, kampita gamaka is Carnatic music, and then the blare!

ganesh_mourthy
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Re: Electric instrument such as veena and violin

Post by ganesh_mourthy »

All these I mention here are light music, particularly that of IR.

Srikanth, if you have listened ever to these masterpieces of the golden era of Indian light music, you can understand how much of a bliss would it be to listen to them again beautifully reproduced. These 80s collections of IR were admired by all, regardless of the genre they leaned.

this Keeravani is a bliss -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XBHxWL18Mg

and this is the original.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJENoKvTiRo

I doubt if you would have listened to these at all, as it is not of your times.

By the by, what is acoustic and electric ? are they different ones? How ignoramus am I with these things !!!

shankarank
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Re: Electric instrument such as veena and violin

Post by shankarank »

Well I am not familiar with that song - sounds familiar. There were quite a few favorites of 80s that I might recall, but I have stopped listening to them as soon as I finished school! Agni Natchathiram may be - Coz' Mani Ratnam. telungu Dabbu - not much chance!

But the electric vINA sounds like a guitarish replacement for those that know the fingering of vINA, but want to play something like a Guitar!

ganesh_mourthy
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Re: Electric instrument such as veena and violin

Post by ganesh_mourthy »

Yes, I agree. It does not have that long "twang" of veena, but with lesser resonance.

shankarank
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Re: Electric instrument such as veena and violin

Post by shankarank »

After I heard that electric vIna recital lot of others came up in you tube suggestions from IR productions. Carnatic music is explained away by saying that it adds gamakas to those notes played in there, and people at one point took it seriously the statements like: "this movie song is in kiravANi".

It seems then rAgA has reached everyone! Much beyond the ghettos! And yet we keep getting accusations that a bantustan has been created for Carnatic music to limit it to certain class of audience. And lack of democracy and lack of secularism!

Listening to this, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K-dkC5zsfU , even before we decipher what the hell rAgA this is , just the way she shakes her head and feels the time signature, will tell me this is nothing to do with Carnatic music.

Yet we imported terms like Lyrics , songs from movie vocabulary which imported them from Western mindsets.

And now we are being asked to build a dictionary (referring to SrinathK in TMK @Georgetown thread!) for every word.

Hello there was no dictionary for mother tongue tamizh ever! Any tamizh discourse will do "mERkOL kATTutal" ( referencing/quoting/exposition) to other literature to explain meaning. I can understand there may be akarAthis for obscure words. But song and lyrics are not obscure words.

These common place words are being used to subvert native words like sAhitya and laya!
Last edited by shankarank on 13 Sep 2018, 08:32, edited 1 time in total.

shankarank
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Re: Electric instrument such as veena and violin

Post by shankarank »

To give an alternate cosmology: Light music is the first term or the stable term. Then carnatic music arises quantum mechanically as perturbations added to the first term - a perturbation theory of music, that should leave us deeply perturbed!

shankarank
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Re: Electric instrument such as veena and violin

Post by shankarank »

The electric vINa examples establish one thing: that it is a celebration of a gross attraction or catchy draw of the sound or melody.

Silence is not celebrated there at all. On the melodic realm, subtlety is given up for gross sound production resembling only a throaty vocalization. There is no all round immersion into vibration. That vibration would expose silence as the note sustains and tails off!

I developed an healthy aversion especially to the shrill ( keechu kural) female voice , to keep my listening purity intact. One reason I lost the taste for most movie music.

The fact that beats are mundane / repetitive and force anchored, eliminates any room for play of silence! That is in the time scale.

Nick H
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Re: Electric instrument such as veena and violin

Post by Nick H »

My "problem" with mandolin is that it might just as well be electric guitar. But... what's in a name, and should I care if the music is played on electric guitar? I have similar thoughts about veena --- but I regularly attend and enjoy "electric" veena concerts

(Not about electric instruments...)
I developed an healthy aversion especially to the shrill ( keechu kural) female voice , to keep my listening purity intact. One reason I lost the taste for most movie music
Do you mean the thing where all the women are supposed to sound like teenage girls? My theory is that it is designed to attract teenage boys. In my short exposure to film music, I grew out of it in my forty-teens.

SrinathK
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Re: Electric instrument such as veena and violin

Post by SrinathK »

You know the two links to the superb concerts of MS Amma that shankarank shared? That was probably the only time we had a super contribution that didn't come with the mandatory rant...

shankarank
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Joined: 15 Jun 2009, 07:16

Re: Electric instrument such as veena and violin

Post by shankarank »

tcho tcho! you read it in the wrong place , where it was added for the sake of not getting lost. The rant with razz was finished in the general disc.!
Nick H wrote: 13 Sep 2018, 12:08 My theory is that it is designed to attract teenage boys. In my short exposure to film music, I grew out of it in my forty-teens.
Well the lone English man to visit the London center of Indian music and learn some instrument also! Otherwise it would have started at 40 and went upto eighty teens!

Nick H
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Re: Electric instrument such as veena and violin

Post by Nick H »

Well the lone English man to visit the London center of Indian music and learn some instrument also!
No,no... there are always a handful of non-Indian/SrLankan students. Hindustani flute is taught by a Brit. Even Tamil and music theory are taught by Dr John Marr.

ganesh_mourthy
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Joined: 02 Sep 2007, 23:08

Re: Electric instrument such as veena and violin

Post by ganesh_mourthy »

The shrill voice was adopted and designed to sing approximately one octave above the male voice so it forms kind of a harmony. Soprano singers of western did that well. It is extremely to hard to maintain it and bring the beauty out of it .

This one is very good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRbiO958ai8

And this voice has never failed to move me though it is higher pitch but no strain anywhere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHLNMdhp9OU

And that of Parveen Sultana during her peak was so extradinarily soprano too.

So NIck it is just another singing style which requires great deal of voice control

ganesh_mourthy
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Joined: 02 Sep 2007, 23:08

Re: Electric instrument such as veena and violin

Post by ganesh_mourthy »

It is a matter of conditioning of our minds, and any taste is acquired and not inherent. Most of the current generation including westerners find the opera voices unappealing. Ironically the husky sleazy voice is the currency.
Having said that, I find that I find that movie female voice very soothing.

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