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Learn to Play the Violin (Carnatic)
Violin
occupies the most important place in the stage of Indian music. In its
congenial conceptions, it owes its origin to the European countries,
more specifically Italy and Germany.
 In
Indian heritage, the Pauranic references and the sculptural
representations portray a inverted Vina (Vina referring to any stringed
instrument with strings generally mounted on wooden board) with pegs,
the number of pegs varying according to the number of strings. The Yazh
(a stringed musical instrument) had been the consistent reference in
Tamil epics like Silappadikaram, Yazh
Nool (the very name has
been suggestive of the innumerable descriptions of stringed instruments)
etc. Ektar, Do-Tar were referred to in Hindustani music as the earlier
reference to the stringed instrument.
The
scene in India:
According
to textual references, violin was first introduced in the court of
Travancore during the regime of Maharajah Swati Tirunal. Vadivelu and
Baluswami Dikshitar were acclaimed as the renowned performers on the
violin. The violin in its advent to India was a direct import from the
European make by way of its shape but differed in execution and
presentation, adapting itself to the style of presentation in Indian
music.
The formidable role of Violin in Indian Music:
The violin with special reference to South Indian music had its early
beginnings when it was used as a mere melodic support
in Harikatha performances. Certain musical passages sung by the main
exponent were reproduced on the violin for the sake of effects. Still
later, violin figured in devotional music concerts where musical lyrics
and songs along figured. Later came the 'accompanying role' of the
violin to the main singer. It is at this juncture, when classical vocal
concerts gained a formidable portion in the 'classical' stage of
Carnatic music concert. Slowly, the violin emerged as the only best
possible melodic support. In spite of the experimental usage of flute,
vina and some other instruments, the violin as of today has emerged as
the best possible accompaniment owing to its capacity for continuity and
to reproduce any sound, adaptability and its pure support in maintaining
the stability of a musical concert.
The
violin has gained much importance in the twentieth century. Many
famous players have played the violin and have given it international
recognition. The most refined version of playing the violin is found
in south Indian classical music. The player places the curved end of
the violin known as the chinrest below his neck towards his shoulder.
This gives it stability and the sound produced is much more clear.
 The
violin is essentially a bowed instrument with four strings that are
plucked to create music. The shape of the body of the violin is almost
like an hour glass. The violin comprises of various components like
the soundboard, also known as the top plate / table / belly, maple
ribs, two end blocks, a neck, a bridge, a sound post, four strings and
various fittings, that includes a chinrest, which may attach directly
over the tailpiece.
The violin has been played by many renowned musicians in India. It has
been played solo as well as with other instruments to create melodious
music. Some of the well known players of the violin are listed here.
Famous Violin Players:
L. Subramaniam
L. Shankar
T. N. Krishnan
Lalgudi Jayaraman
Baluswamy Dikshitar
T. Rajam
L. Vaidyanathan
Significantly,
in spite of being a Western instrument with technique developed to suit
playing Western classical music, the instrument could be adapted to the
needs of Carnatic music. Many Western techniques redundant in Carnatic
music were simply overlooked and later discarded.
The
first of these was the basic way the violin was tuned, held and played.
Carnatic music required the violinist to sit cross-legged on a platform.
The violin was, therefore, balanced between the chest and the scroll
held by the anklebone of the right foot.
The
posture felicitated the free flow of the left hand along the
fingerboard. This necessitated appropriate changes in the bowing
technique, which were duly innovated. Western techniques like colegnio
(using the wooden side of the bow instead of the horse hair), marcellato
(hammering), and even pizzicato (plucking) were not of much use to the
Indian violinist.
Double
stopping was more for showing off rather than for any musical use,
because a note not conforming to the domain of the raga crept in. The
technique that was most useful and modified to perfection was the
glissando (sliding).
The
changed bowing and posture produced all subtle nuances, gamakas,
modulations and all the srutis.
It
also shifted the emphasis from arm movement and dropping down of the
fingers on the right note to more emphasis on the wrist movement and
"reaching" for the note and expertly tackling the gamakas.
To
top it all, the tuning itself was changed to suit the lower pitch in
which the vocalists sang.
In
short, a whole new technique now almost indistinguishable from its
Western counterpart was perfected to suit a totally new type of music.
Therein lies the greatness of the Indian innovations and, of course, the
versatility of the violin as an instrument.
The Course is divided into Basic (Level 1 and
Level 2), Grade l- (Level 1 and Level 2) and
Grade ll (4 levels) of Duration 6 (Six) months
each.
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Fees Structure
Rs. 4500/-
for 48 hours of class
Class
Timings:
Saturday
: 12 noon to 7 pm ( Any One hour/ 2 hours)
Sunday:
12 noon to 6 pm ( Any One hour / 2 hours)
Instrument
/ Lessons provided by the Academy.
PLEASE NOTE:
FEES NOT
REFUNDABLE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES
ALL FEES / ADMISSIONS
SUBJECT TO TERMS. THUS PLEASE READ
TERMS
Monday : No Class for Violin.
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1 Fingering Techniques in South Indian Violin
 his
section discusses specific techniques by which the Carnatic violinist executes
the various classes of ornament. (The author is a practicing violinist and a
longtime student of Carnatic violin. Remarks on technique in this article draw
on direct study with, or close observation of, several South Indian artists of
the violin--including V. Thyagarajan, T.N. Krishnan, L. Shankar, L. Subramaniam,
and Lalgudi Jayaraman.)
According to most accounts, the
earliest master musicians to successfully adapt the violin to Carnatic music
were Balasvamy Diksitar (1786-1858), disciple and younger brother of the
saint-singer Muttusvamy Diksitar; and Vadivelu (1810-1845), one of the Tanjore
Quartet (four brothers, all famous musicians). Both men studied the Western
style of playing the violin before going on to experiment with applying the
instrument to their own music.
The Carnatic violinist, sitting
cross-legged, braces the instrument lightly between chest and hollow of the
right ankle, where the scroll of the violin rests. The left hand is thus freed
from having to support the instrument as in the Western hold, and the player
moves with ease among the various positions. (The term "position" on
the violin refers to the placement of the left hand relative to the end of the
fingerboard. In first position the index finger is at an interval of a second
above the open string; in second position it is a third above the open string;
and so on.)
Barbara Benary (an accomplished
player of both Western and South Indian classical violin) has traced the
development of left-hand technique during the century-and-a-half since the
violin's assimilation into the Carnatic tradition. She describes a progression
from the initial style which used mostly discrete fingered notes in the Western
manner (the "four-finger" style), through a slide-based
("two-finger") style, to the sophisticated blend of slides,
oscillations, and fingered clusters which is found in the playing of today's
concert artists (Benary 1971:38).
C. S. Ayyar comments on a typical
method in the preface to his Tyagaraja collection:
The passage invokes a standard
justification for using all four fingers of the left hand: this preserves the
integrity of the various svaras in
the raga .
If only one or two fingers are used, then a slide from one svara to
another blurs together all the intervening pitches--destroying by
"dissonance" the true colors of the raga .
(Of course it could be argued that the voice itself, after which
instrumentalists model their playing, has only one "finger," yet this
does not prevent vocalists from showing the raga in
its true colors.)
Various motions of the hand and
fingers are used for the different classes of gamakas .
The first class considered here is jaru ,
the slides; it includes etra-jaru(ascending)
and irraka-jaru (descending).
These slides vary from quite short to very long, and are usually executed on the
violin by one finger as it tracks a movement of the forearm up or down the
violin neck. The whole hand, thumb included, moves with the finger in an
outright shift from one position to another. A crucial element here is the
thumb's movement, although this may not be obvious in very short slides. In some
mordent-like ornaments, the hand (with thumb) returns immediately to its former
position; in other cases, the slide leads to and ends in a new area of melody
elaboration.
Powers calls the ornaments of the
second class-- gamaka --"the
most characteristic of South Indian music" (1959:1/149). They include nokku , odukkal ,kampita ,
and orikai .
These are often termed "deflections," after the associated vina technique
of deflecting or pulling the string sideways to modulate the pitch. On the
violin no such technique exists; instead these ornaments are produced by short
slides up and down the string, or by rolling a fingertip (or a group of adjacent
fingertips acting as a unit) forward and backward. The deflections are usually
executed without changing position, that is, with the thumb stationary. But some
broad kampitas (oscillations)
may be played on just one finger, by sliding the entire hand back and forth
between two positions.
According to Benary, the wrist is the
foremost source of motion for the wide variety of oscillations, rolls, and short
slides which comprise the deflection class.
All manner of kampitas are
made with this general motion. They range from the microtonal, in which the
oscillation is so narrow that (as in Western vibrato) it does not impinge on
either of the neighboring half-tones, to the broad wave whose limits are an
interval of a third apart. The microtonal kampita may
be executed by one finger alone, rolling on its tip, or by two fingers lying
very close together. The larger waves may use one, two, or more fingers,
depending on the size of the interval and on the player's fingering style. When
three fingers are used, the middle one of the three joins in the rolling contact
with the string. The goal is always to transform the sequence of finger-contacts
into a continuous glide.
This description applies to the
playing of most violinists; a variation can be seen in the technique of L.
Subramaniam. He strives for less motion in the wrist and hand, and more motion
among individual fingers. For instance, in an oscillation between one note and
another a whole tone distant, he prefers to keep the lower finger in its place
and to slide through the entire interval with the higher finger. His explanation
for this technique is that it allows the hand as a whole to remain calm and
relaxed, while ensuring accurate intonation by fixing one of the limits of the
oscillation (personal communication).
The third class of ornament is janta ,
the fingered stresses; these include sphurita , pratyahata , ravai ,
and khandippu .
The violinist produces jantas with
fingers placed precisely along the string at scale degrees of the raga ,
rather than placed together with sides touching as for deflections. Thus the
different tones involved (in a turn, for example) can be sounded quickly,
distinctly, and in tune.
In practice, the ten ornaments do not
fall neatly each into one class as depicted in Table 1. For example, nokku and odukkal are
described there as stresses, but their typical execution (by rolling or sliding)
puts them in the deflection class rather than among the crisp fingered stresses. Orikai ,
too, has attributes of both deflection and stress. A broad kampita executed
on just one finger partakes of slide as well as deflection. And khandippu ,
a dynamic accent which is classed with the fingered stresses, may be executed on
the violin with an explosive slide or roll up and then back down again, rather
than by simply fingering the upper limit of the ornament.
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Overview. A
vibrating string can produce a motion that is rich in
harmonics (different frequencies of vibration). Bowing
the string not only allows a range of expressive
techniques, but also supplies energy continuously and so
maintains the harmonic richness. However, a string on
its own makes little sound (think of an electric guitar
that's not plugged into an amplifer). The bridge and
body of the violin, and other related instruments, serve
to transmit some of the vibrational energy of the string
into the air as sound. The way in which they do so is
important to the sound of the violin family of
instruments.
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First, something about sound.
| If you put your finger gently on a loudspeaker
you will feel it vibrate - if it is playing a low note loudly
you can see it moving. (More about loudspeakers.)
When it moves forwards, it compresses the air next to it,
which raises its pressure. Some of this air flows outwards,
compressing the next layer of air. The disturbance in the air
spreads out as a travelling
sound wave. Ultimately this sound wave causes a very tiny
vibration in your eardrum - but that's another story. |
At any point in the air near the source of sound, the molecules are
moving backwards and forwards, and the air pressure varies up and down
by very small amounts. The number of vibrations per second is called
the frequency which is measured in cycles per second or Hertz (Hz).
The pitch of a note is almost entirely determined by the frequency:
high frequency for high pitch and low for low. 440 vibrations per
second (440 Hz) is heard as the note A in the treble clef (the
violin's A string), a vibration of 220 Hz is heard as the A one octave
below, 110 Hz as the A one octave below that and so on. We can hear
sounds from about 15 Hz to 20 kHz (1 kHz = 1000 Hz). A double bass can
play down to 41 Hz or below, and the violin can play notes with
fundamental frequencies well above 2 kHz. Human ears are most
sensitive to sounds between 1 and 4 kHz - about two to four octaves
above middle C.
The violin: strings and bow, bridge and body
Strings
The pitch of a vibrating string depends on four things.
- Thicker, more massive strings vibrate more slowly so the strings
are thicker as (on a violin) you go down from the E to A to D to G
strings, even though the length of the string doesn't change, and
its tension does not change much.
- The frequency can also be changed by changing the tension in the
string using the tuning pegs: tighter gives higher pitch. This is
what the player does when s/he tunes up.
- The frequency also depends on the length of the string that is
free to vibrate. The player changes this by holding the string
firmly against the fingerboard with the fingers of the left hand.
Shortening the string (stopping it further up the fingerboard)
gives higher pitch.
- Finally there is the mode of vibration. When you play harmonics,
you induce the string to produce waves which are a fraction of the
length of those normally produced by a string of that length.
For more about strings and their motion, including harmonics, see Strings,
standing waves and haromonics. For their interaction with bows, see
the section Bows and
strings.
The strings themselves make hardly any noise: they are thin and
slip easily through the air without making much of disturbance - and a
sound wave is a disturbance of the air. An electric violin or an
electric guitar played without an amplifier makes little noise. It is
the bridge and body of the acoustic violin that transmit some of the
vibration of the strings into sound in the air.
This diagram showing the anatomy and nomenclature
of the violin is provided by Atelier
Labussiere.
The bridge
The bridge transfers some of the energy of vibration of the
string to the body of the violin. The bridge itself is very
effective at transmitting power to the body at frequencies
from about one to four kHz, which is where the ear is most
sensitive. This is one of the reasons for the bright timbre of
the violin.You can reduce the effectiveness of the bridge at
transmitting power by attaching a mass to it - the mass is
usually called amute, and it serves to make the
instrument both quieter and less bright in timbre.
The bridge stands on the belly between the f
holes. These holes have two different functions. One is to
connect the air inside to the air outside, and we talk about
this below. The other is a result of their length: the part of
the belly lying between the f holes can move more easily than
can most of the wood of the body. Let's see how this works.
The soundpost and bass bar
The treble foot of the bridge (the one under the E string) is
quite near the
soundpost, which is a small post connecting the relatively
flexible belly plate of the violin to the much stiffer back
plate. This post prevents the belly from collapsing under the
vertical component of the tension in the strings, and it also
couples the vibrations of the plates. This connection to the
stiffer back plate restricts the motion of the treble foot
considerably. The bass foot of the bridge is much easier to
move up and down. (Press gently with your fingers and you can
feel this difference.) As a result, when a string is driven
from side to side by the action of the bow, the bridge tends
to pivot about the treble foot, highlighted in yellow in the
sketch at right. The bass foot moves up and down a little,
moving part of the belly with it.
The position of the soundpost (the pivot for the motion of
the bridge) is critical to the sound of the instrument. Makers
will sometimes move it slightly to change the response of the
instrument. Small changes can have a noticeable effect.
Under the belly on the bass foot side of the bridge is the bass
bar. It extends beyond the f-holes and thus transmits the
motion of the bridge over a large area of the belly.
|
Cross section at the bridge, seen from
the tailpiece end |
Violin : Science. How it
works!
Violin : Origin
The body
The body: the front and back plates, the sides and the air
inside - all serve to transmit the vibration of the bridge
into vibration of the air around the instrument. For this, the
violin needs a relatively large surface area so that it can
push a reasonable amount of air backwards and forwards. The
most important part is the belly.
The belly or top plate. The belly and back plates
are made so that they can easily vibrate up and down. The
plates have a number of resonances: ie there are certain
frequencies at which they vibrate most easily.
These are identified by luthiers and scientists using Chladni
patterns. To make the graph at right, isolated bellies were
driven mechanically at the position of the bass foot of the
bridge, and the acceleration was measured. The graph gives the
ratio for force to acceleration. If we were vibrating a small
mass m, the ratio would be that mass, independent of
frequency. However, the resonant behaviour of the plate
appears here: the acceleration produced by a given force is a
strong function of frequency. On this graph, each major
resonance is indicated by an inset photograph of its Chladni
pattern.
The two curves here are for the bellies of two rather
similar violins.
When the violin is assembled, the resonances are more
complicated. However, the resonances are very important in
transmitting the varying force exerted at the foot of the
bridge into radiated sound.
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The complete instrument
The graph at right shows the acoustic efficiency of two
complete violins. This is the ratio of the sound pressure
produced (recorded by a microphone near the f hole) to force
applied (electromagnetically at the bridge). The two curves
are for the violins made from the top plates whose properties
are shown above. (The measurements were made by Ra Inta, PhD
student in Music Acoustics, as part of the study on how
violins change with playing and environmental changes over
time.)
The air inside and the Helmholtz resonance
The air inside the body is also important, especially for the
low range on the instrument. It can vibrate a little like the
air in a bottle when you blow across the top. In fact if you
sing a note near D4 close to the violin, and then hold your
ear close to the f-holes, you may hear the air in the body
resonating. This is called the Helmholtz
resonance. You can see the effect of this resonance at around
300 Hz in these two curves.
Resonances increase the sound output over some frequency
ranges
Of both the violin and the guitar, we might say that the
lowest resonance (associated with the Helmholtz resonance)
falls near the pitch of the second lowest string, and the
lowest body mode falls near the pitch of the third lowest.
Together theseincrease the sound radiation at fundamentals of
several of the notes in the low range of the instrument.
Further body resonances are distributed at higher frequencies.
These improve radiation of the fundamentals of higher notes,
and to harmonics of lower notes.
Where does the sound energy come from?
We have mentioned the importance of resonances in increasing
the sound output of the instrument. It is worth making it
clear that the body doesn't amplify the sound in the technical
sense of the word amplify. An electronic amplifier takes a
signal with small power and, using electrical power from the
mains, turns it into a more powerful signal. In the violin,
all of the sound energy that is produced by the body
originally comes from energy put into the string by the bow.
The purpose of the body is to make that conversion process
more efficient. In an electric guitar, very little of the
energy of the plucked string is converted to sound. The body
of an acoustic guitar or violin is more efficient at
converting some of that energy into sound.
Timbre vibrato
An interesting, very important and almost characteristic
feature of the sound of members of the violin family is timbre
vibrato, which is largely due to the acoustic response of
the body. We see at right that the ratio of the sound pressure
to the force that the string exerts on the bridge is a very
strong function of frequency, because of the many resonances
in the body. (This may seem strange to someone with a
background in hifi, where the aim is to produce apparatus with
negligible dependence on frequency!). When one plays a note
with a particular frequency, some but not all of the hamonics
coincide with resonances and so are strongly transmitted in
the output sound, while others are weaker.
Now consider what happens when the player rocks backwards
and forwards the finger that is stopping the string. This
produces a pitch vibrato: the pitch of note varies regularly
up and down. As it does so, the harmonics of the note also
vary up and down in frequency, and so they may move from a
strong transmission (due to a resonance) to weak transmission,
or vice versa. This means that the spectrum of the output note
varies strongly during the vibrato. Perceptually, this makes
the sound much more interesting. It is one of the two most
important features that help us identify the sound of a
violin. (The other is the way in which a bowed note begins.)
The key paper on timbre vibrato is by J. Meyer: "On the
Tonal Effect of String Vibrato", Acustica, 76
283-291 (1992).
To get an idea of why vibrato is so important to the
violin, ask a violinist to play a long soft note on an open
string, or two notes simultaneously on two adjacent open
strings. On the open string, it will have no vibrato. Now
close your eyes? Can you imagine that it is an organ playing?
Each time the bow changes direction you can tell that it is a
violin, but during sustained, steady bowing it is much less
clear. Now ask the violinist to play the same single note, or
a double-stopped fifth, on different strings, and to play
normally. How important is the difference?
Bowing
The use of the bow is also very important to the violin sound.
First, it allows the production of a sustained note, whose
loudness can be held nearly constant or, at the performer's
choice, varied over time (musicans say 'shaping the note').
There is another important difference between plucking and
bowing. A plucked string very quickly loses its high harmonics
and, after a few seconds, nearly all of the remaining energy
in the string is in its fundamental. Bowing inputs energy
continuously to the string and thereby maintains the power in
the high harmonics. |
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Violin : Science. How it
works!
Violin : Origin
and the timing for Violin
Western pattern with Notes:
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