How international journey has necessitated improvements in conventional Indian devices

With globalisation, Indian artforms have developed a wider viewers base. Bigger auditoriums, elevated journey, and extra variety of live shows have led to rethink of development of many conventional devices. Portability and sturdiness turned key. Such sensible wants coupled with a need to give you distinctive sounds prompted a number of improvements in Indian musical devices.

The standard Saraswati veena is giant, fragile, temperature delicate and feeble in amplitude. Radel was one of many first to innovate right here, arising with a number of fashions — an Electrical Veena in 1971 with mounted frets, guitar tuning keys and magnetic pick-up; then an Digital Veena with adjustable frets, a built-in tanpura, digital amplifier with speaker and battery back-up; and later, a Digital Veena utilizing sampled sound that mechanically tunes all strings on the contact of a button to desired pitch. All these veenas could possibly be carried in two luggage — fret board in a single and gourds within the different.

Going through a number of damaged veenas on worldwide journey, Suma Sudhindra got here up with the Tarangini Veena utilizing guitar frets. Initially, it required two luggage, however now suits in a typical guitar case. Denis Petrov of New York noticed his vainika-wife, Vijaya Krishnamurthy, wrestle with the instrument’s many points. He designed the modular and light-weight weight Shiva Veena that would match solely in a typical guitar case. It has pick-up mics designed particularly for the veena together with for the sympathetic strings and bridges adjustable for every string. It makes use of a guitar fretboard and simply accessible guitar strings. Senior vainika Naresh Purushotham, scholar of S. Ramanathan, says that string modifications are a breeze and the Shiva Veena’s fret pitch accuracy is so good that he can play some chords on it vertically and with a a lot lighter contact.

V. Balachandhran, father of younger vainika Ramana Balachandhran, has performed sufficient analysis on the veena. He has tried innumerable permutations and mixtures of outdated and new supplies for each a part of the veena. Balachandhran feels that the instrument’s a number of inherent points have stagnated its evolution within the trendy period. He says he has achieved a 10db enhance in amplitude purely via materials and development modifications. He hopes to give you a considerably improved veena for Ramana later this yr.

The standard kanjira is fabricated from jackfruit wooden unto which a monitor lizard pores and skin is stretched taut with cash inserted on the aspect to offer a jingle. Since monitor lizards are endangered, the German firm Meinl makes kanjiras with goat pores and skin head and a rubber wooden body. Vermont-based Cooperman’s kanjira makes use of an artificial Mylar head and a hardwood shell. California-based Remo makes use of recycled wooden fibre for its shell together with a totally artificial head. In all of those trendy variations, the stress of the enjoying head may be adjusted utilizing a hex wrench. They’re extra sturdy, far much less temperature delicate and don’t require periodic software of water while enjoying.

Kanjira exponent Ok.V. Gopalakrishnan, additionally well-versed with newer variations, prefers the Remo kanjira. The Remo may be visually indistinguishable from the standard instrument for the reason that head is printed with a monitor lizard pores and skin graphic. Some tonal variations may be discerned between the newer variations and the outdated, however a non-expert can be hard-pressed to determine them.

Conventional mridangams are jackfruit shells with caprine and bovine heads and straps, with a tonal black spot fabricated from iron filings, manganese and cooked rice. Overseas excursions uncovered the instrument’s many frailties. The tonal spot would put on away and your entire instrument needed to be dismantled to switch one head. Repairers have been then accessible solely in Chennai. An early concept, attributed to B. Ganapathy Raman, was having heads individually mounted with nuts and bolts, permitting for simple alternative and only one shell. It was rapidly adopted, and is in common use. Whereas most are straight mounted on the head, Rohan Krishnamurthy, maybe the primary to patent this class of mridangams, has brief nylon straps hooked up to steel prongs on the physique, to make it sound nearer to the standard mridangam.

Instrument dimensions, nevertheless, change with sruti, necessitating extra devices for various sruti ranges. Prapancham Ravindran thus designed one the place the shell was in two removable halves — one bass finish and with two interchangeable tonal ends. Patri Satish Kumar added a 3rd tonal finish together with his TRI-M model, overlaying your entire spectrum of srutis. Whereas the shells above are break up roughly in half, R. Akshay Ram configured it as 75:25 with three various tonal heads being 25%, thereby saving additional area. Ravindra Bharathy Sridharan took the logical subsequent step, a three-part mridangam with a central trunk and each ends removable, christening it 3PM — additionally with three interchangeable tonal heads. Akshay Anantapadmanabhan got here up with a ‘spotless’ mridangam — with the tonal black spot on the within. He’s but to make use of it in Carnatic live shows. Akshay additionally makes use of the tonal head by itself at fusion reveals — set upright like a bongo.

Whereas all these variations largely use typical supplies, the SRI mridangam, designed by physicist and musician Dr. Ok. Varadarangan of Karunya Musicals, is made solely of artificial parts. Vegan, it incorporates a fibreglass shell, removable polymer enjoying heads and chemically bonded resin for the black harmonic floor. The sruti, as soon as set, is impervious to even excessive temperature and moisture modifications. It requires no maintenance — not even rava for the bottom aspect. It may possibly additionally straddle bigger ranges of srutis — mridangist R. Ramkumar has efficiently used a single mridangam for female and male srutis. The tabla, pakhawaj, dholak and different percussion devices additionally mirror most of the improvements noticed within the mridangam.

Whereas the above improvements have been on current devices, a bespoke luthier, Edward Powell, has created a number of never-before-seen eastern-inspired devices. A Canadian musician primarily based within the Czech Republic, his distinctive devices embrace the Ragmakamtar — an oud, a sarod and a fretless guitar multi functional, Mah-ze-tar (saz, oud and sarod), Rab (Afghan rabab and oud), a Mohan Veena and sarod hybrid, a Dzuddahord (guitar with adjustable sitar bridges, a mandola and sympathetic strings with harp-type tuning levers), customised tamburas, sarods, and sursringars.. Every instrument is deliberate and white-boarded scientifically to precise specs.

The weights of legacy and heritage are vital restraints to improvements in conventional devices.Nevertheless, when enhancements assist resolve points with out compromising on the unique really feel or sound, or carve a completely new area of interest, they, slowly however certainly, take maintain.

The author is a Kalpalata Fellow for Classical Music Writings for 2023.