Ripples on the brain

…is an apt caption for the Hindu Friday Review November Fest which leads the rasikas to the Margazhi music festival in December. I was very fortunate to attend the final concert “Meeting of minds” of the Hindu festival - a sort of fusion between two novel instruments, the chitravina or the gotuvadyam and the mohana veena and the percussion instruments of the South and the North, the mridangam and the tabla respectively.

The instruments

Chitravina: This instrument is older than the popular veena. Though it resembles the veena, it doesn’t have any frets unlike the veena. Now, the frets indicate the swarastanas in a conventional veena. Without them, the player has to be absolutely sure of the positions of the swaras, which would make mastering the instrument more difficult. The other major difference is that chitravina has more strings when compared to the veena which enables the artiste to play in more octaves in the former. There are other minor differences like veena is played by placing the gourd on the lap and by gliding the fingers over the strings whereas the chitravina is placed on the floor and a block is glided over the strings while playing it. The gamakam that instrument can create is much better than the effect of the veena to the ears.

Mohanaveena: This instrument has a body of the guitar with a gourd fitted at the strings-end. The strings of the guitar are, however, replaced with exclusive strings for the mohanaveena and unlike guitar, the instrument is played by plucking individual strings. I think this instrument has frets and Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhat (who is also the inventor of the instrument) mentioned that he runs a lever from his old LML Vespa scooter over the strings of the instrument. The pandit keeps the head of the guitar on his lap and the fitted gourd on the ground (exactly opposite to the way a conventional veena is placed) while playing the instrument. To me, the instrument sounded like a sitar. Its sound had more shrillness when compared to the chitravina.

The artistes

All the artistes were probably one of the greatest to play their respective instruments. Chitravina and Ravikiran are inseparable from each other (a search for either in Google will return results with the other before or after). It seems Ravikiran played for the first time in the Music Academy at the age of two. Umayalapuram Sivaraman, as the announcer himself mentioned, is the emperor of all the mridangam players at the point in time. He has played from the time of Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar. Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhat is himself the inventor of the instrument he plays. I don’t know much about the tabla vidwan, Sri Ramkumar Mishra though.

The songs
The following songs were featured in the concert: Vatapi ganapatim of Hamsadhwani raaga, Pavanaguru in Hamsanandhi, a composition of Ravikiran himself (initially SaRiGa Ma… which he improvised to Ravikiran Mohana Mishramu Sivarama to include all the artistes on stage) in Kiravani, a Rajastani folk song sung by the Pandit and finally Krishna nee begane in yamunaa kalyani played by Ravikiran.

I will write about my impressions of this concert in the next post.