Somewhat un-related, but should interest most of you. Russ. .sorry about the high bandwidth requirement! :-)
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The Saraswati veena is the dominant, plucked string instrument in South India. K.S. Subramaniam, Jayanthi Kumaresh, Ravikiran (Chitravina), and T.N. Sheshagopalan can be heard across the USA (especially at the Cleveland Aradhana www.aradhana.org) through summer, and Sreevidhya Chandramouli tours various countries (www.euronet.nl/users/l_pesch/htmlpag/E/Vinatour_KIT2003.html) in Europe in March/April.
To commemorate this activity, you may wish to get introduced to this wonderful instrument and its abilities. Visit http://www.sawf.org/music/interviews/veena/veena.asp?pn=Music. The article provides an introduction to the Saraswati veena, using an essay, several detailed photos with captions/comments, musical examples, and a conversation/demo with Sreevidhya Chandramouli. High bandwidth is a requirement to appreciate the audio material.
The article will be online until mid-April 2003. Rakesh Chaurasia's interview/ photos (www.sawf.org/music/interviews/chaurasia/RakeshChaurasia2001.asp?pn=Music) will go offline around March 19th.
Next month's interview is with Dr. Stephen Slawek, a faculty member the School of Music at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Slawek discusses his upcoming performance and a variety of other topics, including his relationship with his guru Pandit Ravishankar.
The Texas indo-classical events listing (www.icmca.org/calendar.html) has also been updated, amoung others, with a Kathak performance in Dallas and some Kannada Vrinda events in Houston.
Thanks. The strumming (right hand technique) or using two fingers and the little finger were prevalent in the Been and Surbahar tradition in the north. Don't know whether the plectrums were/are worn the same way. But someone realized that the sitar way give allows for faster plucking. .and you know what happened then. .In fact in jor, may old timer teachers (and some of this generation as well) asked students to restrict their strokes only to da. .and not use da-ra, until faster sections of jor.
Hey Amitava;
No problem. Might be able to do it anyway. Got a new laptop recently with a 56k internal, better than the 28.8 I've got now. Looking for a new ISP too. I could do DSL now, but I don't want to pour that much cash into this. Saving it for possibly buying a new sitar soon.
On another topic, where on SAWF are the archive interviews stored? I was looking for Indrajit's from a couple of years ago the other day, and don't know where to look.
Saw your ICM site for Austin. Indrajit, Gouri and Shankar hooking up in June? Cool. I'll plan to be down that way right around that time. Maybe see you then.
In general SAWF Music Articles Archive
http://www.sawf.org/music/articles.asp?pn=Music
is probably one of the best sites ever if you want to listen to indian music with Real Player all day long. Wish I had more time to.
The link provided by Raga is Rajan's section - and as I have said previously. .the best internet site on raags. My section is http://www.sawf.org/music/Artists.asp?pn=Music
