Comments on: The veena, turned up to 11.

The veena, turned up to 11.

flapjax at midnite — Fri, 16 May 2008 01:24:42 -0800

With a pickup mounted on the body of the instrument just below the strings, Revathy Krishna, KP Sarada and Sivanandam and Jayanthi Kumaresh get an unexpectedly fat sound out of their veena. Rocking! The instrument is more often amplified with a microphone, in which case it sounds more like this performance by D. Balakrishna, who, as you'll hear, ain't no slouch, neither. And here Pichumani gets his groove on, no doubt about it. So, hey, two more raags for the road, courtesy of Rajeswari Padmanabhan. The second tune on her clip, by the way, has got some deep blues in it, so I'm thinking maybe Rajeswari might've been down to the crossroads at midnight... [NOTE: see hoverovers for link descriptions] One of the legendary veena masters is S. Balachander. Here's a short documentary on him, with some fabulous reverb on that narrator! Part 1 (4:35) and 2 (4:41). Here's a performance by S. Balachander. By the way, those clay pots that you see being played as veena accompaniment in these clips are called ghatam. Pretty cool, huh? Here's a player surrounded by a set of tuned ghatam.

By: CitizenD

CitizenD — Fri, 16 May 2008 01:54:10 -0800

man, am i glad i decided to check the blue one more time before i headed to bed. grooooooooovy stuff, flapjax. thank you, oh so much! i'll have some crazy awesome dreams tonight, lulled as i'll be by veena delight!

By: three blind mice

three blind mice — Fri, 16 May 2008 02:04:29 -0800

The second tune on her clip, by the way, has got some deep blues in it, Very cool, but that track was screaming for a glass slide, a humbucker pick-up, and a cheap Fender amp. Then she'd be rocking.

By: psmealey

psmealey — Fri, 16 May 2008 03:19:22 -0800

Kick AXE! Great post, flapjax!

By: kcds

kcds — Fri, 16 May 2008 04:13:06 -0800

Aw great, now I'm going to have to have Indian for lunch tomorrow.

By: Joseph Gurl

Joseph Gurl — Fri, 16 May 2008 04:27:21 -0800

top drawer old chap

By: Joseph Gurl

Joseph Gurl — Fri, 16 May 2008 04:28:23 -0800

err, I mean, played by a man is that sweet, can we imagin how it would have been by lord krishna!

By: PenDevil

PenDevil — Fri, 16 May 2008 04:35:12 -0800

*wonders what the market share for Sitar Hero could be*

By: googly

googly — Fri, 16 May 2008 05:08:01 -0800

This is great. Thanks.

By: timsteil

timsteil — Fri, 16 May 2008 05:15:52 -0800

Again, I call for an official Flapjaxfilter!!!! Nice post.

By: NoMich

NoMich — Fri, 16 May 2008 05:40:05 -0800

Dude, I'm peakin'. Great post. It's right up there with the Turkish jammers.

By: preparat

preparat — Fri, 16 May 2008 05:45:12 -0800

Apparently you ca get one of these for around $1000. They look more complicated than that and I'm sure the true proffesional instruments go for more. I wonder if there is an historical connection between the veena and the Turkish saz.

By: uncleozzy

uncleozzy — Fri, 16 May 2008 06:05:59 -0800

Oh man, I dig anything with a drone. Such neat sounds. It wouldn't be the same, for me, without the percussion, though; I'm more a sucker for movement than for melody. Thanks for these.

By: dances_with_sneetches

dances_with_sneetches — Fri, 16 May 2008 06:38:51 -0800

I'm so shell-shocked by antiterrorism horror stories I thought while reading the lead-in . . . foreign names, oddly modified instrument = certain arrest and imprisonment.

By: nosila

nosila — Fri, 16 May 2008 07:38:07 -0800

I love how in the second link, the 60-cycle hum quickly becomes a drone that seems to belong. Freakin' awesome. I wonder what kinds of mixers they're using. (I don't see a guitar amp in any of the videos I've watched so far.) My guess is that the recording engineers are using some old boards that help give the instruments that superphat round sound.

By: sneebler

sneebler — Fri, 16 May 2008 08:02:32 -0800

More towards the glass slide and humbucker pick-up side of things...

By: sneebler

sneebler — Fri, 16 May 2008 08:19:20 -0800

From the notes to the KP Sarada and Sivanandam video: "Their playing is well recognized for their bhava and soukyam." What does this mean?

By: Grimp0teuthis

Grimp0teuthis — Fri, 16 May 2008 08:26:05 -0800

Thanks, Flapjax, I'm really starting to develop a love for Indian classical music... mostly as a result of MeFi posts!

By: phliar

phliar — Fri, 16 May 2008 09:18:56 -0800

The videos are truncated -- is that thanks to youtube's limits? (Nasty shock to have the music suddenly end when it was building towards the climax.)

By: medeine

medeine — Fri, 16 May 2008 10:56:31 -0800

Oh, excellent! I came across a couple of these awhile back and was pretty enthralled. Thank you for posting this.

By: thrakintosh

thrakintosh — Fri, 16 May 2008 11:01:21 -0800

Funny. Just this morning I was jammin' out to a little diddy from a pair of dudes hailing a few thousand miles to the west of the Veena crowd. Great stuff! Thanks for the post.

By: aldus_manutius

aldus_manutius — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:40:52 -0800

heh ... we just had a veena player on Campus yesterday afternoon ... sadly, nowhere as impressive as these folks. But it got me looking into bansuri again ...

By: vronsky

vronsky — Fri, 16 May 2008 20:30:58 -0800

This post is so good it makes me crazy!

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Fri, 16 May 2008 21:50:53 -0800

Hey, sneebler, that Harry Manx clip is totally killing. Gorgeous stuff.

By: Wolof

Wolof — Fri, 16 May 2008 22:44:33 -0800

If you like Harry Manx, you'll like Debashish Bhattacharya.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Fri, 16 May 2008 22:55:47 -0800

Yup, you're right, Wolof. I am an instant Bhattacharya fan. Thanks for that!

By: Wolof

Wolof — Fri, 16 May 2008 23:15:15 -0800

This seems apposite — U. Shrinivas & U. Rajesh on electric mandolins.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Fri, 16 May 2008 23:34:51 -0800

Oh yeah, Shrinivas is kickass. Those wanting to see more of him, check my previous FPP.

By: Wolof

Wolof — Sat, 17 May 2008 00:05:57 -0800

More mohan veena from the excellent Prakash Sontakke with Pramod Gaikwad.