I had also given a couple of concerts in the local temple.

On 1st May, 2005 I gave a 'Musical Discourse' (along with my friend Mr. M.Ganesan) in our Sabha on 'Thyagaraja on Sangeetha Shasthra' in our local Sabha, Sangeetha Rasikar Sangam. We sang about 15 krithis of Thyagaraja dealing with music (such as Nada loludai, Swararaga sudha etc.). I explained the meanings of the krithis and what I perceived as Thyagaraj's concepts on music. Click here for a review (originally put up in the Sabha's website) of this program.

On 2nd February, 2003 I gave a short Veena Concert in my residence before an invited audience. (For a review of the concert go to Concert Review. which was putup in the website of our local sabha Sangeetha Rasika Sangam). Excerpts from the concert (Alapana in Varali and the krithi 'Kaa vaa vaa') in mp3 format can be downloaded by right clicking the following links and saving the file by clicking "Save Target As..". The files can be played with Windows Media Player (Win 98 or later) or WinAmp or other audio software: Varali Alaapana (800 Kb).   Kaa Vaa Vaa (1.4 Mb). If you have Winamp ver.3 you can also listen without downloading Varali (stream) and Kaa Vaa Vaa (stream)

Carnatic Music Software: In 1992-93 I wrote two programs for Carnatic music, Cmrasika and Cmsishya which worked in DOS and produced music using the PC Speaker. I believe that Carnatic music cannot be properly represented by the mere notes and the nuances of movements between and around notes are very essential to get the raaga bhaavam. I spent much time experimenting and was eventually able to develop a system for producing gamakams. Thus although the sound of the PC speaker is poor in quality, the deft use of gamakams made the music sound realistic and the programs were well received. Cmrasika is a program for appreciating the Carnatic music system and Cmsishya is for beginners, helping them to practice lessons upto Geethams, in between their sessions with a teacher.

When sound cards became standard items on PCs, I wrote 2 programs - Rasika which is the sound card version of Cmrasika and Gaayaka which is a new program enabling the entry of notation in the South Indian 'sa ri ga ma ..' style and playing it. All the software available for composing and playing music use staff notation and it is quite difficult to produce gamakams. Gaayaka can be used to enter notation and play it with gamakams (if the notation includes anuswarams and movements for which Gaayaka has provision).

A more detailed article on the problems of computerisation of Carnatic Music and my experiences has been published in 'Sangeet Natak' (Journal of Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi) in the issue 133-134 (1999) pages 16-24.

I have also been writing other small programs related to music. I tried a program to generate raagam using randomly selected notes but with certain restrictions. Even for a raagam like Hindolam which is note oriented it was not pleasant and so I did not pursue this idea. I have written a program to sharpen the tuning skills for a Carnatic music student. As we do not use any absolute frequency for the tonic (Aadhara Shadjam) this allows to specify the frequency for sa and then tune ga,ma or pa and check the accuracy. To download the program go to Tuning Test Program.

Another program for quick calculation of cent value of relative frequencies (for those interested in theory and research) can also be downloaded. Go to Cents program.

For those interested in Computers: My DOS programs were written using Turbo C++ (though I did not use the object oriented features). To make movements between notes smooth, I changed the normal 18.2 clock ticks per second into 100.1 ticks per second by playing with the interrupts and then calling the normal interrupt routine twice in eleven ticks (100.1 is 18.2 * 5.5). My recent Windows programs were written in VB3. The music is produced by synthesizing the wave data required to play through the wave device of the soundcard, using wave definitions of Veena or Flute. These required fast calculations and the program gets these done through some DLLs.

Recently I have also done some analytical work on Carnatic Music Gamakams using the PC. I found many interesting things by analysing the gamakams of 4 notes ri,ga,da,ni of Maayamalavagowla sung/played by different artistes. The findings have been published in Sangeet Natak Volume XXXVII, Number 1, 2002 pages 26 - 47. This article can be downloaded as a zip file from the 'Articles' link of this site

I am interested in exchange of ideas on use of Computers in Carnatic music.