Practicing accompanying the flute

 

Practicing accompanying the flute is something that was an ongoing step throughout the project. This is because after every step, I practiced with the flute as well because I knew that this was what my final video was going to have. Plus I had to keep the practice as I had to perform in front of a live audience as well on the annual days. These images are just a few examples of my practice.






The first one (left) is when I was practicing the harmonium with the flute for the first time. This was also the first day I learnt raag Bhoopali, and practicing it on that day itself gave me a benchmark to understand how much practice I will need.









The second image (right) is a dress rehearsal that Indxx conducted before the final celebration, this practice allowed me to understand both the setting and structure of the show, which helped boost my confidence and play to the best of my ability on the final day.









The last image is a picture of me practicing raag bhoopali before the final recording of the harmonium. This was also an important practice as it helped me get used to playing it in that moment and didn't make me camera shy later on.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Learning how to strum the Tanpura

Image
  Strumming the Tanpura requires patience, concentration and a sense of rhythm. The same four strings have to be repeatedly strummed at the same pace over and over again. A little bit of timing fault can result in disruption of the melody.  Personally, the first time strumming the tanpura was pretty hard and painful as I was not used to strumming anything at all. But instead was used to pressing keys on the piano which doesn't really hurt the fingers. However in around 30 minutes of playing, I got the hang of it and could do it easily. But i still had to work on my timing and posture. The second day of me strumming the tanpura was much easier than the first as my hand had gotten used to the strumming and the practice really helped. Below is a video showing my progress. My teacher then told me that since I already play the Piano, learning the harmonium is a good idea and I should also do that. Which is what I will be doing as well now and will talk about it in my later blogs. ...
Read more

Learning how to hold the Tanpura

Image
  Holding the Tanpura for the first time sure does sound easy, however its quite complicated in real life. At first I thought that learning how to hold it wouldn't take must time but it did.  How to hold it: Your dominant hand, (right hand for me) should be strumming right at the middle of the neck for the perfect sound and aura, the other hand can either be resting separately or under the Tanpura for support, your back has to be straight and you have to look presentable while holding it and sit in a criss cross position.    My teacher who also happens to be my mother’s cousin, told me on the first day that there are mainly two types of tanpuras, a small one and a big one, the big one is rarely played nowadays as it is harder to carry so learning the smaller one made more sense. He also showed me the parts of the tanpura such as the beads and threads (as seen in the above image) and also showed me how he tunes the instrument with the help of it. He also told me ...
Read more

Bollywood vs Western songs on the piano

Image
  I mostly play western or exam pieces on the piano, Bollywood songs are something that I've never really tried because most of them are such that they cannot be played on the piano alone. But now I've decided to learn and play both styles of songs and compare them. I will be dividing them into two sets, one & two and three & four. This will not only show my progress but will also allow me to have a variety of songs in both categories.  Below is set one, for this day, I played the Kuch Kuch Hota Hai theme music for the Bollywood song and My heart will go on by Celine Dione from the movie Titanic (theme). These two songs are old but super popular, which is why I put them together on one day in one video, comparing the two, I feel like I was more comfortable playing the titanic theme and was just feeling that song more if that makes sense. Also I was able to play the titanic theme for a much longer time compared to the Kuch Kuch Hota Hai theme without getting very repeti...
Read more