Engineering:Gottuvadyam
The gottuvadyam is a 20 or 21-string fretless lute-style veena in Carnatic music from around the late 19th and early 20th centuries, named by Sakha Rama Rao[1] from Tiruvidaimarudur, who was responsible for bringing it back to the concert scene.
It is also known as chitravina (Sanskrit: चित्रवीणा), chitra veena, chitraveena, chitra vina, hanumad vina and mahanataka vina.
Today it is played mainly in South India, though its origins can be traced back to Bharata's Natya Shastra (200 BCE-200 CE), where it is mentioned as a seven string fretless instrument. Sarangadeva (1210–47) also made a similar reference to the chitravina in his work, Sangita Ratnakara.
Recent history
As a chitravina it was popularised in South India by Sakha Rama Rao before his disciple Gottuvadyam Narayana Iyengar (1903 - 1959), who was a palace musician of the erstwhile States of Travancore and Mysore took it to great heights. Iyengar's son, Chitravina Narasimhan (b. 1941) was instrumental in spreading his father's stringing and tuning methods as well as playing style.
Construction and tuning
The fretless nature of the instrument, Narayana Iyengar's stringing methods have made its tone 'reminiscent of the human voice.'[2]
Playing technique
The index and middle fingers of the right hand are usually used with plectra to pluck the metal melody strings while a cylindrical block made out of hardwood (often ebony), buffalo horn, glass, steel, or teflon held by the left hand is used to slide along the strings to vary the pitch.
Contemporary use
Narayana Iyengar's grandson Chitravina N. Ravikiran (b. 1967) plays the instrument and is the inventor of a variant, the navachitravina (which is typically tuned to B or C).[3]
Other exponents of the instrument include Budaloor Krishnamurthy Shastri (1894 - 1978), A Narayana Iyer, Mannargudi Savithri Ammal,[4] Allam Koteeshwara Rao (1933 -), M V Varahaswami, Allam Durgaprasad, Chitravina P Ganesh (b. 1976), Madhavachar, Kiranavali (Chitravina), Shashikiran, Gayatri Kassabaum, Lalitha Krishna, Vishaal Sapuram and Bhargavi Balasubramanian, Anahita Ravindran, Arjun Suresh. Seetha Doraiswamy, known more as a jala tarangam exponent, used to play the Balakokila, a smaller version of the chitravina.
See also
References
- ↑ Gottuvadyam Narayana Iyengar's Memoires & Article, "Why the name Gottuvadyam" in 1950s
- ↑ The New York Times, 27 Nov 1988
- ↑ "CHITRAVINA". http://www.ravikiranmusic.com/chitravina.htm.
- ↑ Lalitharam (30 June 2022). "Savitri Ammal, the first woman gottuvadyam artist". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 1 July 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20220701185509/https://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/music/savitri-ammal-first-woman-gottuvadyam-artiste-sakharama-rao/article65586190.ece.
- Natya Shastra, Bharata (2nd century BC-2nd century AD)
- Sangita Ratnakara, Sarangadeva
- Chitravina N Ravikiran website
- Journals of The Music Academy, Madras
- South Indian Music, Prof Sambamurthy
External links
- Chitravina page from N. Ravikiran site
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