Fwd: Carnatic Ragas (Genome) Project
Suraj Kumar
other 'tag' and I never noticed it until today.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: M.Subramanian <mani...@eth.net>
Date: Jul 18, 2006 9:37 AM
Subject: Carnatic Ragas (Genome) Project
To: su...@sunson.in
Dear Mr.Suraj Kumar,
Thanks for your email..
The ideas put forth by you are interesting and intriguing !
I do not know how far an old man like me (I will be completing 73 next
month) can be of sustained usefuleness and help. Lot of our time is
spent on vistis to the doctor, labs, hospitals etc.!
I will study the subject with your approach, think over it and get back
to you.
Incidentally did you read my paper on "An analysis of Gamakams using the
Computer" published in Sangit Natak, a copy of which is available in my
web site in zipped form at http://carnatic2000.tripod.com/article.htm ?
The appendices to the article may be interest to you.. There are links
to some more articles in that page.*
*Regards and best wishees,
Subramanian
--- Suraj Kumar <su...@sunson.in> wrote:
>
>
>>Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 12:23:50 +0530
>>From: "Suraj Kumar" <su...@sunson.in>
>>To: mani...@yahoo.com
>>Subject: Help needed for a Carnatic Ragas Project
>>CC: "Pravin Shankar" <spr...@gmail.com>
>>
>>Dear Sir,
>>
>>I came across your contact through the Carnatic 2000
>>website<http://carnatic2000.tripod.com/>.
>>Firstly, Hats off to you for the wonderful work done
>>through Carnatic 2000
>>software. I was amazed at the simplicity of the
>>notation and yet near-real
>>ghamakkams that were played by your software.
>>
>>Pravin (CC'ed) and I have been thinking of a project
>>called the "Raga Genome
>>Project" which aims at being a community-driven
>>effort to collect
>>information of a raga -- much similar in theme to
>>the community-driven
>>Encyclopaedia effort, the Wikipedia
>><http://wikipedia.org/>.
>>
>>What we wish to bring about are two fold:
>>
>>1. An online resource for people looking for
>>in-depth information about
>>ragas.
>>2. A software platform on the internet using which
>>developers can build
>>software and services that use the raga information.
>>
>>I hope you wouldn't mind my explaining the idea
>>here:
>>
>>A raga is not just the notes that make up its
>>'scale'. Its the
>>ghamakkams and the 'phrases' and the frequency of
>>usage of these swaras
>>(vadi, vivadi, etc.,.) that make up a raga. The
>>swaras make a 'body part'
>>of a raga.
>>
>>The moment we start seeing a raga as a 'living
>>body' with 'body
>>parts', one can start visualising 'genes' that
>>build these body parts.
>>
>>Thus a raga is like an 'organisation' (organism)
>>of 'body parts' that
>>are in turn built by 'raga genes' that make these
>>'parts'.
>>
>>For the sake of explaining, i hope its okay to
>>compare arbitrary ragas
>>to arbitrary living things:
>>
>>Though a deer and a tiger both have 'teeth', the
>>structure of their 'teeth'
>>differs and are made by genes that are different
>>from each other. Just
>>to draw a (probably meaningless) analogy, if
>>the swarasthanam 'ri2'
>>serves the purpose of 'grinding food', all the
>>currently available
>>resources for ragas are doing the equivalent of
>>calling both 'tiger' and
>>'deer' as 'similar' because both can grind food!
>>
>>But what's the role of 'raga gene' here?
>>
>>We think it becomes very easy for the
>>following purposes to
>>visualize each 'phrase' that adds a character to a
>>raga as a gene:
>>
>>1. Since a raga gene represents not just the
>>'notes' but also the entire
>>'movement' involved in a phrase or even just a
>>'swara', it represents a
>>larger detailed that is missing from the current
>>online raga resources that
>>merely use the notes in an arohanam and avarohanam
>>to represent a raga.
>>
>>2. It becomes possible to group related ragas more
>>accurately into a 'cloud'
>>and do various data analysis on ragas.
>>
>>There are endless possibilities of applications
>>that can be written on top
>>of the data that are collected thus.
>>
>>Since the 'raga gene' by itself only 'knows' how to
>>go from one note to the
>>other following certain rules, it becomes possible
>> to use this platform
>>to gather and view melody-oriented systems such
>>as Hindustani, Ancient
>>Tamil Panns, etc.,.
>>
>>Now, how is this going to work practically?
>>
>>Once the platform is in place, a 'contributor'
>>(one who adds info about a
>>raga or even just a 'gene') can start defining a
>>raga. The first thing
>>anybody would want to do is to define the arohanam
>>and avarohanam. But,
>>according to us a raga itself is nothing but a
>>collection of 'genes'.
>>Even the arohanam itself can be defined using 'raga
>>genes' that define how
>>to go from 'sa to ri', 'ri to ga' and so on).
>>
>>So the contributor will have to either find an
>>existing gene that does
>>the movement for 'sa to ri' (as per the rules of
>>the raga in question).
>>Worst case, s/he wouldn't find it when the
>>system is new. So s/he would
>>have to define all the genes on her/his own.
>>
>>Once seeded with a minimal set of 'raga genes' the
>>ease of defining
>>ragas/raga-genes will grow exponentially. For
>>example, once a
>>shankarabharanam's arohanam and avarohanam is
>>defined, one will just have to
>>define 'ga-ma2' for kalyani and re-use most other
>>genes from
>>shankarabharanam (of course, 'ni3' will differ,
>>etc.,. -- but you get
>>the idea of how easier it becomes to re-use parts
>> from other ragas).
>>
>>Now, thus far it may seem to you as though we are
>> still defining only
>>arohanam / avarohanam. That is just the beginning.
>>Contributors can also
>>start defining the phrases that are characteristic
>>of each raga ('ni-ri-ga'
>>using various 'ni' and 'ri-ga' genes, etc.,.) thus
>>providing more details
>>to a raga.
>>
>>
>>A rough 'mock up' UI of the gene definition is this:
>>
>>http://sunson.in/gene-definition-ui-mock.jpg (the
>>'yellow' block is to tell
>>the system that the specified section is 'loopable'
>>(ie.,. one can shake
>>ri-ga-ri multiple times).
>>
>>In the 'end', there would be a whole lot of
>>'phrases' in the system for a
>>given raga. Some of these phrases would be
>>common across ragas.
>>
>>The prime reason for writing this e-mail to you is
>>to ask for help from
>>you in:
>>
>>1. Reviewing our ideas, proposed design
>>and add the
>>carnatic-technical details that we lack.
>>
>>2. Give feedback on improving the usability and give
>>suggestions from the
>>POV of a novice internet 'contributor' who is not a
>>great computer user but
>>has excellent Carnatic music knowledge.
>>
>>Given all this, we must also mention that both of us
>>(I and Pravin) are
>>novices in Carnatic music and therefore we wish to
>>have valuable guidance
>>from experts in the field. Given that you have
>>expert knowledge in both
>>fields (a la, designing and programming
>>rasika/gayaka _and_ Carnatic music)
>>it would be a Gift to have you help us here :)
>>
>>If you have any questions, please feel free to let
>>us know.
>>
>>We are collecting ideas and suggestions for this
>>project at our wiki page
>>here:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>http://swing.rutgers.edu/wiki/index.php/Raga_Genome_Project
>
>
>>We also have a mailing list on google groups. Please
>>feel free to join it :)
>>
>>http://groups.google.com/group/raga-genome
>>
>>thanks,
>>
>> -Suraj
>>
>>--
>>Freedom from the Human Condition:
>>http://actualfreedom.com.au/
>>
>>
>>
>
>
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