SOUVIK CHAKRABORT Y
HOW IS IT LIKE TO BE GOOD IN ARTS AND
SCIENCE AND WIN A NOBEL PRIZE TOO?
Did you know that CV Raman, the renowned scientist
known for his ground breaking contributions on
the scattering of light was also a music aficionado.
Raman, the glorified intellect has for years studied
the phenomena of the much coveted jugalbandi or the
synergy between art and science. His curiosity lie in the
production of a note through a sound and vice versa.
Raman was influenced and inspired by an interplay of
global and intrinsic factors. Around the 1890s, the British
physicist Lord Rayleigh studied through experiments,
the vibrations produced by bells. During his stint as an
Assistant Accountant-General in Kolkata, Raman was
working with the Indian Association for Cultivation of
Science (IACS). The IACS and the popular philosophers
of the time were interconnected in the essence that the
ideas, thoughts and the beliefs around music and culture
were already in the air. The medical practitioner to
Swami Ramakrishna, was the founder of the IACS.
Raman was caught up in the vortex of the jugalbandi that
he had sought out to pursue. So, he dived deep into the
mechanisms of the Indian percussions, especially the tabla
and the mridangam. He was particularly intrigued by the
manner in which the instruments were built. So in 1919, he
started off with his studies of how a mridangam is built.
Raman's studies were soon shifted to the studying of the
nuances of the so-far unexplained phenomena of optics. So,
for the next few years, Raman would crack what is going to
be famously called the Raman effect. He had made a mind-
boggling discovery that when light traverses through a
transparent medium, some of the deflected light changes the
wavelength and its amplitude. It is his finding that answered
the most simple natural phenomena like why is the sky blue?
Until 1935, Raman had just built upon this treasure of
knowledge and finally the time came for his paper in
the 'Proceeding of Indian Academy of Sciences'. Raman
had found out that the ‘Mridangam’ and the ‘Tabla’ had
a character in their tones. The magic of the sustained
vibration was a common denominator for both the
instruments. This was possible largely because of the
heaviness of the wooden shell and the symmetrical head,
made of a mix of charcoal, gum and some other secret
sauces. Similarly, the rigid shell of the mridangam amplified
the sustained vibrations inside the instrument. The
harmonic overtones were decoded to be processing itself out
of the enclosed air in between the skin and the outer shell.
It is amazing to find out that, the creators of the
instruments had figured out a way to naturally equalize
the sound of these instruments. Instead of using just
one leather skin, a tabla uses three layers of skin
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sandwiched together to create sixteen tension equalizers
and also maintain the hallmark of the instruments.
The concentric circles on the exo-skin of the tabla
ensure that it has a range of higher to lower pitches.
A tabla usually produces higher pitches towards the
outer region and lower pitches towards the centre. The
very flattering of the smearing of dough at the centre,
pitch shifts the instrument to its best output. The tonal
vibrations would then be evoked through playing
either from the base of the hand or the fingers.
It is important to note, that Raman did not only stop at
the Indian percussion instruments. He went ahead with
studying the western stringed instruments as well. But, as
per his deductions, the western instruments
were by far, less musical than their
Indian counterparts. He would
even take them to have
been lost in the noise
of an orchestral
music setup.