The Score Magazine October 2019 | Page 30

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 28 The Score Magazine highonscore.com 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.