Volume 1 Issue 1 
Gandharvam, A Refereed Journal of Sachin Debbarman Memorial Govt. Music College
Technological Aids in Performing Arts
Dr.K.Sashikumar
In the Modern age technology plays an important role for teaching work and research work. The usage of audio and visual aids coupled with good public speaking skills, work hand-in-hand to create effective presentation. Whereas one teachers speaking style and stage presentation are personal talent that can also refine with much practice and experience. For effective presentation one should not be detailed in his discussion whereas more emphasis must be given to audio and visual aids to a successful presentation either in class or general.
Media and Technology have played a vital role in preserving classical music and dance in India. From radio to Modern digital technology & internet facility has come to the modern class room instantly for the audio visual class room work in most of the institutions. This has helped tremendously to reach music from person to person, from country to country. Present time children or the students are so advanced in any subject they can instantly refer or hear or see any kind of documentation, information of a subject through his aneroid telephone. So technology has contributed considerably for preserving and spreading music taste amongst the public.
After the invention of Radio, it helped the public to listen and learn music through radio broadcasting, radio was so cheap that it was affordable to all with a meager income, village or city every one enjoyed the music with the help of radio and thus it increased the interest of the people. Lot of archive recording are available now for classroom playing . AIR has given tremendous treasure of Indian classical music for the modern generation for research and class work.
By the invention of gramophone and records such as 78 Rpm, L p and E p records the music lovers got a chance to listen to their favorite musicians, young generation got the opportunity to listen the great maestros , even though the recording was of poor quality while comparing to modern digital recording . Now the new generation is preparing to digitalize the old recording to preserve and protect the old style and tradition.
The recording technology was first started with two track analog system and simultaneously it went up to sixteen track etc., which was done with the help of the mixer. The spool tape was then succeeded by the ADAT machine with 8 track facility having digital quality which can easily sink with another machine of the same kind, thus by increasing the channels with the help of different machines. And with the advancing of the technology new machines were introduced with faster and clearer mode to increase and develop the knowledge of the listeners.
The television has contributed a lot in the field of live performance by eminent artist which is recorded by many people through VCR, VCPR . Which was later on digitalized and utilized in a proper way for class room teaching work and also through group programme for teachers for mass class room work. This facility is very much used in BHU .
Some of the most technological aids used in India and abroad are Video compact disc , digital video disc, mini digital video disc etc., So many musicians and teachers are using these equipments for better quality of recording and also play back . The HD(high definition) technology has and also full HD facility has tremendous advantages for audio and video clarity. After the invention of computer and software the whole technology has changed and entirely dependent on computerized recording technology which has software with built in mixer facility, effects processor , graphic equalizer , midi and sampler. There are so many simpler software for home version in I phone , android phone, I pad, tab, laptop etc., through this a teacher can record so many information and also collect so many videos and audios for class room teaching with the help of LCD monitors . Through this version a teacher can collect so many materials and the teacher can explain well in classrooms such as vocal teacher can explain well about different Gharanas, Instrumentalist also can explain different way of playing techniques of Sitar, Flute , Violin etc., whereas a dance teacher can explain well about the various styles of Nritya ,Nritha, and Abhinaya. If a student is unknown about any subject he can refer through internet and collect all information and discuss with the teachers. For example if a teacher is explaining about different version of dances he can show photographs , videos even the notes preparation can be shown through LCD projector .
Apart from class work the technology has a power of saving paper for the studies all the students can collect the data of class work in a CD or in a pen drive. Nowadays most of the academic staff colleges are providing only CD’s most of the people are using soft copies instead of hard copies especially the younger generation prefer only soft copies , even the thesis works are sent to the examiners through soft copies were one can save so many paper ,thus bringing in green revolution. For class room teaching work , we are also blessed with numerous varieties of electronic music instruments like electronic tampura , electronic tabla , electronic sruti box, lehera machine etc., In making electronic tampura the pioneer company was Radel electronic Bangalore. Now they have developed different varieties of tampura models like sarang concerto which looks like a real tampura. Sarang micro III , sarang melody, Sarang maestro, Sarang magic, sarang deluxe. The sruti box models of radel are Druva Cd , excel –III , Dhruva Cd deluxe, Dhruva automatic. For tabla players sunanda mala lehara with 200 pre set tunes in twenty talas. Two programmable tunes are available with this model . Tala mala digi-60’s is a digital table machine with 60 tekas sampled realistic stereo sounds. The radel company has recently celebrated its silver jubilee. In this function they have released new models of tampura named Sarang Miraj 4/5/6 stringed realistic digital tampura. On the year 2002 they also introduced the digital veena, which is called as sunadavinodini electronic veena. Now a days micro size Tampura is available viz. Shruti mohini which is manufactured from Hyderabad. Now we have so many other similar companies like Riyaz, Surmaster etc., all these were able to do the invention of the digital sampler machine through which all the real tones of the instrument can be sampled.
Sruthi or Tampura sur is ready available in the website where one can download play in a phone in any pitch. Through e journals and E library one can collect materials through this for class work. The brilliant sruthi in apple store(i-pro) is an excellent tampura which is free for I phone holders others can down load with little money , which is a brilliant version for performance use, also can play through speakers.
References:
- "Description Key for Educational Media". The Described and Captioned Media Program. November 4, 2008. Retrieved September 7, 2009.
- "Networks Set to Launch Video Descriptions". TVNewsCheck.com. Retrieved June 20, 2012.
- "Audio described DVD Database". Australia: Media Access. Retrieved 10 December 2012.
- "BBC i Player audio description is now available". BBC Internet Blog. BBC. August 27, 2009. Retrieved September 7, 2009.