Rudra Veena inspires French musician to fog the bass guitar for a deeper expression - Hindustan Times
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Rudra Veena inspires French musician to fog the bass guitar for a deeper expression

Hindustan Times, Pune | ByPrachi Bari
Feb 01, 2020 02:55 PM IST

Krouchi, however, has taken the bass guitar and evolved it to emanate - that word will play repeatedly during the interview - into an instrument that “integrates technology and the rudra veena”

Floy Krouchi a bass player engrossed by the various sounds emanating from her four-stringed instrument.

Floy Krouchi, a sound artiste, has designed an augmented bass (seen in pic), which is an instrument that integrates technology and the sound of the Rudra Veena.(Pratham Gokhale/HT Photo)
Floy Krouchi, a sound artiste, has designed an augmented bass (seen in pic), which is an instrument that integrates technology and the sound of the Rudra Veena.(Pratham Gokhale/HT Photo)

The bass guitar is beguiling enough in a rock riff or in a quadrangle of instruments involved in a jazz ensemble.

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Krouchi, however, has taken the bass guitar and evolved it to emanate - that word will play repeatedly during the interview - into an instrument that “integrates technology and the rudra veena”.

“It is an augmented instrument called THE FloyKBass (FKB). It looks like a bass guitar, but plays like the Rudra Veena,” is the simple explanation Krouchi offers, adding, “The FKBass has a double identity - traditional and contemporary.”

The augmentation is a series of buttons that channel the sound of the guitar through a processor to deliver a Rudra Veena-inspired end product.

Krouchi has been in Pune for the past two months as part of an artisitic residency project. This project is supported by the Institut Français in India and the Alliance Française de Pune.

By profession, Floy Krouchi is a sound artiste, i.e. a bassist and electro-acoustic composer. Probing the potential of new technologies in sound creation is her jam.

She spent 10 years in India stuyding music under the late Pandit Hindraj Divekar in Pune, from 2003 until 2013.

“Panditji passed away in April 2019. The Rudra Veena is a very unique instrument in Hindustani classical, and one of the oldest instruments. It has low frequency sounds. Everything happens between the notes. It has a certain slowness; slow oscillations bring out the different shades of the shruti (notes). There are similarities of tone and techniques to the bass,” says Krouchi.

The French musicians has won a few awards her self over the years, and adds, “I like to play the ‘alaap’ part of the raags, intergrating ‘jhol’ and ‘jhal’, transforming them, making them faster, creating a long piece of development of the sound scape.”

Working along with Floy Krouchi, is musician and researcher Robert Piéchaud, who has created a software around the Indian music scale and 22 notes called the Sangit Shankh from an old chart made by late Rudra Veena exponent Pandit Hindraj Divekar.

Floy Krouchi will perform on February 1, 2020, at the Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya Hall, IISER , Pashan, at 7pm.

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