Pt. Chandrakant Limaye : The true successor

Carrying forward the tradition and singing in an inimitable style of Late Dr. Vasantrao Deshpande, Pt. Chandrakant Limaye catch hold of listeners whenever he delivers his performance. With the exposition of prominent ragas he brings out their depth in his melodious, well pitched metallic voice. With imaginative mix of classical ragas his performances in Thumari, Dadra, Tappa, Bhajans and Marathi Natya Geet leave the listners in an soul soothing world of sur and laya. Inspite of the influence of Gayaki of his guru, Late. Dr. Vasantrao Deshpande, he has been able to create his own style and thereby his own identity.

TUTELAGE : Tutelage in Indian Classical Vocal Music from different

‘Gharanas” under the following eminent vocalists:

· Late Pt. Narayanrao Vyas. }

· Dr. Vasantrao Rajopadhye. } OF GWALIOR GHARANA

· Late Pt. Gajananrao joshi }

· Pt. C.P. Rele }

· Pt. Ratnakar Pai } OF JAIPUR GHARANA

· Lt. Pt. Balakram } OF AGRA GHARANA

· Lt. Dr. Vasantrao Deshpande, top illustrious musician of India for 12 years. Vasantrao declared him as his successor.

AWARDS & ACHIEVEMENTS:

Ø Stood 2^nd in the subject of Indian Classical Music in S.S.C. Board, Pune (Maharashtra)

Ø Stood 1^st at Lata Pt. Gunidas Classical Music Competition in 1968.

Ø “Surmani” by Sur Samsad, Mumbai in the year 1989.

Ø Awarded “Senior Fellowship” for two years by Govt. of India in the field of Classical Music in the year 1997.

Ø Sanctioned Grant by Govt. of India for conducting “Natyarang Sangitache”, the programme based on Marathi Natyasangeet in the year 2000.

Ø Maharashtra Kala Niketan honoured by giving “Maharashtra Vaibhav” award for performing in the lead role in “Katyar Kaljat Ghusali” produced by “Natyasampada, Mumbai” of Mr. Prabhakar Panshikar in the year 2003.

Ø Composed music for a Marathi TV serial named “Tya Chowghi” in the year 2003.

Ø Vasantrao Deshpande Sangeet Sabha, a charitable trust was founded in Aug. 2000.

Ø On behalf of Vasantrao Deshpande Sangeet Sabha, started several theme-based programmes such as ‘Hori Ke Rang’, Shrutirang Varsha ke’, ‘Natyarang Sangeetache’, ‘Haweli Sangeet, ‘Gharanon Ki Khasiyatein’- to mention a few.

Ø Arrange a musical conference every year as a tribute to my Guru Pt. Vasantrao Deshpande.

Ø Conduct musical workshops on classical music, light music, Natya Sangeet, voice modulation for thumri, dadara and film songs.

RECOGNITION:

· During the visit to Canada & USA in November, 1997, he was invited by the University of Skidmore (Through Asian Studies Program and Asian Culture Association) for performing Indian Classical Music. He was also invited by other Indian associations in USA & Canada to give lectures and performances in Indian Classical as well as ‘Natya Sangeet’ (Musical songs rendered in various Marathi Plays).

· He performs in the lead role in a very famous, outstanding Marathi Musical Play “Katyar Kaljat Ghusli”, since April, 1997, produced by Natya Sampada, Mumbai that belongs to the well know producer & Actor Mr. Prabhakar Panshikar, it may please be noted that the same role was earlier performed by my Guru late Pt. Vasantrao Deshpande.

IMPORTANT MUSICAL EVENTS:

Ø Pune Rotary Club Yuvak Sangeet Samaroh – 1978.

Ø National Centre for Performing Arts, Bombay – 1983

Ø Savai Gandharv Sangeet Samaroh, kundgol – Karnatak State. 1984.

Ø Dr. Vasantrao Deshpande Smruti Samaroh in Nagpur, in Bombay and Pune.

Ø Dr. Vasantrao Deshpande Smruti Samaroh, Delhi – 1985

Ø Pandit Paluskar Punyatithi Sangeet Samaroh, New Delhi. 1986.

Ø Sangeet Natak Academi of India (Video Recording) 1986, Delhi.

Ø Bhendi Bazar Gharana Sammelan, Delhi – 1987.

Ø Hindi Sahitya Sanskruti Sangeet Samaroh, New Delhi – 1988

Ø Bhendi Bazar Gharana Sammelan, Bombay – 1988

Ø Musical Programmes on Television Centers at Nagpur. Bombay and Delhi in the year 1983, 84, 85 and 1988.

Ø Performed in many Music Circles in Bombay, Maharashtra, Goa, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, New Delhi, etc.

Ø A music cassette named “BHAKTIYATRA” was produced by Sterling Cassette Co. Which was comprised of Marathi Bhajans: Seven Abhangas and the Music was given by shri. Snehal Bhatkar.

INVITED AS THE JUDGE FOR THE FOLLOWING MUSICAL COMPETITIONS:

Ø Sangeet Sadhana, Sangli – 1985 for classical and light classical.

Ø Vanita Samaj, Dadar, Bombay – 1988 for Natya Sangeet and Classical Music.

Ø Dadar Matunga Cultural Centrel and Malbar Hill Inter Kaycee Inter

College Competition for Light Music – 1989.

Ø Classical seniors, Swar Sadhana Sameeti, Bombay – 1990.

Ø Invited for 3 episodes on Zee Alfa Marathi, in its popular programme Sa Re Ga Ma

PARTICIPATION IN PROFESSIONAL MUSICAL PLAYS:

Ø “Katyar Kaljat Ghusali” of Natyasampada, Bombay.

Ø “Vardan” of Sharayu Theatre.

Ø “Sant Gora Kumbhar” of Vaishali Theatre and Natya Sampada.

Ø “Sangeet Saubhadra” of Rang Sharada.

Ø “To Mi Nawhech” of Natya Sampada.

Ø “Sangeet Sanshayakallol” of Sahakari Manoranjan.

Ø Pati Gele Ga Kathewadi of Natya Sampada.

Ø Makhamali He Swapna Maze of Ranjan Kala Mandir.

Ø An interview recorded at Nagpur on the development of Marathi Stage Music. ‘Marma Bandhatali Thev’, which regaled the audience with a lucid talk accompanied by demonstrations. This programme was relayed in pieces on NAGPUR Television centre.

Ø “Phir Teri Raah Gujar Yaad Aai”, a play based on the story of the musical

Legend Kundanlal Saigal, produced by Nehru Centre.

Contact number of Pt. Chandrakant Limaye for any of his performances is 9322220281

About my engineering project : Music Composing software

Hey friends, would like to tell you all about my B.E. computer's final year project. We had selected a very interesting topic "Music Composing Software".

Proposed model : We were to build a software, which will take any poem as the input, will analyze it, will map it with a dynamically generated tune and then sing it for the user. Basically will convert a poem into a song.

You may have a good collection of various kinds of music of your choice, but the problem is that no matter how big your collection is, it will always be finite. So you may have to repeatedly listen some of the recordings. Once you listen to a particular recording for too many times it no longer can gives you the refreshment, which a new melody can give. That means the key for obtaining the refreshment from the music is that there should always be something “new” every time you listen. So our basic concern is to get this “new” aspect into picture.

We all know that the music composer is the person who has the talent of assigning new tunes to the literatures like poems, songs etc. So he is the person who can bring into reality our requirement of new music. But is it really possible to have our own music composer at our home and who can build and assign new tunes to the material we want? Sounds impossible? But it’s not!! Friends we are here with the idea of the software which can serve you like a real music composer. All you have to do is to get any song you like and feed it to the software and it will build various tunes for your song (That too without asking for any payment!!!).Now once you install this software you will always get to listen new tunes and compositions even for the same song.

In the project, to convert written text to human voice we have used text to speech converter.
A small introduction of it is as follows

TEXT TO VOICE CONVERTER

A major component of the software is the module of Text To Speech converter.

The text to voice converter is an important module in this software. This module dose the function of converting the composed text file to the human voice. The screen shot of the GUI is as follows

· A text-to-speech software engine of unparalleled quality and flexibility.

· Natural-sounding voice output to enhance any application, product, or service.

· Prompt generation for dynamic content.

· Multilingual and multiple voice font selection in one engine.

· Multiple standard APIs supported.

· Low cost of ownership through high channel density.

· Optional voice icons (customer exclusive) for voice branding.

TTS is implemented entirely in software and only standard audio capability is required. At present, it contains several components, each of which handles a different task. For example, the text analysis capabilities of the system detect the ends of sentences, perform some rudimentary syntactic analysis, expand digit sequences into words, and disambiguate and expand abbreviations into normally spelled words which can then be analyzed by the dictionary-based pronunciation module. The following sentences illustrate the system's text-analysis capabilities.

The pronunciation module provides pronunciations for most ordinary words, and morphological derivatives thereof, as well as proper names; default strategies exist for pronouncing words not recognized by the dictionary-based methods. Other components handle prosodic phrasing, word accentuation, sentence intonation, and the actual speech synthesis. We believe that the word pronunciation and intelligibility of our American English TTS system are the best available. However, we are continuously working to improve its naturalness. We are also expanding the set of Languages that TTS can support, such as German, Chinese (Mandarin and Taiwanese), Russian, French, Romanian, Italian, Spanish (Latin American and Castilian), Japanese, and Navajo.

Learning is actually the acquisition and storage of information. All didactic schemes with their texts, tables and study aids are designed to make this process as effective as possible. What is the connection between information storage and sounds? The events we remember best of all are usually concerned with a phrase or melody. And each time you hear it (a certain phrase or melody) you clearly imagine an event of your life. That is why we suppose that there are many reasons to provide your students also with an audio version of the CBT.

• Students can choose the most comfortable way for them to perceive information.
• Many learners will for sure appreciate the possibility to learn at any time. For example on the way to the university or to the office.
• Audio version of learning materials is vitally essential for people with limited physical abilities.

As soon as you are sure that you need the information in the form of sound tracks you face the challenge of producing them. You can hire professional artists, rent a studio and get audio version of your content at a fabulous price. You can also try to do it using all of your available means which will most likely result in unsatisfactory results. If you designed your content with authoring tool LERSUS you can easily produce an audio version of all texts. The text-to-speech server will automatically generate sound tracks for LERSUS e-courses. Different languages and voices are available, you can also choose the output format: MP3 or WAV.

A soul stirring musician : Dr. Vasantrao Deshpande !!

Being a follower of Indian Classical I would like to start with a post on one of the most amazing and versatile classical vocalist Dr. Vasantrao Deshpande who also is the guru of my guruji Pt. Chandrakant Limaye. :-)

Dr. Vasantrao Deshpande (1920-1983) was an Indian Classical vocalist who possessed enormous forms of music which he acquired traveling whole India and abroad. His style of singing was considered to be the most interesting, entertaining and "bakayda" ( as per the rules of classical music).

He learned the music of various styles of Indian classical, called Gharanas, from the stalwarts of those gharanas .

Dr. Vasantrao Deshpande was one of India's most illustrious classical vocalists. He performed classical and semi-classical music. In the raga form which constitutes classical music, the artist displays his creativity on a basic canvas. Dr. Vasantrao Deshpande's rendition of famous ragas like Marwa, Salag Waraali, Nat Bhairav, Kauns (in its various forms), Chhayanat, Basant Mukhari, Patamanjari, Jaijaiwanti, Janasammohini, Bhoop, Shree, Maru Bihag, Yaman etc. had a quality to them that kept people interested. His performance of offbeat ragas was not too different. The "Sargam" was his forte.

He was equally at ease with the Thumri, Dadra and Ghazal forms. These find their origins in countries like Iran and Afghanistan. Dr. Vasantrao Deshpande had picked up the original style and nuances of the thumri and ghazal while studying at Lahor. His command over Urdu helped him to elevate his ghazal performances. Another area of music where he made his mark was "Marathi Natyasangeet". Some of the plays in which he acted and performed were " "He Bandha Reshmache", "Vij Mhanali Dhartila", "Meghmalhar", "Tukaram" and "Varyawarchi Varaat". Out of these, "Katyaar Kaaljaat Ghusli" became highly popular. Dr. Vasantraro Deshpande became the cynosure of everyone's eye for his challenging role of "Khan Aftaab Hussain Khansaheb". As the play's popularity began to soar, he acquired the alias, "Pandit Vasantkhan Deshpande". His legendary role of Khan saheb altaf hussain bareliwale in play "katyar kaljaat ghusli" created a history.

He acted in movies like "Kaaliya Mardan"(he was just eight), "Dudh Bhaat", "Ashtavinayak" and many more. He gave playback to more than 80 Marathi films. Besides pure music, he also put together the history of Marathi music plays, from origin showing their evolution up to the present stage. This is how he presented his brainchild, his tour de force, "Marathi Natyasageetachi Vaatchaal" (the evolution of music in Marathi music plays). In this he would first explain the socio-cultural influences that shaped the musicals as they stood in a particular era and then demonstrate the evolution through its music. The concert was first held in Delhi. It stretched for 3 days, 6 hours each day. The experiment was bound to be a winner with the audience.

Dr. Vasantrao Deshpande was an academic, earning himself a PhD in "The Transformation of Hindustani Classical Music". He was also invited to several educational institutions to deliver lectures on music, quite often with live demonstrations.

He learned from several gurus, refusing to tie himself down to a single school of singing. His more famous gurus were Shankarrao Sapre of Nagpur, Sureshbabu Mane, Aman Ali Khan of Bhendibazar Gharana, Asad ali khan of Lahor and Ramkrishnabuwa Vaze. But the most important influence on him was Dinanath Mangeshkar and Vasantrao was the sole true inheritor of Dinanath's mercurial style of singing.

Vasantrao has had several commercial releases under his name. Among them, the more famous are his LP of Marwa and a two-cassette interview, conducted by Va Pu Kale, about the history of Marathi Natya Sangeet which showcases the breadth and depth of Vasantrao's knowledge about the art form.

Hi friends. Hearty welcome to all of you. In this blog you will find articles related to various kinds and genres of Music. Also I would like you to share your views, comments and knowledge with us.
I wish this blog to represent the face of World Music !!