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Why Raga Surabhi?
Carnatic Music is a rigorous musical form that requires some effort on the part of listeners or rasikas, to appreciate all its nuances. It could often take years of listening, with good company and guidance of the learned, before one can start appreciating all the technical nitty-gritty of carnatic music - to distinguish a kaapi from a kaanada, the Melakartha from the Janya ragas, the Audava from the Shadava ragas.
Thus, there are really two kinds of rasikas - the expert rasikas and, well, the not-so-expert rasikas.
We are pained to note that, in the present-day carnatic music scene, there is a great divide that exists between the experts and the rest.
Raga Surabhi is our humble attempt to bridge this gap; to provide a gentle and user-friendly introduction to the more technical aspects of carnatic music. As a first step, we felt that it would be useful if we develop a method to identify ragas from their key phrases or signatures.
This site is primarily aimed at reaching out to people who like Carnatic music, listen to it a great deal and are eager to learn more, but are not sure where to start. After using this site, if you feel that you are better equipped to identifying ragas, that would be the ultimate justification for our efforts.
Thus, there are really two kinds of rasikas - the expert rasikas and, well, the not-so-expert rasikas.
We are pained to note that, in the present-day carnatic music scene, there is a great divide that exists between the experts and the rest.
Raga Surabhi is our humble attempt to bridge this gap; to provide a gentle and user-friendly introduction to the more technical aspects of carnatic music. As a first step, we felt that it would be useful if we develop a method to identify ragas from their key phrases or signatures.
This site is primarily aimed at reaching out to people who like Carnatic music, listen to it a great deal and are eager to learn more, but are not sure where to start. After using this site, if you feel that you are better equipped to identifying ragas, that would be the ultimate justification for our efforts.
Raga Surabhi Team
Dr. Uma Ramasubramaniam
Uma works as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry in Presidency College, Chennai, India. She completed her M. Sc (Chemistry) from IIT Madras, and doctoral studies from Central Leather Research Institute (CLRI), Chennai. She had learnt Carnatic music under the tutelage of late Shri K S Vaidhyanathan. Presently, her guru is Smt. Lalitha Sivakumar.
All the carnatic renditions on this site have been sung by her.
All the carnatic renditions on this site have been sung by her.
Shri. Ramasubramaniam Gurumurthy
Ramasubramaniam is a civil engineer turned IT professional working in Chennai. He is keenly interested in carnatic music and an ardent fan of Ilayaraja. He has recently started learning Violin and hopes to one day accompany Uma in one of her concerts :-)
Most of the cine songs on this site have been rendered by him.
Currently both Ram and Uma have relocated to Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Most of the cine songs on this site have been rendered by him.
Currently both Ram and Uma have relocated to Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Hemalatha N Sriram and Sriram Varadarajan
Hema and Sriram are software engineers and Carnatic music enthusiasts residing in Bangalore. They take care of the website including processing of audio content, publishing weekly updates to the site and other activities related to website maintenance.
Above all that, they are the primary critics of Uma and Ramasubramaniam and the first rasikas of Raga Surabhi.
Above all that, they are the primary critics of Uma and Ramasubramaniam and the first rasikas of Raga Surabhi.
Siddharth S Ramalingam
Siddharth is 13 years old and studying in D.A.V Public School in Velachery, Chennai. He started with vocal carnatic music, and has now switched to Keyboard, which he is very passionate about. He learnt from S. P. Sangeetalaya S Partiban. He is a regular at school competitions and has performed solo in a couple of concerts on behalf of his music school.
He provided enthusiastic support on keyboard for the Raga Surabhi Theme Music, amidst the busy exam schedule and he is eagerly looking forward to contribute more.
He provided enthusiastic support on keyboard for the Raga Surabhi Theme Music, amidst the busy exam schedule and he is eagerly looking forward to contribute more.
Shri R. Suriyanarayanan
Thillaisthanam R. Suriyanarayanan, is a senior mridangam artiste with more than 20 years of experience in concert platforms. He has acquired his training from great laya stalwarts Madurai Shri Vaidyanatha Lyer, Tanjore Shri Rajam Iyer and Kumbakonam Shri Rajappa Iyer. He has a post-graduate degree in Rhythmology from University of Madras.
We are very happy to work with Suri for Laya Lahiri, which features lecture demonstrations by Suri. To know more about Suri, please visit About Laya Lahiri page
and...
Mrs. Indra Gurumurthy, mother of Ramasubramaniam and Mrs. Banumathy Varadarajan, mother of Uma Ramasubramaniam, have sung a few of the cine and quiz pieces.
About the Website
- Web hosting is courtesy Weebly, a Web 2.0 startup that allows easy creation of websites. We are quite impressed by its ease of use and the nice interface we were able to generate with very little effort. We would like to thank the Weebly folks
- We use Apple's GarageBand and Olympus portable voice recorder for audio recording
- ffmpeg and Audacity for processing audio content
- Macbook pro laptop is our workstation
Contact Us
E-Mail:
We look forward to your comments and suggestions. Please send us an email at the above email address.
If you would like to get the latest updates of new raga additions, drop us an email with the subject "subscribe" to the above email address.
If you would like to get the latest updates of new raga additions, drop us an email with the subject "subscribe" to the above email address.
Twitter:
Get latest additions on the site through twitter. You can follow Raga Surabhi on twitter:
http://twitter.com/ragasurabhi
