STORY OF SELF-LEARNING
VN Balakrishna
MY VIOLIN-PLAYING IS A MIRACLE
“Even mastering Carnatic basics requires 9 years. After my son’s death in 2018, my violin playing became highly irregular. I was treated for depression many times. Whenever mood permits I play the violin.”
Basically, I am interested in Carnatic music since childhood as my father was a good singer of bhajans.
And on impulse, I brought a violin in 1995 when I was in Ahmedabad (from 1987 to 2021). No Carnatic music teacher or violinist I could find in Ahmedabad. Fortunately, I found a saintly man Shinde who taught me violin for one-and-half months. Then I shifted to Hyderabad and after a year I went back to Ahmedabad but Shinde had shifted to Pune.
I have been learning from books since then.
Since my focus was on Carnatic music I found it without a guru quite difficult and was on the verge of giving up violin. So foolishly I thought I should go for Hindi music as it is without gamakas (it too has gamakas!). Today I play Hindi music along with Carnatic. I had worked hard to understand the basics of violin playing.
MY VIOLIN-PLAYING IS A MIRACLE as there are no other explanations. Even mastering Carnatic basics requires 9 years. After my son’s death in 2018, my violin playing became highly irregular. I was treated for depression many times. Whenever mood permits I play the violin. That is my story.
Some time back I played “chahunga mein tujhe” and “Is mod se jaate hai” (see audio). Dosti film I had seen but not Andhi.