<p>Hamsadhwani’, the instrumental Carnatic fusion band, has been giving a new twist to Carnatic music by mixing other genres of music into it and creating soulful strains.<br /><br /></p>.<p> The band features Sri Harsha Ramkumar on flute, Adarsha Ramkumar on violin, Vasudevan Srisailan on keyboard, Harish Marappa on guitar, Rajeev on mridangam, Amith Raj on tabla and Ramesh Iyer on drums.<br /><br />Founded in 2007, they made it to the final rounds of the reality show ‘India’s Got Talent’ in 2010. From then on, there was no stopping them. “The aim of our band is to create awareness on the richness of Carnatic music among the audience so that they are attracted towards it. We chose the instrumental way in order to reach more people,” says Vasudevan. <br /><br />The band believes that language creates barrier in their music. “Instrumental music is a complete genre in itself. Therefore, we chose to be completely instrumental as we believe that we can be heard by each and every person and it is not particularly defined by a linguistic model, where language could be a barrier to one’s listening,” says Adarsha. Hamsadhwani has performed at several college events and at corporate shows. It has also headlined for many public events. The band has performed about 250 shows so far in and around Bangalore and about 25 shows in various cities across India and twice in Dubai.<br /><br /> “When jamming, we accidentally fused drums with Vathapi Ganapathim, a famous Carnatic rendition, which is based on ‘raga’ Hamsadhwani. That’s how we came up with the name of our band. We later added elements of keyboard and guitars in the same song. So a nice fusion blend of raga Hamsadhwani, added with the spice of mridangam and tabla emerged,” says Harish. <br /><br />Bangalore has been a hub for bands which churn out Western rock music. In such a scenario, creating a name was not an easy task. “There are huge audiences that are drawn to fusion music. We add elements of rock into our music to pull the crowd. We take nuances of rock songs and familiarise our Carnatic songs with Western chords and scale patterns. We add flavours of Indian percussions and Western drumming to give a whole new genre of music. These subtle techniques are crowd-pullers. We also have many rock fans following us,” says Amith.<br /><br />The band feels that the thought of spreading music is in itself an inspiration. <br /> “Every time we perform, we want our listeners to forget all their worries and be at peace for at least those moments,” says Rajeev. The band recently performed at APS Grounds on the eve of Ganesh Utsava. The show was a huge success. We didn’t expect so many people to turn up considering it was a working day,” says Ramesh Iyer.<br /></p>
<p>Hamsadhwani’, the instrumental Carnatic fusion band, has been giving a new twist to Carnatic music by mixing other genres of music into it and creating soulful strains.<br /><br /></p>.<p> The band features Sri Harsha Ramkumar on flute, Adarsha Ramkumar on violin, Vasudevan Srisailan on keyboard, Harish Marappa on guitar, Rajeev on mridangam, Amith Raj on tabla and Ramesh Iyer on drums.<br /><br />Founded in 2007, they made it to the final rounds of the reality show ‘India’s Got Talent’ in 2010. From then on, there was no stopping them. “The aim of our band is to create awareness on the richness of Carnatic music among the audience so that they are attracted towards it. We chose the instrumental way in order to reach more people,” says Vasudevan. <br /><br />The band believes that language creates barrier in their music. “Instrumental music is a complete genre in itself. Therefore, we chose to be completely instrumental as we believe that we can be heard by each and every person and it is not particularly defined by a linguistic model, where language could be a barrier to one’s listening,” says Adarsha. Hamsadhwani has performed at several college events and at corporate shows. It has also headlined for many public events. The band has performed about 250 shows so far in and around Bangalore and about 25 shows in various cities across India and twice in Dubai.<br /><br /> “When jamming, we accidentally fused drums with Vathapi Ganapathim, a famous Carnatic rendition, which is based on ‘raga’ Hamsadhwani. That’s how we came up with the name of our band. We later added elements of keyboard and guitars in the same song. So a nice fusion blend of raga Hamsadhwani, added with the spice of mridangam and tabla emerged,” says Harish. <br /><br />Bangalore has been a hub for bands which churn out Western rock music. In such a scenario, creating a name was not an easy task. “There are huge audiences that are drawn to fusion music. We add elements of rock into our music to pull the crowd. We take nuances of rock songs and familiarise our Carnatic songs with Western chords and scale patterns. We add flavours of Indian percussions and Western drumming to give a whole new genre of music. These subtle techniques are crowd-pullers. We also have many rock fans following us,” says Amith.<br /><br />The band feels that the thought of spreading music is in itself an inspiration. <br /> “Every time we perform, we want our listeners to forget all their worries and be at peace for at least those moments,” says Rajeev. The band recently performed at APS Grounds on the eve of Ganesh Utsava. The show was a huge success. We didn’t expect so many people to turn up considering it was a working day,” says Ramesh Iyer.<br /></p>
