Svaram is a place in the midst of a bamboo forest, created
to discover music instruments out of everything that would bring out the feel
of music in everybody independent of knowledge and training. Located inside Auroville
makes it even more special.
The first time I heard about Svaram was when I took a random
trip to Auroville explored the shop at the Auroville visitors centre,
but then I dint know they had a musical research place. 2 years later, during
my second marathon at Auroville, me and my friends took a casual bike ride
inside Auroville and heard some drum beats. Moving towards the music, led us to
svaram. The feel of Svaram is fantastic, the place is truly spiritual.
The place manifests independence and encourages talent and
ideas. Being a person who can play the
percussions and having owned some of the small drums of svaram, I started
playing the djembe, the best djembe I have ever played was still half painted.
After playing for around 15mins, I realized I was only in the showroom opposite
to the research place, where the real research music happens out of everything
possible.
The first thing that caught my eyes was a LPG cylinders modified
and hung around the place, the first one I played was set to mohanam ragam. Admiring
that for some time, I fell for a huge African styled base drum. Looking from a
distance, art work on the drum was fascinating, the size was by itself a
beauty. The heavenly feel when you play the drum in confluence to the sound
coming from the bamboo forest, make you feel like "I AM GOD". After a
few of minutes of playing the drum, Prakash from the Svaram team joined me and
we had an absolutely brilliant jamming session.
The marathon was the next day and it was shut down time for
Svaram. I had a quick walk inside the place and when I was about to leave,
"THAMBE" it was Karthik, he asked me where I am staying and for how
long, and asked me to play with them at the marathon tomorrow. People of Svaram
team up at different places along the trail of the marathon, with the
instruments to encourage runners, believe me it works awesome on your run, and when
you are going to join the team playing with them,it works even better. I joined
the Svaram team near the finish line, after I finished my run. Initially we
performed as a group and the group welcomed a stranger drummer in me. Myself
and Prakash continued our jamming sessions, joined by kids and lady dancers.
I would personally recommend everybody interested in music
to visit Svaram, and when you are going
call me, 2hours was not enough . People can also work hand-in-hand with Svaram
and help them in their research. Svaram also helps to research on one's music
ideas.
One could see every musical instrument that Sivamani uses
with his drum kits or probably even more at Svaram, but the feeling of playing
them cannot be comprehended by just reading this. If you really are acumen
about this idea, you need to be there.
Music must release oneself from the mundane thought and
Svaram does it perfectly well.
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