Museek Mag October 2016 | Page 40

Navaneeth Sundar is a self-taught keyboard player from south India who is making waves in the Carnatic Music circuits as an innovative musician playing Complex ragas on his Apple Ipad . He is performing full concerts exclusively on his Ipad . The Ipad apps he predominantly uses include Animoog , Geo Shread and Geo Synth .

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Navaneeth Sundar ….

Musical training and tutelage ….

Navaneeth Sundar is a self-taught keyboard player from south India who is making waves in the Carnatic Music circuits as an innovative musician playing Complex ragas on his Apple Ipad . He is performing full concerts exclusively on his Ipad . The Ipad apps he predominantly uses include Animoog , Geo Shread and Geo Synth .

When I bought my iPod in 2012 I was very curious to explore apps . Ergo , I started trying them out . But I like this lovely app called ani Moog which made by Moog music synthesizer giant from the US . I started exploring ani Moog and discovered that it is usable for playing Carnatic kind of phrases . I started working on that and it became very popular and Mr . Rahman came to know about it . He shared it on social media and that is how that concept became very popular . Later on , I did some work with more musicals and contacted Moog . They liked what I was doing . So they made a lot of updates to the app based on my requirements for playing Carnatic music on the iPod . I also started doing live solo Carnatic concerts , full-fledged concerts on the iPod and I got Limca book record for being the first ever person in the world to play Carnatic music concert on an iPod . All these things happened only because of the one thing - an iPod and my usage of the ani Moog app .
I have also used the Geo Shread and the Geo synth a lot . But mostly I use the ani Moog for playing the Carnatic music . So this is my primary app . The main challenge when I was playing on this iPod was the form factor which was so small and so thin . It was very difficult to hold and It is very difficult to play because the screen you have is so small . The sizes of the keys are actually smaller than the size of your finger so you need an extreme precision and accuracy to be able to control what you are playing . And it is all wrist movements . It is like playing on an extremely small violin . If a violin would be this big it would be like playing on an iPod . So it is that smaller device .
The real key , however , was to control my finger to that kind of precision and be able to strike the right note correctly . I have tried it a couple of times in one of my friend ’ s iPod . I think it needs a little bit more improvement in terms of being able to hold it and its weight because it is little too heavy to hold in your palm . In the position where we sit on a stool and keep the iPod on a stand , it will be comfortable . But if we sit on a floor and keep the iPod on our palm it becomes very difficult to do a long concert by holding an iPod pro on your hand because it is so big and so difficult . Especially if we play on the other side of the iPod pro , it tends to move out of your fingers . So that is very difficult . That ’ s why I am waiting for some more changes in the form factor of the iPod pro that will make it convenient for us to play because I understand the fact that it is very big and got lot more area but the weight and the overall form factor makes it difficult for me to do it on iPod pro . So at this moment I am sticking to an iPod .
October - November 2016
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