Photographer:Gabriel | Three members gathered at SVARAM sound garden Photographer:Gabriel | Three members gathered at SVARAM sound garden Photographer:Gabriel | Three members gathered at SVARAM sound garden Photographer:Gabriel | Three members gathered at SVARAM sound garden Photographer:Gabriel | Three members gathered at SVARAM sound garden Photographer:Gabriel | Three members gathered at SVARAM sound garden Photographer:Gabriel | Drum skins - animal hides - drying in the morning sun
28 Oct / 2018Program by:
Featured: Irula TribeLanguage: Tamil

Irula tribe of Nilgiris talk music, instruments and working at SVARAM.

Many thanks to Vignesh for translating from Tamil to English, and Marco at SVARAM for providing the audio recording.

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On homemade instruments:

We do not hunt for the skins on our drums. We take skin from animals that have died of natural causes, and when we find them, we inform the forest gods of their death. We actually serve as guardians of the forest, and the forest gods in turn guard us.

On using instrument-making machines at the SVARAM workshop:

Now we have been taught to use these, we can perhaps make it work in our own homes and impart this knowledge. However this will only be possible if we all collectively have self interest in using them.

On experience using SVARAM instruments:

We enjoyed this. If you want to make a good composition, you need perhaps ten people to play at the same time. We can however achieve the same result with only four people!

On playing music continuously:

We do it day and night and we celebrate life and death like this, and the whole family will dance and the three of us will be playing all the time.

On the experience of the sound bath:

We felt sad for a while, but after sometime the sounds were healing our own pain and emotions. They became very refreshing.

On playing for occasions:

We play for the gods; such occasions are spiritual and auspicious. We play for death – funerals – and this music has a sad tone, and we play for celebrations such as weddings, and these are again different and very celebratory.

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