It is not unusual for creative minds to feel the urge to carve out a unique space for themselves. Kumaresh R., of the well-known Ganesh–Kumaresh violin duo, is no exception. Over the years, the many musical conversations he shared with his brother lingered in the background, waiting for the right moment to find expression.

Tala Pravaham, a series of rhythmic explorations on the violin, is the culmination of that journey. “Ideas are an outcome of a journey,” says Kumaresh. The spark, he recalls, came as he reflected on many of those conversations.

“We spoke about the irony of equating music primarily with the voice,” he says. “Saraswati plays the veena; she doesn’t sing. Krishna plays the flute; he doesn’t sing. There are other deities too who are represented through instruments rather than the voice. Much of what we call the Carnatic vocal style and technique today actually evolved from the way instruments were played, not the other way round. The veena and the nagaswaram, for instance, have contributed immensely — the short phrases, gamakas, and more.”

For Kumaresh, these examples point to a larger truth: music has always been centred on nada, or sound itself. “Tyagaraja wrote ‘Sangeeta Jnanamu’, not Sahitya Jnanamu. He spoke of ‘Nadopasana’. These are powerful pointers to what the very edifice of this music is. In that case, why do we always have to be a caricature of the voice?”

The idea crystallised shape during one of his classes. “In vocal music, sahitya creates a progression of meaning. But on an instrument, how do we achieve that? I composed a melody in Ata tala, shaping it to reflect the rhythmic possibilities of the tala itself.”

That, however, led to another question. If he were to present this in a concert, did he have enough material to sustain it? Vocalists, after all, have an abundance of compositions across a wide range of talas, thanks to generations of composers who created works in which sangeeta and sahitya exist in inseparable harmony. Instrumentalists, by contrast, have traditionally relied on these very compositions to demonstrate their artistry.

“Suppose I wanted to play something in Sankeerna Jathi Jhampa tala. There was nothing that was uniquely conceived for the instrument. That was when I began creating original material in different talas, designed specifically for the violin.”

The first composition in the series was set in Dhruva tala, exploring the five jaathis — tisra, chatusra, khanda, misra and sankeerna — through the ragas Nattai, Kambhoji, Poorvi Kalyani, Shankarabharanam and Bhairavi, respectively.

“We planned a kutcheri around the idea. It had to be rooted in Carnatic music without compromising on its core principles. The musicians who performed with me were excited. It was a huge success,” he recalls.

From there, the journey continued through Matya, Jhampa, Rupaka, Triputa and Ata talas.

Kumaresh is now gearing up for the grand finale of the series — Eka — over the weekend. Looking back, he sees the entire project as something that unfolded organically. “Everything happened in a flow. Maybe it was the alignment of the mind with a deep craving within to create something, to find the expression I was searching for, and blessings from above.”

Every tala, he says, opened up a distinct creative landscape. It allowed him to explore the sonic character of different ragas while weaving them into the rhythmic architecture of each tala. Each Tala Pravaham composition is conceived as a lyrical melody in a distinct raga, uniquely crafted for a particular jaathi of a tala. In doing so, the series reveals the remarkable intersection of mathematics and music, demonstrating the seamless harmony between rhythm, melody and structure.

For Kumaresh, the enthusiastic response also reflects the openness of audiences to innovation that remains rooted in tradition. “I genuinely feel we should call our music shastriya, which means it is founded on shastra, rather than ‘classical’, which refers to a particular historical period. Our music is constantly reimagining itself within the framework of the shastra. It is a scientific art form, and therefore timeless,” signs of Kumaresh. 

(Tala Pravaham, a first-of-its-kind series of compositions rooted in the Sapta Sooladi Talas, will present its finale, Eka, on July 5, at Gayana Samaja, Bengaluru, at 6.30 p.m.)