And another short one after ages.  Just a summary of what I had been upto.

August – Had my exam for Marketing Management and Stats.  For some reason i find that more I learn in a subject the worse I do in the exams.  I really need to learn to write academically!  (Yes I know it sounds like a looser and that most likely must be it!)

September – 3 weeks in India.  Wow Wow Wow!  Entrepreneurship is just springing up.. (ok the financial climate is not so great but that is really an issue of the system rather than the product/environment)… After “the” valley India is the place to be.  Actually not entirely true.  Even though many wouldnt agree with me, Id say china is still leading in that aspect as people are a lot more risk taking than in India but hey Ive never been to china so it is a very very brave and untested statement.

October – 2 weeks in HongKong for one of my subjects (Private Equity and Venture Capital)..  amazing course.. only sad thing was that I had to go all the way to HK to do a course in entrepreneurship, which was not offered by AGSM in sydney… what does that really say about the apetite for entrepreneurship in australia?  But loved HK – the city and the people… I cant say the same about the food.  See I am a vegetarian and this is something not easily catered.  Also I was a bit dissapointed with the prices.  Not exactly as cheap as I hoped them to be.  Oh well..

November – Had my exam for the PE and VC subject..  confirms my theory about learning being inversely proportional to my mark… well havent got my mark yet but not holding my breath for a great mark… damn

December – Had 2 concerts yesterday for SMC.  Tiring but lots of fun.  One more in Brisbane on the 13th and one possibly in melbourne during christmas.  Have to see.  Both very challenging and testing.  One at a time.

Ciao till later.  Will be updating on a lot of programming stuff Ive been hacking away on.

Well I love Parur style violin.  Full-stop.  I would kill to master it.  It is extremely demanding and needs a kind of discipline that would make the marines look like amateurs at Paintball!

I have had the extreme good fortune of being pointed to a few clips on Youtube by Akella Mallikarjuna Sharma.  Here they are:

http://youtube.com/results?search_query=msakella

Hope you benefit from these.  Good luck.

Well. As you all know about my little obsession with the violin. Im accompanying in a couple of concerts.

Lingo: In Indian Classical Music, there are two roles for an instrument.

• Solo Playing: Actual solo concert and you do your own thing.
• Accompanying: This is the hard part. You play for someone as they sing (or they may be an instrument doing a solo). The challenge here is that now you have to play in a totally different style and try and at times replicate (as close as possible) what they are doing. Pros do this without even rehearsing!!!

Anyway, I am accompanying Dr Ramanathan. Ive also been learning vocal Indian Classical Music from him for last 3 years so that it would better help me with the violin (follow the logic?). Details are:

Time and Date:
To Be Seated by 5PM, Sunday 1st April 2007 (no kidding)

Venue:

Bowman Hall,
Campbell St,
Blacktown,
Sydney

Hope to see you all there.

Well Ive been learning vocal carnatic music (South indian music) since 1996 and started violin since 2002. Just love it even though I struggle with it at every level. I know it sounds corny (even for me), but there is a certain bliss when you are sitting down with the violin and start making those noises (carnatic music involves sitting down!).

The person I need to thank most for helping me is my violin teacher, Mr Murali Kumar. My first and foremost guru, he himself learnt the art, unlike me at a very young age, from Violin Vidhwan Kanchi Janardhanan, and later had the great fortune of receiving advanced training from violin maestro, M.S.Gopalakrishnan. Needless to say, for all you MSG fans out there, his style takes a few lifetimes to just understand, let alone master it! Il post out more in the future what Ive learnt (drops) and what I would love to learn (the ocean). If you have any tips for improving MSG style of violin playing please pass them along.  Id be eternally grateful to you.