Melodious notes
PREMA MANMADHAN
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The electro violin designed by Thrivikrama Menon has many novel features.
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PHOTO: S. RAMESH KURUP
REDEFINED VIOLIN: Thrivikrama Menon plays the violin designed by him.
Mastering the violin is no easy task, as all beginners and veterans will agree. Well, here is a violin on which you can practise for hours without disturbing anyone. After practising, you can simply fold it and keep it in an ordinary briefcase. The folding `electro violin,' which is not yet available in the market, is a creation of Thrivikrama Menon, who designed it and made it himself. It defies most of the principles of the violin or the fiddle, as old timers like to call it. While a violin is hollow, this one is solid. The vibrations of the string are directly amplified by an electronic amplifier.
The electro violin was the outcome of Thrivikrama Menon's ardent desire to learn music. After he retired as Deputy Collector in 1997, he decided to do all the things he loved doing, for which he had no time till then. So, the first thing he did after his retirement was to learn to play the violin. He took his BA degree in Indian Music with violin as the main subject from Madras University. He started playing the instrument at small gatherings. That's when he realised that carrying it around was cumbersome. So he set about redefining the violin.
Using available material, like parts of an umbrella frame and parts of the conventional violin, Menon created the folding electro violin, which produced notes as sweet as the conventional one, with a lot more features. "In an ordinary violin, the quality of tone depends on the nature and treatment of the wood used for the body and the various complicated technical specifications for its construction which makes it very difficult to obtain pure tonal quality. But in the electro violin the wooden portion has nothing to do with the quality of tone.
String vibrations are directly amplified through magnetic pick-up and a very clear and pure tone is heard even in the fourth and fifth positions," explains Menon, a native of Mankombu ,who lives in Chevarambalam, Kozhikode.
The pick-up, amplifier, loud speaker and power supply (battery) are all inbuilt in the violin. When one needs to practise, the ear phones can be used to prevent disturbing others.
The wooden pegs and string adjuster of a violin are absent. Instead, the strings' machine head is used as in the guitar. When Menon folds the violin and bow, the entire instrument measures a neat 18.5 inches and in, goes the electro violin, into his briefcase.
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