Meet Raghavasimhan Sankaranarayanan’s robotic violinist ‘Hathaani’

Meet ‘Hathaani’, a robotic violinist created by Chennai-born engineer-musician Raghavasimhan Sankaranarayanan. The sanction Hathaani reflects Raghavasimhan’s puerility passionateness for Carnatic violin and robotics. ‘Taani’ is derived from the Tamil taaniyangi, which means automated instrumentality oregon robot, and ‘Haath’ oregon hands is from Sanskrit/Hindi, helium says.

Raghavasimhan was initiated into violin astatine property 4 by Kunnakudi Vaidhyanathan, and aboriginal learnt from Trichy Srinivasan and T. S. Rajagopalan. A disciple of A. Kanyakumari for the past 18 years, Raghavasimhan says, “Rajagopalan sir’s strict signifier regimen deepened my emotion for the instrument, portion Kanyakumari amma enhanced my expressive ornamentation and nuances of musicianship.” 

It was during his Master’s Studies astatine Georgia Tech, US, that ‘Hathaani’ began taking shape. Raghavasimhan, whose archetypal show was astatine property 8 and who has collaborated with respective musicians, says, “I presented a elemental demo of the fingerboard of the violin. My advisor Gil Weindberg was impressed. I continued expanding my probe done my PhD connected ‘Applications of AI and Robotic Musicianship successful South Indian Classical Music’.

The carnal operation evolved implicit years of testing. Raghavasimhan says: “The archetypal mentation was played connected a azygous string. I soon covered each 4 strings and adjusted its posture to intimately lucifer a Carnatic violinist for amended code and signifier presence.” Creating philharmonic quality required caller datasets and caller AI modelling techniques. “Training AI needs a batch of data, and Carnatic euphony datasets are limited,” helium notes. To thatch ‘Hathaani’ the nuances, helium relied connected unrecorded recordings of varnams rendered by violinists Embar Kannan and Rangapriya Sankaranarayanan, vainika Anjani Srinivasan, and keyboardist Vigneswar VG, on with precise note-level annotations. “I chose varnams arsenic they person a azygous operation betwixt lineages. I pre-processed the audio recordings and annotations successful a mode that the AI exemplary tin recognize them.”

‘Hathaani’ has been tested some successful the laboratory and successful the beingness of musicians, including S. Sowmya, Ganesh Rajagopalan, Ramesh Vinayakam,and Embar Kannan, arsenic good arsenic probe peers astatine Georgia Tech. “Their feedback connected the gamakas’ rendition, creator position and technicalities was incorporated,” shares Raghvasimhan.

“The extremity of Hathaani is to complement quality artistry, serving arsenic an acquisition assistance and inspiring collaborative performances that span exertion and tradition,” adds Raghavasimhan.

Raghavasimhan recalls AR Rahman visiting their laboratory. “He featured Hathaani connected a large surface during his unrecorded amusement successful Atlanta, and his appreciation meant a lot.” What next? “Maybe, a show adjacent twelvemonth with musicians,” helium says.