I had my first formal introduction to Karnatic or Carnatic Violin, when a customer sat on the floor with a violin nestled between their toes and proceed to pull the most extraordinary tones from their violin. Carnatic music originates from the Southern regions of India, into which the violin was co-opted when it arrived from Europe.
Whilst the bodies of the violins are essentially unchanged, in Carnatic music the tuning is changed to match the tonal characteristics of the music. Most usually it is tuned Sa Pa Sa Pa which in the European tradition is the Tonic – 5th – tonic – 5th in ascending frequencies.
Thus the conventional GDAE violin tuning in Carnatic is replaced, D A D A, E B E B or the like depending on the preferences for the tradition one is playing.
If using western violin strings this can be quite challenging as the strings are quite under tuned and the corresponding lower tension gives them a greater ‘swing’. For this reason the use of steel strings is favoured (such as Pirastro Chromacore) and string heights above the fingerboard are generally higher to avoid string slap or buzzing.
Thus the luthiers work for setting up a Carnatic Violin for a musician of this genre, generally requires a higher bridge than normal, it’s also usually thicker to bring out more of the fundamental frequencies from the steel strings. Some of my customers like the sound post moved as well, to tweak the tone further or get a bit more projection out of these strings as well.
