Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Shri M B Prakash....

Not often, we come across occasions which re-ignite the Spark , Inspire and Motivate us to revisit and pursue our passions. One such occasion was this, ‘meeting Shri Prakash - a renowned accordion player who has excelled and mastered the instrument.’…read further… 

As part of our learning process we met Shri M B Prakash, at his residence in Basavangudi, Bangalore. 

Having traveled widely across Continents, Prakashjis playing has been acclaimed and appreciated by the masters across the world. He specializes in playing the instrument in its original style, the European style, with Spanish melodies, Polka,  (Europe - origin of Accordian). 

Prakashji’s, mastery over the instrument would make anybody feel that accordion is an integral part of his body, just like his hands and legs. 

We got some valuable tips for playing harmonica, which was his favourite during his college days, the right use of techniques like vamping and shrilling… and most importantly ‘practice’, and group presentations.

In India the ‘Raj Kapoor’ era, saw accordion being widely used in the bollywood compositions…. 

“Accordian”, was originally invented in Europe in the early 19th century.  Accordian has been widely used in folk music in Europe, North America and South America, apart from Contemporary styles such as rock, pop-rock. The accordion is used in both solo and orchestra performances of classical music. And considered as “one-man band”, as it needs no accompanying instrument. The performer would normally play the melody on the right hand part and the accompaniment consisting of bass and chord buttons on the left hand part. It needs a great coordination of the mind.

It was indeed a great day, with a wonderful person, great music and a lot of inspiration. Thanks to Prakashji and also to Shivkumarji ( student of Shri Prakash)  for having taken us to the maestro… 

The visuals in the video are of not so good quality, my apologies, I assure you that I shall come back with some more recordings of Prakashji. I have also uploaded one photograph and a few more to be up ….

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