Music
Bhangra Beats ... In Your Pockets
by GILLIAN SHAW
Always wanted to play in an orchestra but your musical ability is limited to pounding out Chopsticks on the piano?
A Vancouver (British Columbia, Canada) developer has an app for that: Turn your iPhone into a virtual orchestra.
No Brahms or Beethoven here though: This orchestra plays Bhangra music, a form of Punjabi music using traditional Punjabi instruments.
So far, there are three instruments in the Pocket Bhangra app, which works on the iPhone, the iPad and iPod Touch. They are the dhol, the tumbi (pronounced 'toombi') and the tabla, but the creator of the app, Paul Singh Boparai, has plans to add more, including a flute and harmonium.
By day, Paul works as a computer programmer with Richmond's CHC Helicopter. But in his off time, he plays guitar in a South Asian fusion hip hop band, A-Slam ( www.a-slam.com).While Paul doesn't play the traditional instruments, some of his bandmates and friends do, and they play the instruments recorded for the app.
"Just playing with my bandmates and seeing them play these instruments, I thought, 'Wouldn't it be cool to make an app that has [Punjabi] instruments,' " said Paul.
The dhol - a barrel-shaped drum that's worn around the neck and played with sticks - is played by Ronny Singh Gill in the Pocket Bhangra app.
"It is pretty much in every single Bhangra song you can imagine," said Paul of the dhol. "It is the heart of Bhangra music."
The tumbi is a single-stringed instrument, and while you would pluck the string on the instrument, on the iPhone you touch pink dots on the screen to produce the sound, sliding your finger to draw out the note on the string. Tumbiwalla, the stage name for Harv Singh, plays the tumbi sounds recorded for Pocket Bhangra.
"The tumbi is a very difficult instrument to play in real life, the app makes it easier to play," said Paul.
The third instrument in the app is the tabla - two small drums that you play with your fingers - both on the drums and on the iPhone or iPad. Didar Singh plays the tabla heard in the Bhangra app.
Combine all three and you can create your own Bhangra music. Clicking on one of the instruments brings it to the screen with pink dots highlighting the places to tap with your fingers to play.
You can record your musical creations, creating loops and saving them as files, a little like laying down tracks that can later be combined for your full musical production. You can also play along with default tracks that Paul has included for each instrument or play along with songs from your iPod library.
The Pocket Bhangra iPhone orchestra, with Paul, Ronny, Didar Singh and singer Shivangi Bhayana will be performing Nov. 7 at 2:15 p.m. at Vancouver's Roundhouse for Vancouver Celebrates Diwali.
Launched last July and already updated, Pocket Bhangra has climbed to the top 100 music apps in the app store.
Pocket Bhangra, regularly $2.99 but now $1.99 in a Diwali promotion that ends Nov. 10, is available in the iTunes App store.
[Courtesy: Vancouver Sun]
October 29, 2010