What is it about music that strikes such a deep chord with us? Is it the beat, the notes or the instruments? Well, exploring the answer to this question, I came across a multi-faceted musician who is unique in connecting Math, music, behavioural patterns and strategy. Vignesh Vaidyanathan, a Chennai-based musician, draws upon his varied backgrounds in engineering, business, data sciences and music to provide novel insights into unexpected contexts.
The young man started playing the violin at the age of 9 and was initially taught by Shri Balakrishnan, who is currently serving as a senior faculty member at the Temple of Fine Arts in Penang, Malaysia. Vignesh plays fusion music with various bands in Chennai and has also worked with Delhi Drum Circle and other musicians across India.
Talking about his introduction to music, the 30-year-old, who enjoys Indian classical ragas, says, "Surprisingly, Math is what got me into music. I have always been fascinated by patterns in musical scales and rhythms. As I started learning more and more, I realised that the sky's the limit for this analogy." Vignesh also interned with Indian Raga, an education start-up founded at MIT, which aims at providing a holistic approach to learning music, including a focus on presentation and performance, high-quality audio and video production for digital channels, and learning how to collaborate with fellow musicians.
Currently, the violinist is researching about personality types and their affinity towards various ragams. "I learnt about 16 personality types during my MBA. That intrigued me to learn statistical modelling and hypothesis testing at the same time. I drew a few hypotheses about scale preferences among certain personality types. My idea was to conduct surveys, collect data and validate my hypotheses. For instance, people with a preference for introversion have a thing for minor sounding ragams is one of my hypothesis," he adds.
Speaking about what's next on the cards, Vignesh concludes by stating, "I plan to compose for short films and work on educating music enthusiasts about the various aspects of music." He also hopes that Indian commercial music incorporates more of genres like Bluegrass, Blues, Jazz and other experimental forms of music for the violin.
