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M. Des. Ph. D. (IIT Mumbai), India
Dr. Vinod Vidwans is a professor at the Department of Design, Art, and Performance at the FLAME University, Pune. Before joining FLAME University, he was a Senior Designer/ Professor at National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad. He also headed the Departments of New Media Design at NID. He has been a visiting faculty & resource person at many prestigious institutes in India.
Dr. Vinod Vidwans is a professor at the Department of Design, Art, and Performance at the FLAME University, Pune. Before joining FLAME University, he was a Senior Designer/ Professor at National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad. He also headed the Departments of New Media Design at NID. He has been a visiting faculty & resource person at many prestigious institutes in India.
He inherits Vedic and Indic knowledge tradition and currently engaged in research on various Indic themes. He has designed and developed Artificial Intelligence (AI) Systems for Indian Music called `AIRaga’, `AITala’ and ‘Smart Systems’ based on the Natyashastra.The AIRaga system generates a Bandish (a musical composition) on its own without any human assistance in a given Raga and renders it in traditional classical Indian style. The AI system generates a Bandish based on the Vadi, Samvadi, Aroha and Avroha of the Raga. It does not have any database of Ragas. The AITala system generates a Tabla performance in the given Tala.
In 2017-18, he has designed and made a new musical instrument called `Bharat Veena’ based on the two-thousand-year-old theory of `Shrutis’ (microtones) from Bharata’s Natyashastra. You can conduct the ‘Shruti-Nidarshanam’ experiment and the ‘Gramantara’ experiment mentioned in the Natyashastra on Bharat Veena.
Dr. Vidwans is a cognitive philosopher, a designer and a portrait painter. He has done his Ph. D in Cognitive Philosophy and Master of Design from Indian Institute of Technology, Powai, Mumbai. He holds a Post-Graduate Degree in Fine Arts from Nagpur University where he topped.
NCERT invited Dr. Vidwans to become a member of the curriculum development committee for Graphic Design. Under this assignment he has contributed in writing a text book on Graphic Design for Standard XI and Standard XII.
He has been also invited by Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), New Delhi, as a member of the Board of Studies for School of Visual & Performing Arts as well as an advisor for their Doctoral Program.
He is also a member of Advisory Boards and Academic Councils of many reputed institutes in India.
Dr. Vidwans is a dedicated Teacher, Researcher, and Designer with substantial managerial experience in the industry.
Dr. Vinod Vidwans has been engaged in designing musical instruments for many years. So far, he has designed, apart from Bharat Veena (Shruti Veena), Shruti Mandalam, Brihad Shruti Manadalam, Shruti Guitar, Flexi-Flute Algoza, Flexi-Flute Scale Shift, Flexi-Flute Pitch Variations, and many more in the pipeline. All the musical instruments designed by Dr. Vinod Vidwans have been granted patents by appropriate authorities.
The traditional ‘Gyana-Samvid’ (Repository of Knowledge) of Indian music can be documented, and preserved in the form of `smart’ digital repositories, `smart’ books and `smart’ AI systems. The advent of smart technologies and Artificial Intelligence has created many pathways to document, preserve, simulate and even interpret this ‘Gyana-Samvid’ innovatively. In this context Artificially Intelligent Expert Systems for Indian Music called ‘Bharati’, ‘AI Tala’, ‘AIRagaGen’, and ‘AI Raga’ have been designed and developed by Dr. Vinod Vidwans.
Dr. Vidwans strongly believes in the scientific and logical ethos of Indian knowledge systems and always feel that using advanced technology it is possible to demonstrate its strength to the world. He also firmly believes that by adopting a scientific approach it is possible to carry forward the legacy of ancient wisdom and provide leadership to the world in advancement of knowledge.
The work on Indian Music and Artificial Intelligence is widely covered by the media.
When Dr. Vinod Vidwans started working on his research on AI and Indian Music, AI and ML were still in very nascent stages. When he started out, computational learning wasn’t a focus area yet, and depended more on automating regular tasks. Music was not at the forefront of any AI-centric initiative.
“When he started working on this project, these paradigms weren’t there at all. He had to create everything from scratch.
Dr. Vidwans extensively studied the ancient treatises on Indian music such as Naradi Shiksha, Natya Shastra of Bharata, and Sangeet Ratnakar of Sharanga Deva which provide common foundations for Hindustani as well as Carnatic music. He realized that the musical concepts mentioned in these treatises are profound and there exists a logical consistency. This insight helped him to build a logical model of Indian classical music. Based on it, he developed a theoretical frame work for generating Indian Classical Music on computers which took about more than twenty years. These efforts provide foundations for computational theory of Indian Classical Music. The theory and consequential creative expert system addresses many of the outstanding issues related to Shrutis (microtones), characterization of Ragas (Indian melodic modes), classification of Ragas, Chalan or Pakad (Catch-phrase) of Raga, Raga-rendering, Vadi-Samvadi notes of a Raga and composition of a Bandish.
He started by decoding musical shastras as mentioned above, which are the bedrock of Hindustani and Carnatic classical music.
These were highly encoded shastras, but there was a unique science behind them. The first set of results came in 25 years ago.
This scientific base piqued his curiosity. He developed a theoretical framework for generating Indian classical music through an AI.
Dr. Vidwans states that the first breakthrough came from verifying these scientific bases with Hindustani and Carnatic music theory.
He started formally documenting his efforts in 2008. He used AI to counter two sides: Raga and Tala, which combine together to form a musical composition.
Currently, flute, sitar, and sarod are used to compose the instrumental AI-generated music.
Seeing a computer generate music on its own is a special kind of thrill. Dr. Vidwans, hasn’t lost any of his excitement about the projects through 30 years.
Presently, his project makes music for around 3 minutes at most for a Raga Bandish and up to 15 minutes for a Tala composition.
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