Swabhaav - The nature of instruments

Instruments are like people. Different instruments have different "personality traits" or swabhaav. While a santoor carries a pleasant character, a saarangi probably carries with it a mood of separation and melancholy. That may be one of the reasons why certain raagas sound better on some instruments than on others. A keyboard intends to integrate the sounds of all instruments on a single medium of expression (the set of keys), but it is left to the artiste to conserve the unique character of every instrument while playing it using the keyboard. These days, I am trying out some experiments on the keyboard, to see how best it is possible to "simulate" the original instrument on the keyboard. Some of the useful learnings from these experiments are:
1. The importance of timing i.e. how long to keep a key pressed by trying to play a particular instrument
2. The frequency of swtiching notes - how fast to swtich between keys depending on the limitations of the natural instrument
3. Volume control (a)- How to simulate breathing patterns when simulating a wind instrument (e.g. a flute or a saxophone) by varying the volume using the touch sense feature. Some high-end keyboards boast of an amplitude profiler where one can create sounds that are closer to the original instrument. The PSR-295 does not have this one though.
4. Volume control (b)- How to simulate bellows of the harmonium by using touch sense and the harmony feature on the keyboard.

I would be posting some of the audio clips of my learnings on this blog soon...