The Sanjay Subrahmanyan Show - Episode 11 - Chat with Dr N Ramanathan and Sriram V

Chat with renowned musicologist Dr N Ramanathan and Sriram V.

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The Sanjay Subrahmanyan Show - Episode 11 - Chat with Dr N Ramanathan and Sriram V

A December 2001 concert available for download

Charsur has made available a December 2001 concert of mine on their website for download only. This concert was held as part of the series organised by the Mylapore Academy at the RR Sabha hall. The concert featured S Varadarajan, Srimushnam Raja Rao and G Harishankar. The 2001 season was very special for me because Shri Harishankar played several concerts for me in a period of about 2 months. He was quite keen to play more but unfortunately he passed away in early 2002. If I remember Charsur had released another concert from December 2001 that I sang in Kalakshetra with Nagai Muralidharan, Trichy Sankaran and G Harishankar.

Charsur usually followed a practice of recording 3 or 4 concerts every season and releasing only one in CD form. Now with the new website and digital downloads possible more concerts from earlier seasons will be released in the coming months.

Here is the link to the download page for the concert.

Download December Season 2001 Live concert for Mylapore Academy at RR Sabha Hall.

Please support legal downloads and refrain from uploading these concerts to free servers as Charsur is making special arrangements for royalties from these downloadable concerts to reach all artistes including the accompanists.

Radio interview in Dublin

Here is a link to an interview I did with Vincent Woods of the Arts Show for RTE Radio 1 in Dublin, Ireland last month.

Interview for RTE Radio 1, Dublin, Ireland

Scale and Rakthi

As a young and upcoming musician in the late eighties I have for long heard experts talk about ragas being classified as 'scale' ragas and 'rakti' ragas. The rakti ragas were supposed to be more classical and aesthetic and provided a better listening experience to the connoisseur. There was always the dismissal of the scale ragas as being a mere collection of notes that lacked any innate aesthetics and that raga elaborations invariably 'descended' to an intellectual exercise of playing on the notes. This argument continues and musicians and rasikas have very strong view points on this matter.

A historical analysis of the evolution of ragas will clearly show that there are ragas that were born out of melodies whilst others that were born out of scales. A melody is just a collection of notes that one gets to hear. For instance a classic case is the raga Neelambari that traditionally owes its roots to the folk tradition. Neelambari has been associated with 'Taalaattu' or the song that puts children to sleep. Different variants of the lullaby generally conformed to a melody that became Neelambari. Similarly academics have traced the origin of ragas like Anandabhairavi and Huseni also to the folk versions and their interpretations. There is also strong evidence to suggest that the ancient tamizh music with their 'panns' influenced the evolution of ragas atleast in South India. Subsequent research of the traditional temple music and its singing by the 'odhuvars' lends credence to some of this. Before we jump to any conclusion we have to understand that all this has happened over a fairly long period and much of the evolution process has not been exactly documented for us to comprehend it completely. So what we have today is a collection of the so called 'rakti' ragas or those that have an inherent aesthetic to them as a result of continuous singing and polishing that has happened over so many years.

In the modern day, a 100 year analysis of raga evolution can show us how much change has happened to the nature and scale of ragas. Ragas have a capacity to slowly evolve and change over time because of the way musicians handle them and explore them. A classic parallel to this is the evolution of colours in the spectrum. How today a computer can generate millions of colours that change the way we look at art as compared to the traditional usage of the same. Can scales acquire 'rakti' or can musicians over a period of time polish and shape a raga to such an extent that the listener feels that he can experience an innate aesthetic beauty in the raga. This is really the point of the proponents of innovation. My guru Shri KSK believed very strongly that ragas evolve and acquire 'rakti' with time. He gave us the classic example of a raga like Charukesi. A reasonably modern raga, it became popular after the success of some film melodies like Aadal kaaneero, Manmada leelayai and Vasantha mullaippole vanthu. Afterall the most popular kriti in Charukesi was Adamodi and it became well known mostly through Madurai Mani Iyer. Musicians senior to MMI like Maharajapuram, Ariyakudi and Musiri hardly sang Charukesi. This raga by the seventies had gained so many different colours in the usage. There was a lighter version, an intellectual scalar version and of course a 'rakti' version if one might call it that. The bottom line is that today Charukesi is a beautiful raga that has also been borrowed by Hindustani musicians. (There is a commercial release of a Charukesi by Ustad Amir Khan)

Now let us look at some of the ragas that came into vogue after Tyagaraja or to be more specific those that Tyagaraja composed in. Compared to some older ragas these are quite modern. There is the argument that it was first handled by a musical genius, but then the same music genius' handling of several ragas have been dismissed as scalar. Let us consider two ragas like Jayantasena and Nalinakanti. The former is a typical rakti raga in the eyes of many while the latter belongs to the 'dismissed as scalar' category. Both ragas have become known through the two Tyagaraja pieces Vinata suta and Manavyala kinchara. Vinata suta became popular after it was taken and polished by Kancheepuram Naina Pillai. Since then the song has a basically common structure that most musicians stick to in their renditions. Manavyala on the other hand has been exploited by all and sundry and has gained the status of Charukesi in the modern time. The GNB and Sankara Iyer compositions in Nalinakanti give it the intellectual and rakti colours respectively, while Manavyala changes colour according to the artiste.

Being the young upstart music student that I was in the eighties, I have had long arguments with my Guru. In order to show how much rakti meant to him he said "Do you know I prefer Sourashtram to Chakravakam." This was a man who had composed his first tune in Gopikatilakam, a 'not exploited scale' in the early forties. So much for rakti! He then proceeded to tell me how any raga is only a collection of notes and the beauty comes from the handling. He said, "I'd rather listen to a satisfying Ranjani than a badly sung Sahana." But then I have heard some 'knowledgeable' rasikas (like our own Mr Srinivasan) tell me that they'd rather hear (or even read) about a Begada (even if sung badly) than a brilliantly sung Dharmavati! Finally it is a matter of taste and things boil down to individual likes and dislikes. It is however interesting to see how people like to justify their likes by adding phrases like rakthi or classical.

Another last day of the tour ordeal!

As I am waiting to be kicked out of my hotel room in Paris because they have a check out time, I though I'll jot down another 'last concert of the tour' ordeal that happened yesterday.

Somehow these last concerts of a long tour have something about them that make it quite a long and arduous affair. Though there are a lot of pleasant memories about yesterday's experience (which I will write shortly) I just felt like describing the 'ordeal' part of it.

Saturday night we had a big concert at the Theatre de la Ville in Paris and by the time everything ended, we had dinner and crashed it was 2.00 AM. We were due to travel to Correns in the south of France for our last concert of the month long European tour. The train was at 7.15 am, and was a 3 hour ride on the TGV from Paris to Aix en Provence. From there we had a an hour's drive to Correns. The train was comfortable but then we had to get up early and be at the station. After we got into the train, we found that the staff at the cafe on the train was on strike, so no refreshments available. Fortunately I had bought some breakfast stuff at the station even though our contact had said we can eat on the train. That atleast gave us the fuel to last the train ride.

We reached Aix en Provence at 10.30 and were picked up by a car. Halfway through the drive they realised that we had not picked up another musician who was due to perform at the festival in Correns. So we went back to pick him up and by the time we reached Correns it was 12 noon.

We had some good food waiting for us and an hour's rest before the sound test at 1.30. It was bright and sunny and the venue was an open air one. As we finished the sound test at 2.00 pm clouds gathered! Our concert was only at 5.00 pm so people were not really worried. We roamed around the streets of the quaint little village for a few minutes and came back to get some rest. This was a festival and there were several bands and musicians. So resting place was most noisy with musicians playing and singing etc. A jolly experience by itself but not for us three weary travellers from India at that moment.

Meanwhile the sky was getting darker and the technicians started covering the stuff on stage. We still did not know whether they will go ahead with the concert because of the rain threat. It was a bit like a cricket match with the skies darkening just before start of play. At about 4.45 they decided that since it had not started raining they would go ahead with concert. We got ready and as we were about step on stage it started to rain! It was dark, gloomy and chilly for 3 hours and raindrops fell at that precise moment when were due on stage.

So within 10 minutes an alternate venue was set up, and the concert began immediately in about half an hours time. The wait and uncertainty had really made us nervous with some of resembling expectant fathers outside the maternity ward at Isabel's hospital in Chennai as we paced up and down looking at the sky!

The concert went off well, the people were most gracious and accepting and we had a good time on stage. As I finished Kambhoji raga alapana, and the audience was still unsure whether to clap or not, because they did not know if they should at that moment, a young kid lying down on his mom's lap launched a spontaneous applause!

Anyway we finished dinner, drove back through a long winding mountain road on a full stomach clutching our intestines, as the driver with his experience of taking fast turns with power steering on a speedy Peugeot van reminded us a of a ride from Kothagiri to Coonoor on a Matador van! We reached the station and caught the train to reach Paris at about 1.00 am and in time to be in bed at 2.00 AM! I looked back at a post I made some months back on a similar 'last concert of the tour' exerience and thought to myself history has a way of repeating itself.

An update and some news

The last three months have been really hectic with travelling, concerts etc. There has been no time to sit down and write something. Also the Charsur studios were going through a major renovation and things were down at their sound production facility. So no podcasts as well. Anyway things will soon be on track with more posts, podcasts etc once I am back in town sometime mid June. I know this post itself is about 2 months late in coming but then we like to reach the 'edam' of the pallavi even if there is a struggle in doing so :)

The important news is that the new and revamped Charsur website is up and running with all the earlier downloadable concerts etc. They have also set up a page where all the previous episodes of my podcast are available for people to download.

A knowledgeable rasika - 1

Srinivasan turned 41 last week. He has been listening to carnatic music since the age of 5, or was it 3, anyway he cannot remember. It was in the mid seventies, growing up in Madras, that he began listening to carnatic music. He belonged to a typical south indian brahmin family and listened to music being played on the radio everyday. As soon as the programme was on he would eagerly wait for the announcements to find out the name of the kriti and the raga so that the next time he heard the song he could connect it to the raga name he remembered. This was his first steps into raga recognition, the skill that all aspiring carnatic music rasikas yearned to master as quickly as possible. Afterall when sitting at the concert, there was this mama in the front row who nodded aggressively as soon as the first phrases of an alapana began, for he had found out the raga instantly in his mind. Srinivasan was invariably embarrassed to ask his neighbour the name of the raga. He would rather wait for the kriti to start before hazarding a guess in his mind. As the years progressed by the time he was about 14 he could identify a number of ragas instantly. There was this concert of Balamuralikrishna where he had elaborated on the main raga. The audience was generally confused as they could not identify the raga so easily. Srinivasan, who by now had developed a decent sense of the note as well managed to fix the scale as Natabhairavi and was elated when the maestro started the pallavi ' sa ri ga ma pa da ni paadenaa!' Srinivasan's guess was confirmed as he had heard the maestro's HMV record of this same pallavi.

In the eighties as Srinivasan entered college he was a regular at the music concerts in Madras and got familiar with a number of knowledgeable listeners and rasikas. Cassettes were the main source of listening to music besides the live concerts and the radio. In the seventies it was far more difficult to access recorded music because the whole process of acquiring and playing spool tapes was too cumbersome. But cassette revolution changed all that. It was so easy to go to some collector's house and copy concerts in a flash.then there were these double cassette decks with speed dubbing facilities that made things easier. Yes, the empty cassettes were a bit expensive. The genuine collectors only preferred TDK tapes and not the cheaper local Meltrack variety. Some of the techies insisted only on 'metal' or 'chromium' tapes because they lasted longer. And then they would insist on breaking the seal off the edge of the tapes so that nothing could be recorded over it by mistake.

When the nineties hit his life Srinivasan was a seasoned listener. He had a cousin in Singapore who sent him a steady supply of TDK tapes and he had built up a very good collection. No more listening to the radio. He wanted the old masters. He wanted MDR, GNB, Semmangudi, Madurai Mani Iyer, Ramnad Krishnan etc etc. Anything that was recorded before the mid seventies was fine. This was the music a genuine connoisseur would listen to and he did not want to be left behind. The present day music was already getting too commercial for his liking. A number of young upstarts had appeared on the scene. Some of them had talent and respect for the elders but some of them were in a hurry to achieve fame. Srinivasan took a fancy to a couple of the younger lot. He thought there was hope if these musicians could be made to understand the greatness of the old masters. Srinivasan would go to the afternoon concerts and then quietly whisper in the ears of the musician that hew as welcome to come home and take whatever he had to offer. This way the musician could really get enriched and become a better musician.

Srinivasan was interested in the future of the art. He did not want commercialism to overtake the mindsets of the musicians. Fortunately there were still some who could make a difference and he felt that it was his duty to try and expose them to the wonderful treasure he had with him. Slowly he started contacting and talking ot the musicians directly. He was a back bencher for a long time but of late he wanted to get influential. He would call up a musician before the concert and suggest that he/she sing this or that piece. A typical conversation would go like this.

S: What are you planning to sing tomorrow at the MFA?

Musician(M): Dharmavati and Mohanam.

S (In a slightly disappointed tone): That's ok but why don't you sing Mukhari? Nobody sings Mukhari these days. Have you not learnt Karu baru? It was a favorite of Ramnad Krishnan. Your teacher was a big fan of RK. I am sure you would have learnt it.

M: But that is too slow and may not be impressive in a 1 1/2 hour concert.

S: Don't worry about all that. Just singing it will bring a special grandeur to the concert. Don't be mislead by these modern trends. Why don't you sing Varali as well instead of Dharmavati. Forget all these silly scales that just exhibit permutations and combinations when they are sung. Go for the more rakti ragas. The bhavam is so inherent in them that it will carry your concert very well.

M: But why do you say that about Dharmavati? Artistes like TMT and Kalyanaraman have sung it so well. Even musicians like Lalgudi and MLV give so much dimension to it.

S (now getting a bit angry): What are you talking? have you heard Alathur Brothers or Ariyakudi or Semmangudi sing Dharmavati? Never! Did they not have the capacity to sing it? They chose not to because they knew that these ragas were mere scales. Further have the trinity composed as many songs in Dharmavati as they did in Varali?

M: The Trinity also composed so many songs in Narayanagowla. These stalwarts never sang that. I think that you are unnecessarily belittling the brilliance of musicians who can explore and give life to these unexplored ragas.

S: I am not belittling these musicians. I am only saying that if you are as brilliant as these people then you can also pull it off. But until you reach that stage you have to take the time tested path. All these experimentation will get you nowhere. Prove your worth and then start doing what you want.

M: But did not these rebels start off early themselves. Did they not go against people like you and still manage to blaze a trail.

S (now getting really irritated): All you young people think too much of yourselves. Even before singing a few concerts you want to blaze a trail. Is it so easy? Do you know how much hard work it takes? How many years of toil before you can sing one phrase? Just because you have sung a few concerts and a few people are listening to you, you cannot think that you are going to change the face of carnatic music. This system has stood the test of time for centuries!

M: Ok sir I think will just have to disagree on this point. (But the musician thought to him/herself - Even without singing a single song on stage, this guy can talk and argue so much. What will I do if he can get up on stage and even sing a song at the Tyagaraja aradhana!)

To be continued.

Disclaimer: This is entirely fictional.