View on a few kutcheris attended this month by Deepak Chari

These reviews were given by my good friend Sri. Deepak Chari based out of US. As he has very limited access to the net, requested me to post on his behalf.

Here are some impressions about what we heard during this season so far.
We heard TM Krishna at Narada Gana Sabha Hall for Kartik Fine Arts (2^nd kala kritis (like Kanchi Kamakshi in Bhairavi) and true music used to flow out of him. Karnatic music cannot be fast paced and it spoils the fun if you do that often. May be one or two fast paced kritis in a kucheri are ok (like Nenarunchi Nanu). But one must not race thro the swara prastharam. TM Krishna on those occasions gives the impression of fighting with an invisible enemy. It was a disappointing opening kutcheri for me. But I shall continue to here him because I know that he can be brilliant when he decides to be.
Though children of a great living legend, Lalgudi Krishnan and Vijayalakshmi don’t make a fuss about it. Their music speaks for them. (16^th Dec. Karthik Fine Arts). They are content to play their violin and walk out. Their bowing style is quite distinct. It is soft and does not produce the screeching sound that normally emanates from a bowed instrument. As much as his music one is attracted by Krishnan’s very composed bearing on stage. That day his main was Ragam, Tanam, Pallavi in Sahana. His alapanai was delicious—sweet as Sahana should be. The pallavi was in Chaturasra Jhampa talam with technical embellishments like anulomam, vilomam thrown in. I don’t think a full-fledged R-T-P fits into a 2 hour concert. Viji perhaps is a little slow on the uptake when it comes to kala pramanam. But it was a wholly satisfying concert.
Gayatri Venkatraghavan is the new star on the firmament. Suja and I have heard her 6 times in these 3 months and we are amazed that she has not repeated any kriti even once. Seeta was her neighbor in T.Nagar when Gayatri Venkat was a kid learning music. Seeta says that she did not show all that interest in music those days. You can’t believe that if you hear Gayatri singing now. I rate her at no.2 above Sudha but just after Jayashree (whom we haven’t heard so far this season). We heard Gayatri in Ragha Sudha Hall which has very good acoustics. There was not one jarring note. Her voice is a little (just a little) like MS. She does not over do the swaras and brings before you the Ragarupa early in her alapana. She sang Pakkala neela in karaharapriya that day, and touched a chord in all her listeners. She has no Godfather in the music world and our highly politicized sabhas may not accept her quickly. But her day will come—no one can stop her.
If you rate them on the popularity scale Sudha of course is tops. 50% of the audience come to see her; the others to hear her. She is of course beautiful and Pothys is making a lot of money on samudrika pattu (not paattu) only because of her. She started off with abhogi varnam on a rather weak note (varnams are like warm ups; they are meant to take the singer thro 2or 3 kalams in swaras and sahityam. So they have to be lively) but picked up later on She is MLVs disciple and it showed. (MLV & MS were contemporaries and even though MS was immensely popular, the fact is that MLV was strong in her fundas. Her voice could travel with ease in the higher octaves and her kalapramanam was extremely sound. MSS in comparison was pedestrian) Sudha has been at the top for quite some time now and I think complacency has set in. Uzhaichu paaduvadhillai (உழைச்சி பாடவில்லை). She will be soon overtaken by the likes of Gayatri Venkat.
Ranjani and Gayathri (the sister duo) have been around only for a couple of years but are already making waves. They combine well and complement each other. During raga alapanas when the elder one struggles to reach tara sthayi the younger one takes over seamlessly. Gayathri’s (I think she is the younger one) alapanas are always soothing to the ear. Their performance that day was well spaced out and was quite enjoyable. They are specialists in Abhang (marathi bhajans) and they bring a North Indian flavour, which, if truth be told, is nice to hear.
We missed out on Malladi Bros this season. We are keen on hearing Jayashree on the 26th at Music Academy . I hope to get daily tickets on that day. When we were in Mylapore, I remember my chittappa and I used to stand in the queue at Music Academy at 6am to get tickets for MS or Balamurali .Surprisingly even today the situation is the same. The other day I visited Music Academy to book tickets for then 26th.They said they don’t issue tickets in advance. Why ever not?

Hiatus

Sorry for the hiatus. I'll write about Swarna Rethus, Malladi Brothers, TNS Krishna soon. My office work, visitors from abroad for the music season and attending the concerts keeps me busy and away from writing.
I'll post for sure by Sunday - Decembe 28,08.

Incipient confidence#1 contd...

As promised to you all, I attended Toronto Brothers concert [Toronto Brothers (Vocal), Kandadevi Vijayaraghavan @ KV (Violin), Trivandrum Balaji @ TB (Mrudangam), H. Prasanna @ HP (Ghatam)] at Krishna Gana Sabha yesterday noon. I dragged couple of my friends along. One elder and the other much younger to me. My friends were very unhappy that AR announced the ragam, kriti, composer. But I thoroughly appreciate this practice. This helps the audience being informed. Just because a minimum percentage of the audience know these details doesn't mean that they will be offended if the performers announce. I again reiterate if the performers announce atleast some of the will not start discussing about the raga, kriti,composer et al.
AR started the concert with the hamsadhwani kriti raghunAyaka. The rendition was neat. No frills. They then sang a not commonly heard Muthuswami dikshithar's kriti krishnananda mukundha murare in the raga gowlipantu. A welcome change. Though the kriti was very verbose, the raga essence was clearly established in the rendition by AR. After this kriti they started an alapana which sounded like abohi to me first and then sriranjani. But AR didn't confuse me further by singing a kriti I had not heard. And they also announced it. They sang yegyAdhulu confirming its Jayamanohari. They sang some kalpanaswaras and also tried some mathematical combinations, am sorry I can't understand what they sang. But what I could make out was that they fumbled to land in the samum. I had written about listening to great singers and learning. Just learning won't suffice, you have to practice it to excellence. And practising should be done at home and not in a concert platform testing the perseverance of the audience. If its done by TRS, TNS, MBK audience will accept it because they have proved their mettle amongst us. Upcoming performers should abstain these tribulations. Even KV essayed the ragam the way AR sang.
My elder friend is a veteran of about 50 years listening experience. He has heard the transition from ARI to GNB to MBK to MLV to TNS alongwith the scores of great accompanying vidwans like Papa, TNK, LGJ, MSG, PMI, UKS, PR, VGR, TS, CSM (the list is exhaustive, mentioned here is only indicative). You know why am mentioning this here. He was very critical on this performance. He was of the opinion that these young performers should impress the audience with some popular kritis, ragas and get repeated audience. Once that comfort level and confidence is built in the audience the performers can start trying new things. My young friend who also learns vocal music for his satisfaction, also was of the opinion that just swara stanas doesn't make music. Readers of this post, pl. react to this.
Coming back to the concert - after yegyAdhulu they started purvi kalyani ragam and sang the immortal meenakshi mEmudham. Even in this AR tried some swara combo and fumbled. The subramania bharathiar's poem Asai mugam has been to set to tune in ragamalika by AR's guru Prof. SRJ and AR sang that. I don't have the capacity to comment on the tuning, can only say about the rendition. The rendition was neat. KV played a brilliant alapana. His bowing is very smooth and has lot of substance in his playing. Infact I mentioned to my elder friend that KV reminds me of Sri. V. V. Subramanyam whom I used to describe as the one whose playing has the sweetness of Sri.TNK and vidwath of Lalgudi. Keep practising and sustain the quality KV, all the best.
Prof. SRJ has done a lot of research on annamayya's (annamacharya) kritis and usually gives lectures, lecdems too. AR sang a kriti akati velana in the raga shubali which seems to be a half-sister (usually ragas are referred to as devathais hence sister) of subha pantuvarali. This was very soothing to the ears and also relaxing to the mind. Good rendition.
AR sang a not so commonly sung thillAnA of Ramanathapuram Srinivasa Iyer in the ragam thOdi. I used to always disturb Sanjay Subrahmanyam to sing this thillAnA and he often chides me for asking to sing this thillana and the ragam Ahiri often. Infact Sanjay's father once even commented that he had the feeling of starting the concert again after listening to a thillana in thodi as the penultimate item in a concert.This happened at Apparswamy koil during the navarathri concert series of 1988. There is nothing much for me to mention about AR's rendition of this thillana.
I forgot to mention about the thani. The ambient temperature played havoc on TB's mrudangam that day. TB kept on aligning the shruthi. I didn't see anyone as part of the organisers. The organisers should stay put someone who understands and operates the PA systems and also the electrical gadgets. The airconditioner should have been kept at a few temperatures higher than what it was. This would have helped the percussionists. Anyway these weren't deterrent factors on TB. He gave a very good support and also played a very impressive thani avarthanam alongwith HB.
My conclusion on this concert is - the accompanists of the day gave the necessary support for this concert to gave a sense of satisfaction to the audience. Infact the accompanists played their roles very effectively.

Incipient confidence#1

Under this heading I propose to write about the emerging good performers of Carnatic Music. The first in the series is on Toronto Brothers (AR) - Ashwin Iyer and Rohin Iyer. Honestly a perfect beginning for this series.

Toronto brothers with T. Hemamalini on the violin, Mudra Baskar on the Mrudangam & VVS Manian on the kanjira performed today from 4.30pm at the Narada Gana Sabha mini hall. I had to leave the concert by 5.10 pm to attend an important client’s call. But as the old Tamil adage goes ‘oru pAnai sotrukku, oru sOru padam - ஒரு பானை சோறுக்கு ஒரு சோறு பதம்’ today concert till I heard was good. Iyers showed a lot of promise.

The every aspect I want to highlight, though very sad to highlight, was their perfect shruthi alignment. There is a lot of debate happening in various forums on the shruthi aspect of leading, established vidwans, hence I write about it here. Probably AR’s exposure the music of the West imbibed in them the importance of shruthi. The every definition of music itself is shruthi alignment, uniformity, being in unison. I know its enough defining music, let’s discuss about the concert.

I strongly advocate the importance of shruthi alignment as the basic ingredient of any form of music across the world. I also decry people saying that the raga phrases are good, the swara patterns are exemplary blah blah when the singer's voice is not aligned with the shurthi instrument used in that concert. These adjectives are valid only if the shruthi is perfectly aligned. Else we can’t for sure confirm what swara the singer is singing. So those who are prejudiced about the importance or mention of shruthi, please revisit the very meaning of music. And please don’t say that its music to my ears and not yours. There can’t be 2 ways about this aspect.

AR started the concert, n the traditional format supposed to have been devised by Ariyakudi, with a varnam composed by their guru Prof. SRJ. Prof. SRJ needs no introduction, a treasure trove of classical music. What needs mention here is his translation of the knowledge to action through AR. He should have been a taskmaster with AR, if not with others. I wish he shows the same restraint towards all his disciples. I have an example where he has slipped or could be that disciple is beyond repair. Coming back to the concert.

AR sang Muthuswami dikshithar’s Natanarayani kriti Mahaganapathe with élan. The 3^rd kriti was the TakkA kriti rAgA sasivadhana of Thyagaraja. Though fragment shades of mAyAmaLavagowla was shown, the rendition was brisk. AR sang crisp kalpanaswarams for just 2 avarthanams and finished the kriti.

Hope you all would have noticed – today is Saturday. I struck me only after AR started the kriti. So what do you expect other than the brilliant (am not qualified to pass evaluation comments of MD’s kritis) yadhukula kAmbhoji navagraha kriti divAkara thanUjam.

Oh bad luck for me. My damn mobile set in vibration mode started fluttering. Yes I had to leave the hall in a hurry to take the call. I had to rush to my office to send some info to my client. Folks I’ll certainly attend to AR’s other concert, stay thru and write about it.

I wish Toronto Brothers maintain consistency in their performance and scale more heights. All the best AR, keep the good works going.

Carnatic Concert Pattern - The Ariyakudi Legacy

This anecdote was added by Sri. V. Aiyah in www.sangeethapriya.org forum
in topic 'The Ariyakudi Legacy.... some questions'

“During early days, the pattern of concerts was entirely different. Musicians were more concerned with the purity of music.
They will go on elaborating a Raaga for hours or indulge in Thaanam or Swara prasthara for longer duration. They were more concerned with “Nada” than “ Nadopasana’. They never bothered about Sahithya. This type of performance could be enjoyed only by those who had an intense knowledge of music and not by an average Rasika.
Sri Maha Vaidhyanatha Iyer (1844-1893) belonged to this earlier generation. He felt that some changes were necessary so that CM could be enjoyed by one and all. It looks as though it was he who conceived a new pattern in concerts which was a forerunner for today’s pattern. His contemporary artist, Sri Pattanam Subramania Iyer also contributed towards this change. This change enabled everybody to enjoy CM.
After this, further improvements and embellishments were made and the credit for this revolution goes to Sri. Ariyakudi. Thus, the present day pattern came into being. Ariyakudi marshalled the items as Varnam, Kirthanas, RTP, Raagamalika Slokas,Thukdas (Padam, Jaavali, Thillana Thirupugazh and so on)”

(Compiled from the book “Ariyakudi” by Elarvi)

V.Aiyah

Squalid Cognizance

Airtel Super Singer in Vijay TV - The biggest voice hunt of Tamilnadu (Thamizhagathin miga brimanda kural thEdal aka TMBKT- தமிழகத்தின் மிக பிரம்மாண்ட குரல் தேடல் aka தமிபிகுதே), at least that’s what the MC or DJ Chinmayi screams every time the camera focuses her, is one trash of a program to be aired by any Tamil channel. I can’t believe VijayTV can afford to deviate from the basic positioning of the program.

The kind of mockery happening on the screen is shameful to the competitive spirit of the participants.

One participant, I don’t want to name her and give her an undue publicity, from Round 1 has been passing thru to the next round by crying before the camera. Once that female cries the evaluators immediately start cajoling her and give her all the necessary confidence that they are with her all through. Initially I thought that the evaluators were trying to instill confidence in her to perform better in the other events but then it wasn’t, they selected her to the next round. The same strategy by that participant continued in the following rounds making her a successful contender. In any competition the participant’s performance on that given day matters irrespective of what they are capable of or achieved in the practice sessions. But in this program there seems to be no space for quality. Why should the evaluators empathise with the participants? Pepping them up is different from empathizing. I condemn this attitude of the panel or the organizers. If the panel is forced to act so then they should walk out. Every reality program of Vijay only has drama rather than focusing on bringing in the best talent to the limelight. No doubt the channel is being run as a business venture to make money. Let there be some social responsibility in it.

You all would have thought why I mentioned about positioning in the first paragraph. It is to highlight the dilution by the channel or producers of this program. Why should the often ridiculed angels in a Bharathiraja duet song come in a voice hunt program arena? Every time Chinmayi is shown in the screen she screams TMBKT (தமிபிகுதே). Probably Chinmayi is searching to get the voice attached to her throat, some new technique in the medical field, who knows. The most ridiculous statement was made by one of the evaluators Anuradha Sriram. She was commenting about one of the participant’s performance. Anu said that the participant has a very good voice but lacks stage performance skills. Come off it lady. The competition is to evaluate their singing skills, please remember the promise made in the initial promos (still seen in some MTC bus rear panels) – the selected candidate will get a chance to sing under Yuvan Shankar Raja’s music supervision for a movie. So why should one have stage presence? How many of us have seen the playback singers singing on stage till about 1995?

Why should the participants have other skills? Even if they are imperative for their career let them acquire after they get selected as a singer. By giving these idiotic suggestions the participants are being confused. For Pete’s sake don’t give these useless suggestions. Another comment by an evaluator to a guy – your energy level was good. What nonsense is this? If a singer is not fit enough to sing for 3 minutes, better not attempt. Starting from Naina Pillai to TM Krishna in the Carnatic arena and scores of light music singers have sung for well over 4 hours continuously. How can someone afford to compliment for singing for 3 minutes with high energy? I think the producers train the evaluators to say a set of words after the performances. Adjectives like good energy level, good attitude, style blah blah…. are developed as the Reality shows parlance or lingo or whatever crap you call it!!

The main point to note here is that most of the evaluators are under severe identity crisis – neither here nor there kind. They got carried away by the eulogies poured on them couple of years ago and never concentrated on improving their strengths. And now have missed the bus to success and glory. So are trying to get some publicity and visibility by being evaluators.

Please have a look at the Malayalam channels particularly Amritha and Asianet. The music based reality shows strictly adhere to the core objectives and definitions promised at the launch of the show. And they don’t take any partisan views and judgements on the performances. Tamil channels please grow. Television entertainment is stripping, screaming, crying, caressing, petting, etc in front of the camera – OMG even I’ve picked up the adjective culture from these channels.

In our country there are enough fine art forms and entertainment scopes to showcase to the public and make them healthy mentally and physically. Indians are in no compulsion to embrace the Western art forms for entertainment. We should take the Western art forms for comparative study and adapt the best practices which will suit our land. Not just ctrl-C+ctrl-V the concepts and programs from the West. Let me cite an example of adaptation. The movie magaLir mattum produced by Kamalahasan is based on the English movie 9 to 5 starring Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton. Kamal intelligently adapted the concept to suit the Tamil audience. Infact he brought it in a lot of nativity in the screenplay. Our channels producers should also involve in some original thinking.

These issues drive me to endorse the policing done by Dr. Ramadass of PMK. Am not an advocate for upholding our culture et al. But I can’t be a silent spectator of a denigration of principles in the media. The media houses can’t flout their own promise and take the viewers for a solid ride. The irony is that they are supposed to be monitoring the politicians and report to the service deficiency to the public. But the media houses themselves operate with vested interests. If I may say so, the frontline channels have all become sleazy. And I just don’t blame the channels for this deterioration of content quality and sleaziness. If the audience condemn it and abstain from watching, the channels will certainly have to change their schema.