Carnatic Patterns & Anti Patterns

Miscellaneous topics on Carnatic music
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sureshvv
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Joined: 05 Jul 2007, 18:17

Carnatic Patterns & Anti Patterns

Post by sureshvv »

Patterns has been a popular movement in the software and architectural design worlds for the past couple of decades. It is May, peak of summer and low tide for carnatic concert fixtures. So here is a post to alleviate the ennui associated with the season.

Listed below are some Carnatic Music Patterns (and Anti patterns):

1. Covering the gamut of ragas by singing shuddha, pratimadhyama and vivadi ragas
2. Falling back to the Big 5 and Trinity compositions for the main piece
3. Constantly checking the doorway for entering/leaving guests
4. String together an alapana by playing phrases from various kritis (Violinists seem to do this more often).

Feel free to discuss these or add your own.

melam72
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Re: Carnatic Patterns & Anti Patterns

Post by melam72 »

5. Recycling pallavis from krithis
6. Treating the RTP as an extension of the thukkuda
7. Shamelessly repeating pallavis from concert to concert
8. Referring to books for alapanas

<come, hither>

vasanthakokilam
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Re: Carnatic Patterns & Anti Patterns

Post by vasanthakokilam »

Good topic, Suresh. I know what you are getting at by mentioning 'Patterns'. As you wrote it has specific meaning in Architecture and Software Design circles, let us see if such a format of writing down CM patterns has some value

sureshvv
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Re: Carnatic Patterns & Anti Patterns

Post by sureshvv »

8. Referring to books for alapanas
I find it hard to believe this is what is happening. I dont think alapanas can be notated & reproduced. This may just be more of a habitual glance (may be at the time or something).

shankarank
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Re: Carnatic Patterns & Anti Patterns

Post by shankarank »

sureshvv wrote: 24 May 2017, 12:59 4. String together an alapana by playing phrases from various kritis (Violinists seem to do this more often).
violika gAyakas ( or gAyikAs) ;) . MC does that often in passing. Once MC played entire kalyANa rUpaya from Ananta rAma diskhitar Slokam rendition for a TVS concert @ MA around 1990s.

Recently RKSK did that in passing - RKSK used it to predict the song correctly as cakkani Raja for the just concluded Amruta Murali concert @ the end of his Alapana reply.


https://www.sangeethamshare.org/ramakri ... dali-1988/ In his reply to todi, item No 4., Mysore Nagaraj predicts the toDi kriti as kaddanu vAriki and earns a sabhash from TNS.

CRama
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Re: Carnatic Patterns & Anti Patterns

Post by CRama »

Melam72, your post is a revelation of your inflated ego and contempt towards many of the present day singers which had been explicitly expressed by you in many previous posts too. Coming to the present post, I have to reply to some of your observations.

5. Recycling pallavis from krithis
Nothing wrong in composing a pallavi using the words of a kriti. This has been done by the great doyens in the past also. In the recent past, TRS has coined the pallavi using the pallavis of kritis- Sree Rajagopala balam bhaje and Devi brova samayamide. They make changes in the asu of the pallavi and fix it in a different talam. TNS, SKR, TMT- all have done this.

6. Treating the RTP as an extension of the thukkuda
Taking the example of one particular vidwan/vidushi who has sung a 20 minute RTP, you cannot generalise that this is the trend. The trend is otherwise- as I have written in many of my reviews.

7. Shamelessly repeating pallavis from concert to concert
Your use of the words shamelessly only prompted me for this post. Otherwise I would not have thought of replying. In the days of the great masters of music- GNB, SSI, MMI also, they did not make designer pallavis for each concert, as it is done nowadays by most vidwans. Have you heard any other pallavi from MMI in Kambodi other than Parimalarangapathe ? Have you heard any other pallavi in Kalyani from SSI/GNB other than Un darisanam kidaikkumo Nataraja. And the audience of those days would not accept in any other ragam. They would never accept Paripalarangapathe in Thodi, even if sung by MMI. Ganalola karunalavala- it was sung only in Thodi and Shanmugapriya. Same pallavi has been sung by MMI in Shanmugapriya in innumerable concerts. I have heard Mahima teliya tarama pallavi by TNS in Sankarabharanam in dozens of concerts. Coining of different pallavis for each concert is of later day evolution. They focussed on display of their manodharmam in alapana, neraval and swarams- whatever be the words of the pallavi.

8. Referring to books for alapanas
Any knowledgeable rasika will agree with me that you can never do alapana by referring to books.
Melam kaathe kizhikka koodathu sir. Kaathukku isaiya irukkanam

melam72
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Re: Carnatic Patterns & Anti Patterns

Post by melam72 »

CRama wrote: 25 May 2017, 22:40 5. Recycling pallavis from krithis
Nothing wrong in composing a pallavi using the words of a kriti. This has been done by the great doyens in the past also. In the recent past, TRS has coined the pallavi using the pallavis of kritis- Sree Rajagopala balam bhaje and Devi brova samayamide. They make changes in the asu of the pallavi and fix it in a different talam. TNS, SKR, TMT- all have done this.
Sudha didn't do that. She sung the pallavi line of the krithi as the pallavi itself.
CRama wrote: 25 May 2017, 22:40 6. Treating the RTP as an extension of the thukkuda
Taking the example of one particular vidwan/vidushi who has sung a 20 minute RTP, you cannot generalise that this is the trend. The trend is otherwise- as I have written in many of my reviews.
We both are crippled by a limited sampling of concerts that we attended. The only way to be sure that this is the case (or not) is by collecting the concert data for every single RTP concert sung across the world and make an analysis. Are you up for it? ;)
CRama wrote: 25 May 2017, 22:40 7. Shamelessly repeating pallavis from concert to concert
Coining of different pallavis for each concert is of later day evolution
QED. Those days it was possible to make a living as a musician knowing some 50-60 songs only. But it is not the case today. Similarly, that was the case those days, but not today. AS the popular pazhamozhi goes, ஊரோடு ஒத்து வாழ்
CRama wrote: 25 May 2017, 22:40 8. Referring to books for alapanas
Any knowledgeable rasika will agree with me that you can never do alapana by referring to books.
Most knowledgable rasikas also avoid Jesudoss concerts.

mohan
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Re: Carnatic Patterns & Anti Patterns

Post by mohan »

sureshvv wrote: 24 May 2017, 12:59 Listed below are some Carnatic Music Patterns (and Anti patterns):
Lol .. I came to this thread looking for a discussion of musical patterns e.g. janTa patterns, dATu patterns, etc!
A better title would be trends or fads in Carnatic music!

sureshvv
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Re: Carnatic Patterns & Anti Patterns

Post by sureshvv »

Hmm.. In the general sense Patterns are defined as "Solutions to a particular problem in a particular context". I am trying to list some of these trends/fads as patterns to help identify the problem and the context :D

shankarank
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Re: Carnatic Patterns & Anti Patterns

Post by shankarank »

mohan wrote: 26 May 2017, 14:45 Lol .. I came to this thread looking for a discussion of musical patterns e.g. janTa patterns, dATu patterns, etc!
A better title would be trends or fads in Carnatic music!
Sigh.. everybody wants to learn music but never think about how people enjoy it :(. rasikas.org is the context that should have made the title clear! Patterns in rasikatvam!

The former by itself is an anti-pattern that plagues CM.

vijay.siddharth
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Re: Carnatic Patterns & Anti Patterns

Post by vijay.siddharth »

Apologies for my ignorance, but what exactly is an anti-pattern?

sureshvv
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Re: Carnatic Patterns & Anti Patterns

Post by sureshvv »

An Anti-Pattern is a Pattern that appears to be an attractive solution but has sufficient ill-effects that it can become a source of problems in the long run.

Nick H
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Re: Carnatic Patterns & Anti Patterns

Post by Nick H »

What about regular expressions?

sureshvv
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Re: Carnatic Patterns & Anti Patterns

Post by sureshvv »

You have a problem. You think regular expressions can help solve it. Now you have two. :)

Nick H
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Re: Carnatic Patterns & Anti Patterns

Post by Nick H »

Naah... they can solve most of the world's problems!

shankarank
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Re: Carnatic Patterns & Anti Patterns

Post by shankarank »

Well they are difficult to understand too sometimes!!

sureshvv
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Re: Carnatic Patterns & Anti Patterns

Post by sureshvv »

Here is another:

9. Singing all the flagship kritis of one's school

Pros
-------
1. Establishes your connection to the school
2. Audience recognize & enjoy the kritis

Cons
--------
1. Does not scale when everybody does it.
2. Flagship kritis become banal

shankarank
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Re: Carnatic Patterns & Anti Patterns

Post by shankarank »

Nick H wrote: 27 May 2017, 14:41 What about regular expressions?
When Anti-patterns come calling in the middle of the night - the graveyard shift- when they cause the systems to go down, it is the regular expressions that are the swiss army knife that come to the rescue when you have to "grep" log files to see the problem.

Nick H
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Re: Carnatic Patterns & Anti Patterns

Post by Nick H »

A lot of my work was very Awkward... but I've forgotten all that now.

ratanabhinav
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Re: Carnatic Patterns & Anti Patterns

Post by ratanabhinav »

Ah....one more

Starting alapana with ' tha na ,na,na na' ....n number of times and not progressing anywhere , pUrvanga , uttaranga not mixed well in alapana , alapana is just up and down scales with no imaginative , zig zag , curvy phrases........Opposite of what i said is true for Tiger , Vedavalli , Semmangudi ,and so many other incredible musicians of past and present .
The above pattern is followed by some of the current youngsters with little kelvi gnanam and little knowledge of raga lakshanam

One more.......
Shouting with voice .,....and no proper voice culture in CM......


Regards
Ratan Abhinav

shankarank
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Re: Carnatic Patterns & Anti Patterns

Post by shankarank »

Nick H wrote: 27 May 2017, 23:21 A lot of my work was very Awkward... but I've forgotten all that now.
As long as not "sed"entary now - you are fine ! :lol:

Nick H
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Re: Carnatic Patterns & Anti Patterns

Post by Nick H »

Well, of course I sed a few things too.

vasanthakokilam
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Re: Carnatic Patterns & Anti Patterns

Post by vasanthakokilam »

shankarank, Nick, you two sed a lot of ackward things grepping with reality while sorting out uniq things among us, cats and more.

Nick H
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Re: Carnatic Patterns & Anti Patterns

Post by Nick H »

Well, Less is more... which brings us back to the music :)

shankarank
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Re: Carnatic Patterns & Anti Patterns

Post by shankarank »

With commodification, and old uniq flavors gone I made an alias for more as less, as systems that cost less took over the ones that cost more with less working better than more!

melam72
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Re: Carnatic Patterns & Anti Patterns

Post by melam72 »

ratanabhinav wrote: 28 May 2017, 00:10 Shouting with voice .,....and no proper voice culture in CM......
They call it 'projecting the voice' and 'open-throated singing'.

But the singing they do only projects their inability to culture their voices, and opens it to criticism from more porcine rasikas.

One more result of this will be the loss of voice its weakening in their old ages. You want evidence? Listen to the Bombay Sisters now.

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