Pride and Prejudice

[kvchellappa]

From FB (via Kiranavali Vidyasankar)

http://mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com/colu ... 538562.cms

[arasi]

Thanks Chellappa/Kiranavali and the author, of course...

Open-mindedness in approaching uttar/dakshin sangeet (whichever is not your discipline), is the best way (and not with any preconceived notions). The youngsters can take this process a long way, as the young artiste here so eloquently speaks of his experience with CM--to take the best the other genre has to offer, and to add to one's own music is the gist of it.

[VK RAMAN]

BMK did that (merging south and North) in his work when the establishment always criticized him!

[arasi]

VKR,
The naysayers will always be there
Talking of youngsters, S. Aishwarya is learning HM alongside. Hope she will give a concert in HM too soon, just to indicate that learning of one needn't exclude the other!

[Sachi_R]

Dear KVC,
Thank you for sharing a well-written article. Somehow I have come to believe, after the recent First Edition Arts videos and writings such as this, that Bombay could be a good place for this-a new way suggested here:

"Most jugalbandis are nonsense," said Chakrabarty. "In most cases, when a Hindustani musician plays a Carnatic composition, it sounds like a caricature, and vice versa. If musicians were to develop tertiary, purpose-built pieces based on a deeper appreciation of each others' traditions, it would possibly help reduce the grotesqueness of the superficial muzak that generally emerges from these collaborations."

I was a BIG fan of MSG in my early days of listening. However I felt his foray into HM was only a low hanging fruit stemming from his musical inclinations which always smacked of the Hindustani idiom. I don't know enough about N. Rajam to comment, but perhaps her Carnatic renditions would have had the Hindustani "tadka", too.

I do believe there is an easy enough test to find out if any music has scope for improvisation. Look at the audience! I feel the audience (many bobbing heads who catch your attention easily, like mine, or other body language), immediately show a response every time there is any improvisation. And every good improvisation results in a kind of applause.

I also want to add:there was a jugalbandi of Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and Chitraveena Ravikiran a couple of monsoons ago, as a part of the BSU. After listening to that, I feel Ravikiran is eminently qualified to lead such an effort. I also believe the instrumental effort would succeed first, before vocal collaborations.

[kvchellappa]

Are the limitations of voice in respect of most CM vocalists also a factor? Of the present singers, TMK and Abhishek seem to have a good range. Even when Bhimsen Joshi and BMK sang, Joshi stole a march. But, that between L Subramanian and Bismilla Khan was perhaps more balanced.

[varsha]

an unusual duet
https://archive.org/details/SShankar-VinayakTorvi

[varsha]

'

Indeed, fruitful collaborations stand a chance of emerging only after practitoners of both traditions immerse themselves in the other form and accept it on its own terms. For this to happen, we need an open-ended, informed and longterm dialogue between India's two great art music forms.

Bottom lines
There is no "need" for a dialogue between them - except as an occasional muzak.
There is a need though for practitioners ( artists and rasikas) of both system to delve more into the "Other" system at its purest ,for their own good.After sometime the effects start appearing.
--------
On a train journey back home my Dad once asked me to get down when the train halted for a signal at a manual gate , 5kms before our station.He was explaining on the train - how similar a carnatic concert is to a train journey.Has its own bradshaw, takes a huge effort to set one up , Once up the movements are so systematic and cliched to the casual observer . A journey between two big stations start with small intervals , getting bigger and bigger at midway and taper down close to destination.
It was a fanciful metaphor.

As soon as he helped me down - the little boy - in the middle of a farm he expounded:
Rest of the journey is like HM.There are only broad guidelines - we only know the direction of our home. But each step is unique and different.If we were to repeat this tomorrow , it will be different for different reasons.Ah ! there is a breeze that colors our mood too . In the coach we had to get to the windows for a breath of air.
Lets improvise as we go along.
He took a small flat stone and did something he had not done for decades.
Threw it in a slicing fashion over the adjacent pond . The stone went . skimming the water in a straight line -- in a series of silky hops.
And a dozen other things he did.
Pure Hindusthani trip
And I watched the faces in the window preparing for getting down at the station.

[Sachi_R]

Varsha, you are blessed. You grew up in the clouds,thanks to your father. No wonder you bring such great showers of music!

[Nick H]

Dear KVC,
Thank you for sharing a well-written article. Somehow I have come to believe, after the recent First Edition Arts videos and writings such as this, that Bombay could be a good place ... ... ...

... ... ...I feel Ravikiran is eminently qualified to lead such an effort. I also believe the instrumental effort would succeed first, before vocal collaborations.

Don't overlook the fact that one of the interviewees is a Carnatic/Hindustani musician based in Chennai!

But apart from that. Yes, perhaps another city would be the place for true inter-system development to take place. Neutral ground!

Could not agree more that most jugalbandis are nonsense. Competitions in entertainment. And/or ego. A good boxing match might be better.

[Sachi_R]

Nick, that article itself was a run-up one, announcing the Chennai lady's program un Bombay.

[Nick H]

Yes.

I have seen her lec-dem-ing on HM/CM. She's very good.

[melam72]

You want to talk about Pride and Prejudice?

Hindustani musicians are the most pompous, arrogant, self-absorbed people around. They claim to be bound by rules of samay - a convenient excuse for their inability to sing heavy ragas like Thodi and Bhairavi. Kalyani has been made a caricature of its old form as 'Yaman', because Hindustani musicians are too incompetent to render heavy gamakas.

The pointless circuses of random, meaningless manodharmam is akin to something so dirty it is not appropriate to be mentioned here!

Hindustani music as an art form is decaying. It has been vampirized unnecessarily by a myopic state government. Just compare the number of youngsters taking up HM and CM! HM musicians are puffed up, secretive about knowledge, and are a rightfully rapidly diminishing breed of 'musicians'.

[arasi]

Their pride and your prejudice, perhaps?

[melam72]

Their pride and your prejudice, perhaps?

They have nothing to feel proud of and I have nothing to feel prejudiced about. This is an analysis after a lot of experience.

[varsha]

The naysayers will always be there

LIFE is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises. —Samuel Butler

[shankarank]

Something that surfaced today! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGPtBePgowM. If it attracts some listeners who would otherwise not come to an usual concert what's wrong?

So many arangEtrams some mediocre brings lot of people who would never otherwise come to a concert!

[arasi]

madhuram, nalinam!
paripUrayati bAla murali, hari vENu and violin...

Thank you, shankarank...

[kvchellappa]

Courtesy Kiranavali in FB;
http://mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com/colu ... 749013.cms