TMK @ BSU 2017 - Nov 5th RKSK, Srisundar, Karthik

[shankarank]

The videos of of BSU are out there published.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mHOi9vVJfQ

TMK starts with kaligiyunTe - neraval @ bAguga Sri raghu.

Listening...

tani after svarams!

[shankarank]

jayanta sEna Alapana, short tAnam and vinata. I could not identify the rAgA until the song - I could go only upto - some suddha savEri mixed with karaharapriya phrases of sort.

svara exchanges were good - with all of them involving themselves in.

[shankarank]

sahanA Alapana - moratOpu padam without any violin reply!

[shankarank]

svarams @ manavE ( of rammanavE)

lyrics for reference : viewtopic.php?t=13840

[shankarank]

Multi rAga tanam - was it kamalamanOhari or MMG to start.. I didn't note - I remember kalyaNi, Bhairavi reply by RKSK, - might not remember some -
nalinakanti, bahudari - Sri ( or manirangu) - RKSK reply at the end was manirangu, ..., dEsh, suruTTI

enduku pettala - kriti only

tani starting with SriSundarkumar.. ( earlier one above started by Kartik) - miSra naDai - kartik continuing on miSra naDai.

[shankarank]

they exchanging on miSra naDai - nice passages!

[shankarank]

tappEnna seydEn tavikka viDukinrai tiruvaDiyai viTTenna turatti viDukinRai...
Ananda Bhairavi, bEgaDa , Hamir Kalyani , ... , sindu Bhairavi

[shankarank]

Concluded with nottu svara sahitya of Dikshitar .

[kvchellappa]

Interesting that RSK is facing TMK though the seating is for him to face the audience. I think the traditional seating is with a purpose. How is absence of mrdangam? Is it better than 'curated' mrdangam?
Somehow I feel there is a disconnected feeling about his singing, not necessarily musical pauses, in general, not here in particular. He brings out some flash of excellence, but a thread is missing for an average listener.

[sreebeecane]

An ignorant rasika's two cents: the concert was boring.

I love Bade Dagar Ustad's rudraveena. I find TMK's viLambakaalam boring.
I don't care for concert structure. I find TMK's unimaginative lack of concert structure boring.
I don't think khanjira and ghatam are instruments for accompanying ativiLambam.

Sahana was beautiful and so were the swarams.

There is beauty in madhyamakalam be it the GNB variety or the Ramnad variety. There is beauty in ativiLambam of the MDR variety. Balance is essential.

[kvchellappa]

I am happy there is another voice about this vilambakalam. To sit through a non-concert with only vilambakalam is a great ascetic exercise.

[sreebeecane]

I am happy there is another voice about this vilambakalam. To sit through a non-concert with only vilambakalam is a great ascetic exercise.

It is precisely the combination you have mentioned. A non-concert with I-don't-know-what-is-going-on viLambakalam.

I am an avid listener of Dhrupad and a big bhakta of Nikhil Banerjee and Asad Ali Khan. The music is mostly the equivalent of our ativiLambam. However, there is never a dull moment. Of late, it is mostly dull with TMK.

I wonder what happened to this TMK.

[ram1999]

Interesting that RSK is facing TMK though the seating is for him to face the audience. I think the traditional seating is with a purpose. How is absence of mrdangam? Is it better than 'curated' mrdangam?
Somehow I feel there is a disconnected feeling about his singing, not necessarily musical pauses, in general, not here in particular. He brings out some flash of excellence, but a thread is missing for an average listener.

In this concert there is no mridangam. After a few concerts, there wouldnt be any audience

[ram1999]

the music sounds very artifical. sruti lapses in quite a number of places. the actions are more than the music. vilambakalam is rather difficult to sing and keep that consistent slow pace. overall, couldnt listen for more than a 5 mins of kiravani. mind started exploring the renditions of the same kiravani of Vairamangalam, KVN and MDR !!

[ram1999]

the live commentary provided above is as vague / disoriented as Krishna's music. I guess it ought to be like that

krishna's new experimentation perhaps to stop the exodus during thaniavarthanam - remove mridangam accompaniment

[shankarank]

I did not quite record my impressions on the concert. Whether it is sedate or well paced is too late a question, when TMK has for long declared his ideas about presentation formats. But overall, the concert focused on aesthetics as he sees it.

But there are few things. In entuku peddala, vEda SAStra tatvArthamulu telisi - tatvArthamulu nicely went over the Arudhi. Some times people pause before it with tatva, and resume it with arthamulu. However, in jayanta sEnA , for the second line manasArAga sE - vinceda rAma, the sEvincada was split. If that AAS pattern exists throughout the song, a short pause after manasAraga and singing sEvinceda with the kArvai going over the Arudhi , would be an improvement in the "art" music.

One more.. In kaligiyunTE , I had discussed in the Bhakti thread how MDR handled kalini(y)ingitam(e)rugaka ninn(A)DukoNTi in his 60s MA concert with LGJ and Coimbatore RamasvAmi Pillai. He would pause more on ingita. Take meru towards Arudhi and go over it in one shot. It could be further improved with more pauses at ingita. meru could be an atItam on the arudhi. And there is enough space left to take ninnAdu konTi with ninnA taken as atitam on the second dRtam. And a sangati odukkam can be done second round, with nin going over the start of the dRtam - pallavi AAS style.

This will put Mridangists on a pause to do a tension filled poetry and the second line would flow as composed , with Mridangists transitioning to saukya naDai. So it is not really about whether they are there in the concert and replaced by kanjira / ghatam - the latter can do the same!

To do the same AAS as the second line on the first line to feel the symmetry is less total music than the suggested one. So musical reasons cannot be used to justify this - even ignoring sAhitya prerogatives.

Even if that was not be for the sake of sAhitya ( his pet theories/notions) , for art's sake this can be done! For TMK has acknowledged that the sound of syllables have musical aesthetics embedded in them , but then why not their position relative to the tALa kriyAs?

For a person who swears by "art" music, somehow these things escape the attention!

[shankarank]

Further discussion resumes at : viewtopic.php?f=8&t=17780&p=326533#p326533

[Sachi_R]

for the second line manasArAga sE - vinceda rAma, the sEvincada was split. If that AAS pattern exists throughout the song, a short pause after manasAraga and singing sEvinceda with the kArvai going over the Arudhi , would be an improvement in the "art" music.

Shankarank, if you re making the point I think you're, I would add my observation that many vocalists, singing songs not in their mother tongue, are often splitting words for the musical/laya/breath intake effect, causing grief to those who are tuned into the lyrics.
For example, if I am singing Ramakathasudha, the place to break is between ramakatha and sudha. If I break as rama kathasudha, the natural flow of meaning is split.

Another example would be
kanDu-dhanyanAde and not kanDudhanya-nAde.

TMK leads in making such wrong splits, especially when he is on a manodharma swing.

Talking of which, sometimes his expansive and gesticulating style of manodharma looks quite put on. I mean I see a deliberateness in the exaggerated style (unlike in say MDR). In the process, some very evocative, and emotive, lines of lyrics are delivered with such a drawl and left-right bat swing that I feel he is almost caricaturing the sahitya and disrespecting the composer's sentiment.
In Sharade Karunanidhe, the word Karunanidhe is the one word of direct appeal to the Devi by the lyricist. If I drawl and overdo the bat swing, to me that's disrespectful.

Your thoughts?
And sorry, if the thread has shifted etc. pardon a geriatric's lack of adroitness that prevents such thread-bheda.