TM Krishna in New Jersey

Review the latest concerts you have listened to.
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sarangi123
Posts: 4
Joined: 10 Oct 2018, 23:11

Re: TM Krishna in New Jersey

Post by sarangi123 »

It was an amazing concert
Basavanna's dayavillada dharma yavudayya in ragamalika was moving and just heavenly. I can still hear it

but please carry on with the nonsense and hatred here

sarangi123
Posts: 4
Joined: 10 Oct 2018, 23:11

Re: TM Krishna in New Jersey

Post by sarangi123 »

and thank you appasruthi for the review.
I raved about the concert to the mother and of course couldn't name all the pieces.
I can send this link now.

shankarank
Posts: 4043
Joined: 15 Jun 2009, 07:16

Re: TM Krishna in New Jersey

Post by shankarank »

thenpaanan wrote: 25 Oct 2018, 02:35 In CM we have had Purandaradasa, .... Tyagaraja, ..., Ariyakudi, Dhanammal, GNB, MDR, Mali, BMK, etc who were all radically different from their peers in some way. Today we call them 'mArgadarshI" -- path seers (or to be more accurate path show-ers). What made them so?
The post independence generation wanted to institutionalize what was clearly a cottage industry output , just to stand up to the institutionalized ideas of Western classical! So you had a generation of "connoisseurs" getting more analytically savvy in the mold of the current state of intellection and calling out deviations.

With limited reach, these Mamas had a tight hold on what is considered "traditional" music. With SSI living long, he became a strong polar influence for people to lean on as well. And all musicians had to sail though this. To that extent TMK thesis is correct. But to me it was entirely a Western philosophical construct masked by the traditional look and feel of people like SSI ( their majestic sporting of angavastram signifying the divine rAmAyaNA and purANAS and the SAStras).

If you think my personal story is relevant , as a little boy I went to listen to the brother of VV Sadagopan ( VV Varadarajan!) singing in local Thyagaraja utsavam with my Grand Father, but that only put vague imprints. And there was a period of lull. Grand Father became inactive and his influence waned. Suddenly KJY started to be heard next door through tarangini cassettes - because the public sector kerala sopas rented the place. A little later some movie song immitator romeo of the locality ( who is the only guy in that neighbourhood who smoked - cigarettes I mean!) said Dr BMK is the real vidvan of depth and his cassettes started to being heard. At that time I haven't had real exposure to SSI brand "idudanDa samparadAya sangeetham".

So if you are not in Chennai or Bengaluru or in the right pockets in Kerala , your taste evolves differently. The first two have to do with economics. So they were building this "classical" music. So TMK thesis that, what is classical is actually what the upper sections of Society built up has some credence. Only that I think we shouldn't disparage the productive generation of workers and the BEL engineers and academics(IIT, IISC) too fast. I am told the IISC guys love R.K Srikantan so much and he sings all dikshitar concerts there. I did not even hear about him until his SK - very briefly - just the announcement - and never heard him until much later in the U.S.

Even in India, during my Chennai sojourn, music still was reaching new corners, as the IAS, IRS retirees started settling in remote Chennai like maDipaKKAM. There is a fabled SSI story of a visit to that place, where after he proclaimed that even rAMA could not have located sIta if rAvaNa had hid her there!

TMK's thesis is built on standard patterns of disparaging a successful community of people in order to steal something from them and take it elsewhere. Justification given is that the "classical" generation disparaged dhanammALs of the world and took it from them! There is some truth to the latter statement, as people remembered a senior violinist with acerbic tongue speaking in Academy morning session holding one end of his dhoti in one hand! Apparently he and another famous musician shared lessons that they took with dhanammAL, saving tuition fee!

History repeats itself if you are under the influence of European paradigms! For polemical context you can listen to this:

https://youtu.be/vnY6E9iEgPY?t=38

But to me the "classical" music so carefully constructed to stand equal to the West, using their philosophy of art, collapsed when the musicologist Dr N. Ramanathan declared that Mridangam ( figuratively, conceptually, ) is not music! That simply is a write off all investment in compositions which were wrongly thought of as rAgAs only!
Last edited by shankarank on 27 Oct 2018, 07:31, edited 1 time in total.

shankarank
Posts: 4043
Joined: 15 Jun 2009, 07:16

Re: TM Krishna in New Jersey

Post by shankarank »

shankarank wrote: 26 Oct 2018, 07:39 With limited reach, these Mamas had a tight hold on what is considered "traditional" music.
The mamas are still at it actually. See the comment by one K N Viswanathan - oh yeah - he is our fellow member forumite - KVN's son

https://www.facebook.com/hariharan.rama ... 4MzQzNzIx/

<< oh now the comment disappeared: It was to do with too many sangatis and over bhavam!! - could a facebook comment be deleted? Didn't realize that - may be restricted to friends?>>
Last edited by shankarank on 26 Oct 2018, 19:25, edited 2 times in total.

shankarank
Posts: 4043
Joined: 15 Jun 2009, 07:16

Re: TM Krishna in New Jersey

Post by shankarank »

There is one point however, that I remembered now. TMK questions the use of percussion in tAnAM. I fully agree with that , no need to make it sound like a svaraprastAra. This where we mix up form and substance. tAnAM is NOT simply the use of syllables ta-na - or Anandam. That is good for a formative introduction in a lec-dem.

A more appropriate view on that will consider the fact that tA-nA are dental syllables, somewhat easy to vocalize ( even if it was initially an imitation of vINA syllable!) and useful to do a free form flow of number patterns.

Chembai it seems used to do gugguDu Sabdam with closed mouth! Did that catch on ?

So if TMK's position is that tAnam should not be constrained by tALA, then it is a fair ask that a kriti rendition cannot be too unconstrained by it!

appasruthi
Posts: 6
Joined: 12 Oct 2018, 04:05

Re: TM Krishna in New Jersey

Post by appasruthi »

yeshprabhu wrote: 22 Oct 2018, 23:46 Regarding the Devagandhari raga kriti, Maithadavu Nandikeshwaranai, by the Tamil sufi saint, if I heard TMK correctly, he said the kriti was set to music by Sri Arun Prakash, and Arun Prakash smiled and bowed his head in acknowledgement. After the concert I talked briefly with all three artists and congratulated Arun Prakash for setting the kriti to music.

The main item of the concert was Sri Thyagaraja’s kriti Kaligiyunte in Keeravani raga. But there was neither introductory alapana, nor kalpana swaras for this main item, and only thani aavarthanam. If there was no thani aavarthanam, I would not have surmised that this was the main item of the concert. On the whole, a most unusual format for a concert from a vocalist famous for coming up with unexpected and unusual formats. The most notable thing in this concert, however, was his divine, bewitching voice that hurtled from the stage and reverberated in the hall. I have never heard him singing with so much energy and power.
Dear Yesh,
Thanks for the real review. I realized later that what I submitted should have been in the concert reports, not reviews! This was our first TMK concert. Going by what you have to say, it looks like, even by his standards, we have had a great start! I have been mentioning the energy/power in his voice to my friends interested in CM.

As you said, I could not perceive any song as being the "main" item of the concert. Did not matter to me. I was in bliss.

I'll make the correction about Kunnakudi Mastan song.

Sincerely,
Arvind

appasruthi
Posts: 6
Joined: 12 Oct 2018, 04:05

Re: TM Krishna in New Jersey

Post by appasruthi »

sarangi123 wrote: 26 Oct 2018, 03:33 and thank you appasruthi for the review.
I raved about the concert to the mother and of course couldn't name all the pieces.
I can send this link now.
You're welcome sarangi123!

kartik
Posts: 226
Joined: 06 Feb 2010, 06:25

Re: TM Krishna in New Jersey

Post by kartik »

A lot of discussion about a Sufi saints composition and of Naree Reethigowla not being the right raga etc, yet it stands that Venkata Shaila Vihara is not by Tyagaraja.

shreyas
Posts: 251
Joined: 03 Mar 2018, 13:16

Re: TM Krishna in New Jersey

Post by shreyas »

The song in question is in Ritigowla, not Nariritigowla. The video of that song is available on YouTube.

srkris
Site Admin
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Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 03:34

Re: TM Krishna in New Jersey

Post by srkris »

shankarank wrote: 26 Oct 2018, 19:14 Chembai it seems used to do gugguDu Sabdam with closed mouth! Did that catch on ?
An example of this (singing the raga with mouth closed) would be 02:15 to 04:33 in this recording -- https://youtu.be/hhhbmWfl5rk?t=120

arasi
Posts: 16774
Joined: 22 Jun 2006, 09:30

Re: TM Krishna in New Jersey

Post by arasi »

Delightful!

thanjavooran
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Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 04:44

Re: TM Krishna in New Jersey

Post by thanjavooran »

srkris wrote: 18 Jun 2019, 21:34
shankarank wrote: 26 Oct 2018, 19:14 Chembai it seems used to do gugguDu Sabdam with closed mouth! Did that catch on ?
An example of this (singing the raga with mouth closed) would be 02:15 to 04:33 in this recording -- https://youtu.be/hhhbmWfl5rk?t=120
This is a form of garam singing. This has bee discussed in a different thread earlier.
Thanjavooran
19 06 2019

srkris
Site Admin
Posts: 3497
Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 03:34

Re: TM Krishna in New Jersey

Post by srkris »

Yep that was an extremely old thread - viewtopic.php?f=2&t=25

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