The very first time I heard this raga...

[sureshvv]

IIRC, the Academy used to have a prize for systematic raga alapana and Ashok Ramani won that prize in the mid 90s. Not sure when they discontinued it.

[sureshvv]

The first and ONLY time I have heard an alapana of Amirtha Behag was from Sriranjani Santhanagopalan at Raga Sudha hall, may be 2014 or 2015. It was sung as submain and bowled me over and converted me to a Rasika For Life (RFL ).

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=24304

I am not sure if I have ever heard a recording of an alapana of this raga either - there was a radio program of Sriram Parasuram that may have had it (along with Hiranmayeem Lakshmeem).

[Sachi_R]

I feel the leisurely and elaborate detailing of a raga in an alapana requires the mindset of a boatman fording his craft in a vast and calm body of water. That's why you have those "Maanjhi" songs.
Most musicians in most concerts these days are Metro bus drivers. Too much happening for them to do anything as elaborate or as structured.

[ajaysimha]

the very first time when i heard alapanai of jothiswarupini ragam
i felt it sounded like nattai ragam + shanmukhapriya ragam
both of which were repeating in tandem

[sureshvv]

the very first time when i heard alapanai of jothiswarupini ragam
i felt it sounded like nattai ragam + shanmukhapriya ragam
both of which were repeating in tandem

Make sense. Chalanattai purvangam & Shanmugapriya uttarangam.

[vasanthakokilam]

There was a thread on Natabhairavi along these lines before.

And I think we have discussed this piece by SSI in that context.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLuQIAjWH74

The conclusion was, it is wrongly labeled as Bhairavi but it is Natabhairavi.

I can't sense much commonality between this and Vallidevasenapathe

[vasanthakokilam]

nAtakapriyA does that for me. Its two personalities Thodi and karaharapriya have not fused in my mind into its own identity. A nAtakapriyA alapana sounds like a raga malika alapana to me
But it is easy to identify the raga. If it sounds like both Thodi and KHP it is Natakapriya!!

That 'fusion' is in its nascent stages for me. Occasionally, when they switch from one personality to another quickly, there is a different aesthetic which is what I am constructing in my mind as Natakapriya's personality. That is happening with the opening line of 'Idi samayamu'. That opening line itself starts like KHP and ends a bit like Thodi for me but over time the fused personality is starting to happen.

[shankarank]

I've never been able to get a handle on this raga,

Natabhairavi belongs to the nagaswaram. Listen to Karukurichi. Probably can find it on Sangeethapriya.

If you can't get a handle then, you don't know music.

Well I hit what may be a bad recording and I found a new flavor in it, the way he (or one of the machines in copy chain!) was streching it upwards: dharbari kAnaDa - could hear marudamalai in it - since it was from the time I didn't know [being safe] what I know as music today

[RSR]

The very first time when I heard a nagaswaram rendering of SriValliDevasenapathe , I felt that it was a shanmugapriya song. Even today, I feel that the nearest to Natabairavi song is shanmugapriya.
A passgae in an article in TheHindu has shown me why.
The 20th melakarta ragam of the Carnatic genre Natabhairavi finds its counterpart in Asaavari, the sixth thaat (parent raga) in Hindustani music scheme. Occurring in the second place in the Veda chakram (fourth corresponding to chaturveda), the Natabhairavi in the Muthuswami Dikshitar school was referred to as Nariritigowla (which was classified as asampoorna melakarta). It corresponds to the natural minor scale of the western music system. Like all parent ragas, it carries the sapthaswara in the following mode: shadjam (sa), chathusruti rishabam (ri2), sadharana gandharam (ga2), shuddha madhyamam (ma1), shuddha daivatam (dha1) and kaisika nishadam (ni2) and of course Sa. Despite its placement in the melakarta chart and uniformly spaced out swara sthanams, Natabhairavi hardly finds a place of import in concert singing as a center-piece unlike its prati madhyama (ma2) equivalent Shanmukhapriya (56 melakarta). The ragam as such evokes grandeur and devotion.
=====================================================
I would have said the same thing by following the simpler HM notation as follows.
Natabairavi ----------(->) S R2 G1 M1 P D1 N1 S ............(<-) S N1 D1 P M1 G1 R2 S
Shanmugapriya .....................(-->)S R2 G1 M2 P D1 N1 S ...........(<---) S N1 D1 P M2 G1 R2 S
-----------------------

[sureshvv]

I feel the leisurely and elaborate detailing of a raga in an alapana requires the mindset of a boatman fording his craft in a vast and calm body of water. That's why you have those "Maanjhi" songs.

Did you mean maajhi? As in O maajhi re? Or "Maanjhi" as in Varugalaamo?

[Sachi_R]

Suresh
The actual Hindi word for a boatman is माँझी which is written in English as Maanjhi. There is a nasal element after Maa.

The Carnatic Manji is as far as I know the soft ja.

[SrinathK]

Does anyone have the actual Sanskrit spellings of ragas? Not sure if there are any ragas out there with non-Sanskrit names.

[Sachi_R]

Srinath,
The Sangita Sampradaya Pradarshini copy I have has names of ragas in Samskrita.

[shankarank]

RTP in Natabhairavi by Vid. TRS!

His pallavi sAhitya, unless I use my definition of "sAhitya" and ignore what it means ( well meaning is not eliminated - but waits for vyAkya by authoritative vidvans) , it is poignant:

sa-ri-ga-ma-pa-da-ni-sa pADuVOm ...

He says lets sing the 7 notes! That says it all

Well on a serious note - may be why musicians even turn tyAgaraja's sapta svaramulai in mOkshamu to sa-ri-ga-ma-pa-da-ni svaramulai.

They are so inspired by it's svaras!

[sureshvv]

The very first time I heard an alapana of Sarasangi, I found it hard to tell it apart from Charukesi. I still find some renditions too close for comfort. Some artistes are able to keep this distinction very clear.

[sureshvv]

nAtakapriyA does that for me. Its two personalities Thodi and karaharapriya have not fused in my mind into its own identity. A nAtakapriyA alapana sounds like a raga malika alapana to me
But it is easy to identify the raga. If it sounds like both Thodi and KHP it is Natakapriya!!

In a way Natabhairavi is also such a mix (reverse) but has developed its own identity. At least for some

[Ranganayaki]

There was a thread on Natabhairavi along these lines before.

And I think we have discussed this piece by SSI in that context.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLuQIAjWH74

The conclusion was, it is wrongly labeled as Bhairavi but it is Natabhairavi.

I can't sense much commonality between this and Vallidevasenapathe

I just heard this recording. It is Bhairavi and not Natabhairavi. It’s very unclear, but there are definitely two daivatas, as in Bhairavi, though the preponderant one is the shuddha daivata as in Natabhairavi. But there are a couple of occurances where you hear the chatusruti daivata (one is at 4:20) - if I’m wrong please do correct me.

I tried another recording by Chembai on YouTube, and it follows the same Bhairavi pattern, not Natabhairavi. However the KrithiBook app classifies it under Kharaharapriya, and these two recordings don’t seem to follow that. The shuddha daivata in the descent is very clear.

[uday_shankar]

It is Bhairavi and not Natabhairavi.

Wrong. It is Natabhairavi. This is the "old" Natabhairavi, and chetulara is sung by people like SRJ too in Natabhairavi and SRJ has clearly shown, in his inimitable way, that certain pidis can only fall within the gambit of natabhairavi. Any chatushruti dhaivata that was "heard" is of no consequence. CM is full of wrong "heard" notes, both due to the nature of its gamakas as well as the sloppiness of its performers.

In any case the flow of the sangatis both in poorvanga and uttaranga is a distance from Bhairavi.

Once you listen to the Natabhairavi version of the kriti, it becomes clear why the Bhairavi version (as in the version sung by Chembai, which pops up next on Youtube) sounds like such a weak oddball version of the great raga of Bhairavi, totally out of character of Tyagaraja who's grip on Bhairavi was profound.

[SrinathK]

@Ranganayaki , Semmangudi mama's version is all naTabhairavi - he did not sing it in bhairavi. The bhairavi version blindly replaced all the ascending D1s with D2s (even where we should use D1 in bhairavi!). But if you look closely, it doesn't use any of the trademark bhairavi phrases and treats some notes differently as well. Lots of unusual plain notes.

The sangatis are also too linear. This unusual treatment is what we expect for a sampUrna rAga than a raga like bhairavi. Actual bhairavi kritis like upachAramulanu or koluvaiyunnADe or EnATi nOmu phalamo are quite different in their phrasing.

In fact I'd go on to say that the "bhairavi" version of chEtulAra is not even bhairavi at all, it's mAnji through and through!! That RNS,-R alone would have told me. This is one of the best examples to show the difference between mAnji and bhairavi. When I come to mAnji and naTabhairavi on the ragas page, I swear I will absolutely put both versions of this song under both of them and not bhairavi!

That itself ought to tell you that this is actually supposed to be in naTabhairavi.

[shankarank]

Now that you said mAnji, that makes more sense than naTabhairavi. Why insist on the latter? It violates the basic rAgA principles pre-carnatic!

So is SSI the king of two rAgAs? Karaharapriya and naTabhairavi - that no one else can grasp?

Again not saying that this is exactly same as mAnji - but if naTabhairavi is being proposed in the spirit of rAgAnga rAgA system, I have no problem with it.

In fact that falls within Sri SRJ's convictions in his own 72 mELA rAgA mAlika exposition, where he brightens up whenever he explains the asampooRNA rAgA equivalent of each.

But then can it maintain its own rAgA sense? The way the gamakas on ni are handled, that is not possible in a rAgA that we call sampooRNA, without giving primacy to ga - which is probably why they defined the bhairavi's krama as sa-ga-ri-ga!

Implied samvAditva of the gamakaws!! - Updated research by Mr M Subramaniam at musicresearch.in.

Not that an occassional sa-ri-ga-ma will destroy bhairavi - yeah people will say the musician sang karaharapriya.
There is an inside story of an YACM vidvan saying that to an ardent rasika of a senior vidvan of yester year for a bhairavi AlApana, when the tape was being played - bhairavi sung like karaharapriya. Hint: That senior vidvan was a dikshitar heavy vidvan

And there is another genius vidvan who conversed with his Gen-1 genius vidvan about bEgaDA being sung as sa-ri-ga . The younger one quipped : bEgaDa sari gA ( sing bEgaDa properly!).

yEan Brindaamma kannaDala sa-ri-ga-ma pAdalayO - SankarAbaraNam ayiduccha? Didn't Brindaamma not sing kannADA as sa-ri-ga-ma? Did it sound like SankarAbaraNam?

But does this krama really matter that much in execution. If we are basing the identity of rAgAs on krama, god help us.

Of course music can be created in the tune called naTabhairavi of today:

https://www.parrikar.org/music/sivan/sr ... ivalli.mp3

( By the way the links in rAgas forum for naTAbhairavi - the sawf link is obsolete : https://www.parrikar.org/carnatic/sivan/) - I will link this post there!

How do I measure the music in it? I haven't heard or in the habit of hearing Sri S. Rajam that much even in recording. You could say , "the very first time in my life" , I am hearing him . sangItam - how much a kilO? type approach!!

From third sangati on in pallavi - atIta takes over. Second line SrI subrahmaNyA namOstutE is taken off beat. kriyAlingana dOSham cured. This doesn't sound like being done to catch a breath. dEvata sArvabouma - the dhIRgas of both words exploited to the hilt. Jaya Jaya (hrasva) is pushed to the end to become an adjective to the next line : dviSHaDbhuja kArtikEya. The violinist did not get it right the second time. And dhIrgAs there are utilized to the hilt - and in the second sangati "kARti" goes over the arudi (saSabdakriyA) and he descends with "kEyA" and "mEYA" to samam!

layam unDORkku (jaya ) jayam unDU! Laya wins always! But all of this is lost due to linguistic/lyrical chauvinism - I consciously avoid the term language which is much more larger. Linguistics is a colonial project and lyrics is a post colonial offshoot of that. Survivor bias from the literacy drive!

And I am yet to hear the next two caraNams , as I could not breathe ( like the rookie MA Secretary who could not after playing kiTTappa in a Lec Dem!)

inda mAdiri sangItam kETTava ellAm innum usirOdatAn irukkOm ( we people who have listened like this are still alive)!

ennamO pEsikiTTE poyiTTirukEEka?! ( An expression that reads - what?! you guys keep talking non-stop on this one?)

Don't try to pull a fast one on us!

[Ranganayaki]

Uday Shankar,

I’m paying attention. I agree with you and Srinathk that it sounds absolutely nothing like Bhairavi. If I said it was Bhairavi, i did not mention in my post that it was a very uncomfortable and ugly Bhairavi (not because of the singing style but because of the sangati structures). It was my faith in SSI that he would not introduce a blatantly wrong note.

But no gamaka in natabhairavi should lead you to think it is a d2. So I could not believe that he could be so “sloppy,” to borrow your epithet.

So yes, regarding raga swarupa, it doesn’t in the least sound like Bhairavi in the rest of the song. Nothing else in that rendering would have led me to think it was Bhairavi, if the d2 hadn’t been there.

So I’m more than willing and much happier to believe you when you both say it’s not Bhairavi.

But I’m feeling annoyed at SSI for the d2 if he didn’t intend it, it IS so careless of him, and I’m SO glad you called out the sloppy singing prevalent in cm even today.

And I should have stuck to ragaswarupa as my criterion and not just the presence of an odd and uncharacteristic swara here and there. But I tend to fall into that trap.

[shankarank]

அட என்னம்மா இப்பிடி விட்டு குடுத்துட்டீங்க? செம்மங்குடி மாமா சிஷ்ய கோடி என்னமோ அவர் பைரவியே சுத்த தைவதமாத்தான் மேலயே ஏறுவாருன்னு சொன்னாரு !

அப்ப பைரவியையும் சொதப்பிட்டாருன்னு சொல்றிங்களா ? ஒருவேளை பைரவி என்னமோ நடபைரவி ஜன்யம்முனு நடபைரவி மாதிரி பாடினாரோ?

அந்த காணொளி இப்ப எடுத்துட்டாங்க ! ஆனா காப்பி இருக்குது!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tuWsN5 ... e=youtu.be

What? You gave up your argument in a huff? Semmangudi mAmA's one SiShya kOTi gave a lec dem only recently to demonstrate how he navigates bhairavi up with only Suddha daivata?

So he did a sloppy bhairavi as well? Or since bhairavi being a janya of naTAbhairavi , he wanted to sing the former like the latter?

The video has been removed. Some of us kept a private copy however.

[Ranganayaki]

அட என்னம்மா இப்பிடி விட்டு குடுத்துட்டீங்க? செம்மங்குடி மாமா சிஷ்ய கோடி என்னமோ அவர் பைரவியே சுத்த தைவதமாத்தான் மேலயே ஏறுவாருன்னு சொன்னாரு !

அப்ப பைரவியையும் சொதப்பிட்டாருன்னு சொல்றிங்களா ? ஒருவேளை பைரவி என்னமோ நடபைரவி ஜன்யம்முனு நடபைரவி மாதிரி பாடினாரோ?

அந்த காணொளி இப்ப எடுத்துட்டாங்க ! ஆனா காப்பி இருக்குது!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tuWsN5 ... e=youtu.be

What? You gave up your argument in a huff? Semmangudi mAmA's one SiShya kOTi gave a lec dem only recently to demonstrate how he navigates bhairavi up with only Suddha daivata?

So he did a sloppy bhairavi as well? Or since bhairavi being a janya of naTAbhairavi , he wanted to sing the former like the latter?

The video has been removed. Some of us kept a private copy however.

Did you use Google Translate for your own words? Your first sentence in English doesn’t correspond to the Tamil one.. I would translate that as “What! You conceded so easily!”

Why not? My thought was that a raga certainly is more than a scale. While this video seems to follow the structure of Bhairavi , it totally lacks the personality, the flavor of the raga.

Your comment about SSI going up the scale w Shuddha daivata doesn’t work here, coz what I heard was an ascent up the scale using a chatusruti daivata.

[shankarank]

Your comment about SSI going up the scale w Shuddha daivata doesn’t work here, coz what I heard was an ascent up the scale using a chatusruti daivata.

Well, he was doing that (use D1 in the ascent) in bhairavi as per the Lec Dem. And according to you he used D2 in naTabhairavi - the reverse. So my question was did he mess up bhairavi as well?

[SrinathK]

Uday Shankar,

I’m paying attention. I agree with you and Srinathk that it sounds absolutely nothing like Bhairavi. If I said it was Bhairavi, i did not mention in my post that it was a very uncomfortable and ugly Bhairavi (not because of the singing style but because of the sangati structures). It was my faith in SSI that he would not introduce a blatantly wrong note.

But no gamaka in natabhairavi should lead you to think it is a d2. So I could not believe that he could be so “sloppy,” to borrow your epithet.

So yes, regarding raga swarupa, it doesn’t in the least sound like Bhairavi in the rest of the song. Nothing else in that rendering would have led me to think it was Bhairavi, if the d2 hadn’t been there.

So I’m more than willing and much happier to believe you when you both say it’s not Bhairavi.

But I’m feeling annoyed at SSI for the d2 if he didn’t intend it, it IS so careless of him, and I’m SO glad you called out the sloppy singing prevalent in cm even today.

And I should have stuck to ragaswarupa as my criterion and not just the presence of an odd and uncharacteristic swara here and there. But I tend to fall into that trap.

Semmangudi was probably well over 80 when he sang this. But I heard that recording twice over and didn't hear a D2 anywhere.

Actually the sangatis of chEtulArA are a perfect fit for kharaharapriya if you replace every single D1 with D2, and this seems to have been a matter of dispute even as far back as 1910, before the arAdhana existed. To my knowledge, the trinity never composed in naTabhairavi itself - there was nAri reetigauLa, but it was HMB and Papanasam Sivan who started using it.

So what we have is a Kharaharapriya canditate, that turned into naTabhairavi and is now sung in mAnji while everyone thinks the raga is bhairavi!! Confused enough?

[uday_shankar]

Semmangudi was probably well over 80 when he sang this. But I heard that recording twice over and didn't hear a D2 anywhere.

Not at all. I have an intimate knowledge of how Semmangudi sang at 80. This recording was in his prime, to be precise 1962-66. The violinist is most likely Tiruvalangadu Sundaresa Iyer in his last days (from the way he's playing) who left the world in 1966. That should give an idea of the time frame. The mridangist is probaby Vellore Ramabhadran.

I agree there's no D2 per se anywhere, although the "sound" or swara of D2 is there when N2 is articulated in a phrase in anupallavi "sētu bandhana sura pati etc" as S N2 R2 etc. That N2 certainly has the "sound" of D2.

Here it is at 3:38:

https://youtu.be/zLuQIAjWH74?t=217

Again in the charanam "sura taru sumamula", the highlighted phrase is articulated as the "sound" or swara of D2, athough the swara is of course N2.

Here it is at 7:13:
https://youtu.be/zLuQIAjWH74?t=429

If you just hear the sound of the recording, as from a distance you sometimes listen to nagasvaram wafting through the air, without actually following the melody, but hearing snatches of phrases and sounds, you could catch a D2 at these places.

[shankarank]

Part of the discussion happened there as well. viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1381&p=348006#p348006

If it needs to be a better Manji - let it be!
If it needs to be a better Bhairavi - let it be!
If it needs to be an all new karaharapriya - let it be!
Lets work for it!
what it cannot be is some old and lost for ever naTabhairavi!
if you want a multi rAgA feeling - there is kaRnATaka kApi
Another 10 year challenge for carnatic musicians!

[Ranganayaki]

[

Semmangudi was probably well over 80 when he sang this. But I heard that recording twice over and didn't hear a D2 anywhere.

I don’t think he is that old in this recording. I am not able to shake off the feeling that I do hear a d2, but I could be mistaken.

So what we have is a Kharaharapriya canditate, that turned into naTabhairavi and is now sung in mAnji while everyone thinks the raga is bhairavi!! Confused enough?

This is not confusing, makes sense.

But I’m just going to take your word for it, the recording is too poor and my ears could be playing tricks on me.

[Ranganayaki]

I agree there's no D2 per se anywhere, although the "sound" or swara of D2 is there when N2 is articulated in a phrase in anupallavi "sētu bandhana sura pati etc" as S N2 R2 etc. That N2 certainly has the "sound" of D2.

Here it is at 3:38:

https://youtu.be/zLuQIAjWH74?t=217

I’m not sure I agree. I don’t quite hear a D there. On the other hand, I hear it as S N G R - but the recording is too cacaphonous.

Again in the charanam "sura taru sumamula", the highlighted phrase is articulated as the "sound" or swara of D2, athough the swara is of course N2.

Here it is at 7:13:
https://youtu.be/zLuQIAjWH74?t=429

Here too I disagree in my experience: Su-Ra-Ta-Ru at that spot sounds like N-D-N-S with a D1, very clear to me, and in the very next iteration it sounds like P-D-N-S with a D1 too. These two are quite clear to me.

More than anything I wonder why I didn’t notice these occurances in the first place.

All this said, i am still unable to tell that it’s a D1 in the spot I mentioned. But given all these other spots where it is clear (to me), you must be right. I don’t like the singing in this video, but may be it’s just the quality of the recording.

[shankarank]

May be something as explained here happened. He moved and the speakers (stereo effect) or something did the trick! The svara also moved! Violin accompanists beware - he knows how to play it!

https://youtu.be/PZauqBzlGzg?t=4567

[shankarank]

Of course music can be created in the tune called naTabhairavi of today:

https://www.parrikar.org/music/sivan/sr ... ivalli.mp3

( By the way the links in rAgas forum for naTAbhairavi - the sawf link is obsolete : https://www.parrikar.org/carnatic/sivan/) - I will link this post there!

How do I measure the music in it? I haven't heard or in the habit of hearing Sri S. Rajam that much even in recording. You could say , "the very first time in my life" , I am hearing him . sangItam - how much a kilO? type approach!!

From third sangati on in pallavi - atIta takes over. Second line SrI subrahmaNyA namOstutE is taken off beat. kriyAlingana dOSham cured. This doesn't sound like being done to catch a breath. dEvata sArvabouma - the dhIRgas of both words exploited to the hilt. Jaya Jaya (hrasva) is pushed to the end to become an adjective to the next line : dviSHaDbhuja kArtikEya. The violinist did not get it right the second time. And dhIrgAs there are utilized to the hilt - and in the second sangati "kARti" goes over the arudi (saSabdakriyA) and he descends with "kEyA" and "mEYA" to samam!

I seriously, truly, promise to God, did not know or realize that it is his ( SrI S Rajam's) centenary coming up on Feb 10th, 2019. He was born in Madurai it seems! From Sanjay's and rookie MA Sec. twitter line got to know there is a concert scheduled in memory of his in NGS!!

What a timing? Centenaries are good to catch up with musicians whom we might have missed all life!!

[Pratyaksham Bala]

Does anyone have the actual Sanskrit spellings of ragas? Not sure if there are any ragas out there with non-Sanskrit names.

Hope you have checked this:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... nagari.png

[shankarank]

Except that none of them are real rAgAs

[ganesh_mourthy]

May be something as explained here happened. He moved and the speakers (stereo effect) or something did the trick! The svara also moved! Violin accompanists beware - he knows how to play it!

https://youtu.be/PZauqBzlGzg?t=4567

Ah I did not know my Guru could be so eloquent interlaced with humour. He does impart us with regular titbits in a jovial way during the learning session. Thoroughly enjoyed. Thank you shankarank and thank you youtube . It is a repository of surprises.

GM .