WESTERN MUSIC BY SRI M.S.GOPALAKRISHNAN

[S.NAGESWARAN]

Dear Rasikas,
I am spending my time happily with my second son, daughter in law, and the two grand children Anirudh and Ashridh along with my wife at Pune from 17th August.

In contrast to the hot and sultry whether at Chennai, at Pune, it is cold with the intermittent rains all through the day every day.

As usual I am carrying Sri M.S.Gopalakrishnan's music in my heart and his music in my hard disks.

In one of his Europe tour during 1990, he had played violin solos in many cities in Europe.
He had played an excellent concert aboard a ship. At the fag end of the concert, one of the westerner
wanted to know whether he can play a western music impromptu.
He composed a music and played the music to the western audience in the ship.
The entire audience applauded for the excellent western music.

The download link of the western music is given below [Courtesy Sri Sachi].

http://bit.ly/MSGKVMP3
https://www.dropbox.com/s/pkvpaihoa4jno ... N.mp3?dl=0

I hope that all the Rasikas will enjoy the music.

S.NAGESWARAN.
02.09.2014.

[Nick H]

Do you know who the mridangist is?

[S.NAGESWARAN]

I will check up my master collection when I RETURN TO Chennai in the 2nd week of September and post the answer your quarry if details are available.

Did you enjoy the western music??.

S.NAGESWARAN.
03.09.2014.

[Rsachi]

Mr Nageswaran
This is a very melodious composition. It has the typical MSG mastery of tonality. To me it does not sound so much western as a 'tune' to which one can fit a refrain perhaps in Hindi..it sounds very much like a bhajan!
I can visualize these words, too!
"Hari ka bhajan karo re Mana"
The mridangam sounds to me like the classic modulated sarvalaghu master strokes of Vellore Ramabhadran.

I did not hear the pitch and roll of any ship, perhaps the music was performed in the grand ball room of a cruise ship and the ship was moving rather gently and slowly in deep sea...

[Nick H]

If this is a "Western Note" then all I can say is it is a great deal better than what we usually hear under the name English Note!

It is a beautiful piece of music.

I can't say if it really is "Western," I don't know. Experts please answer: what makes it Western? The relative lack of gamaka? The scale? The structure?

[vasanthakokilam]

>what makes it Western?
From what I understand, as a first level of approximation, it boils down to a few things.

Primary: Polyphony
Secondary: Notes tend to jump around a bit more than Indian music ( approx generalization with a lot of exceptions )
Secondary: The proportion and admixture of long and short notes are different, providing for a different dynamic feel.
Secondary: Gamakas are not as primary as indian music, but they are there but executed differently and hence sound different ( glissando, equivalent of our Meend), vibratro ( pulsing change in pitch ), tremelo ( pulsing change in volume ) and the one we discussed a while back, Appoggiatura and a lot more

[eesha]

A "more western" item by MSG is available here:

http://www.sangeethamshare.org/sridharan/999-MISC/

file: MSG - English - Note.mp3

[raghukrishnaswamy]

Hi Nageswaran Sir

Request you to kindly share the western note link again as the one mentioned are not working now.
I am a student of violin and am very interested to understand the greatness of MSG Guruji through his renderings.
if there is a sanggethapriya link to what you have mentioned that will also help.

Regards
raghu