Is carnatic going towards sheet music?

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ganesh_mourthy
Posts: 1372
Joined: 02 Sep 2007, 23:08

Is carnatic going towards sheet music?

Post by ganesh_mourthy »

From the time I started learnign carnatic music , manodharma was an erudite term to me.
I was told that musicians would sing or play new imaginative musical phrases.

But it took me a while to understand that it is not completely so , but a cut and paste and juggle of what had been practiced and done several times earlier. Nevertheless, it is can get challenging at times, though not always, for a seasoned musician unless one tries somethign complicated which is not always the case.

But in the recent times we saw musicians bringing notebooks and laptops and ipads for lyrics. |With some musicians it is a regular scene .

Tangentially , this is where I used to admire Sanjay. Nagai once recalled that for a US tour he never did repeat a song throughout the tour. Strictly speaking of pains taken , this is indeed commendable and we have to appreciate the effort put.


Unfortunately , I watched a video of Sudha in which she was peeping at her notes for a few second alapana , and for a raga as popular as Abheri.

I appreciate that it is not for the regular audience and she wanted to sing some few selected phrases. However , that is so very possible both in a real manodharma sense or even to rut memorize and deliver.( this is a minimal effort expected of a professional musician) This particular way of singing takes away the manodharma merit of CM even if she is doing it for whatever practical reasons. I am not cutting any slack here particularly.

I have heard that MLV used to rehearse fresh pallavis on her way to the concert along with comusicians ( as told by Sudha hereself). That was her vidwat .

I wish not to see an appocalypse of manodharma CM where artistes would stare at a sheet of paper for mangalam. ( I have seen a couple of artists singing Varnams like that)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5a3pthL_tU

srikant1987
Posts: 2246
Joined: 10 Jun 2007, 12:23

Re: Is carnatic going towards sheet music?

Post by srikant1987 »

That's an interesting video. This was probably done to nicely fit into so many minutes. It's probably easier to put a sketch in less than 2 minutes or say 8-10+ minutes of alapanai, but a specific length in between would require planning. It can still be memorized though.

ganesh_mourthy
Posts: 1372
Joined: 02 Sep 2007, 23:08

Re: Is carnatic going towards sheet music?

Post by ganesh_mourthy »

I agree with you. But I think there was nothing extraordinary in that few seconds but the usual key phrases. It is OK for young students who get a chance out of the blue such as in school annual programs. As far as Sudha, she could have held it in her hand instead of on-the-sly glance. That was awkward. She was looking at it line by line.

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

Re: Is carnatic going towards sheet music?

Post by shankarank »

ganesh_mourthy wrote:This particular way of singing takes away the manodharma merit of CM even if she is doing it for whatever practical reasons. I am not cutting any slack here particularly.
If manodharma is not the stated objective of that sadas - then why bother pondering over this? I don't think this is going to be the norm just because she did it there - and lot of current up-comers know it better it seems.

We don't know under what limitations this generation ( of Sudha's time) of musicians operated.. This generation came up during the Indian identity crisis with India entering the globalization era - musicians grappling with lot of changes around them just like everybody else..

One musician who has reflected on this - i.e. about the quality of music - is blaming an entire culture for it!

A personal friend of mine had mentioned how much Vid. Sudha has served the call of music - by travelling by public transport buses ( I know people will say this was a normal thing even in 90s - but musicians who bring happiness to so many people ?? as recently as 90s??) to remote locations in Karnataka - singing in all kinds of settings etc. That kind of also explains why the hall is more full than all other musicians still - may be not in Chennai - certainly elsewhere!

Lets cherish her service.

Yeah we who find faults with Musiri and SSI to this day - why will we not with Sudha?

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