Bani today

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ratanabhinav
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Joined: 22 Jun 2016, 22:58

Bani today

Post by ratanabhinav »

Yesteryears saw the display of banis ( or styles ) like SSI bani , GNB bani , Alathur bani , Parur bani , Lalgudi bani etc . Where is the bani today ?
Aren't all musicians singing in a similar bani ? I don't see much followers ( artistes who follow ) of these yesteryear banis today nor new banis being invented . What is up ?
The only banis alive today are TNS bani . With TNS , TNSK , Madurai Sundar , Aravind S , Kasthurirangan and Mahathi . Lalgudi bani . MSG bani .

Nick H
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Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 02:03

Re: Bani today

Post by Nick H »

How about the schools honoured and celebrated by Parampara over last couple of years?

MadhavRayaprolu
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Joined: 18 Jan 2018, 13:04

Re: Bani today

Post by MadhavRayaprolu »

We have a single YouTube bani ;) Gurus getting busier, recordings becoming more accessible - I’m sure senior students and budding professionals are learning more and more through recordings.

In some ways isn’t that true in other realms of life too? Subcultures are melting away as information is freely flowing across culture barriers. You don’t limit yourself to cooking only what your mom taught you. You google recipes or better yet, just buy whatever food you desire.

In some ways it is a good thing I guess, there is faster evolution of thought in music and other fields with free flow of information even if there is some loss of variety. The variety is coming more from stylistic preferences than who you learn from or where you live.

This also brings up interesting questions on the nature of Guru shishya relationship. Fifty years ago, Guru was the primary source of information and influence to the shishya. In today’s Information age, providing information - whether it is the rules of a raga, popular phrases, core exercises, etc is a less important role for a Guru. More important is giving 1-1 feedback, inspiring and influencing the student’s tastes, motivating them to practice etc. Would be interesting to speculate the future of music schools.

ratanabhinav
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Re: Bani today

Post by ratanabhinav »

Nick H wrote: 09 Mar 2018, 21:57 How about the schools honoured and celebrated by Parampara over last couple of years?
Parampara and bani are separate . Some musicians in PSN parampara sing like TNS , have you noticed Sunil Gargyan ?
Mudicondan - RV school is active today , a thing to be happy about , in this age when you rarely get to hear such pristine music .

thenpaanan
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Joined: 04 Feb 2010, 19:45

Re: Bani today

Post by thenpaanan »

It seems that even though it is called "bANI" the term actually refers to an individual's way of singing. Perhaps it is a natural evolution away from personal styles to something else that is yet to become discernible. For example, I don't know if people talked about bANI's before shrI ariyakuDI's rise to dominance. Perhaps we are living the (late stage) of the 'bANI era". Perhaps in the decades to come we will talk about styles that are not based on individuals but something else -- perhaps an instrumental bANI or a bANI influenced by North Indian singing (whatever it is called) or a bANI that is influenced by orchestration.

-T

arasi
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Joined: 22 Jun 2006, 09:30

Re: Bani today

Post by arasi »

Thenpaanan,
That's interesting.
I too happen to think that bANi (pANi? hand, handling) is not strictly school. It's the imprint of an individual musician--as a GNB or a Madurai Mani. On what they had imbibed, they might have resembled their fellow students in their vazhi (way)--the way in which they were taught and in which they followed their guru, but pANi (bANi) has more to do with an individual stamp of singing/playing, it seems...

arasi
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Re: Bani today

Post by arasi »

pANi--kaiyALudal (handling)??
Perhaps bANi has apt meaning too in some other language...?

Sivaramakrishnan
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Re: Bani today

Post by Sivaramakrishnan »

arasi wrote: 14 Mar 2018, 01:09 pANi--kaiyALudal (handling)??
Yes, musicologists too have clarified like this.
But seems there are subtle differences between pANi, style, school and parampara.

arasi
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Re: Bani today

Post by arasi »

Ah.
Overlapping too, I guess.

shankarank
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Re: Bani today

Post by shankarank »

OST's explanation in a Arkay lecdem closely follows this discussion. bANi: influence - not school. School is pATantaram, training methods which may independently have a foot print on the discern-ibles of the singing output! bANi is something what influences , cutting across different paramparas.

Style may be the choice of execution by the same musician over different periods of their life times. There was talk of how styles of musicians changed in their own lifetimes: Individually ARI, SSI, MSS, KVN, TNS, NSG and so on. TVR seems to have stuck to a constant style. Musiri seems to have been a constant.

KVN went from ARI style speedy to Musiri style slowness later - makes sense?

NSG was singing like TNS. TNS changed. Then NSG changed to something else altogether. The latters style is now uniquely discernible the way his daughter sings.

Even Sanjay seems to have a style - which his disciple Sandeep seems to follow!

Now TMK!! Vignesh Easwar follows now.

Style it seems is imitable :lol: bANi is something imbibed :ugeek:

Style is an English term and can be done away with - as a sampradAyic system will be tight knit of something, even with changes.

uday_shankar
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Re: Bani today

Post by uday_shankar »

shankarank wrote: 15 Mar 2018, 21:18School is pATantaram
Maybe not. Technically, the correct word is pATam. X sings a different pATam from Y, or there is a pATa antaram (aka pATAntaram) between the two. So the word is probably universally misused in common practice.

rshankar
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Re: Bani today

Post by rshankar »

So, AFAIK, pAThAntara (पाठान्तर) is a word from saMskRtam that means textual variations or versions; when the word was adopted into the tamizh language, lack of certain consonants in the script lead to the word becoming பாடாந்தரம் - pronounced as pATAntaram or pADAntaram. Based on its original meaning, I’ve always assumed that the word means a particular version of the composition in question. Different versions lead to different pAThAntaras.

uday_shankar
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Re: Bani today

Post by uday_shankar »

rshankar wrote: 15 Mar 2018, 23:47Different versions lead to different pAThAntaras.
No, different versions lead to different pAThams. Surely pAThAntara itself means different pAThams ?

If we replace the English word "different" in your sentence there's a doubling of 'antara' and it would read as:

"Different versions lead to pAThAntarAntara"

uday_shankar
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Re: Bani today

Post by uday_shankar »

On further thinking, I am converging to rshankar's point of view. While 'antara' in pAThAntara could mean difference/distance, the way the word is used in Carnatic is justified when it is understood to mean "version". So when I say my pAThAntara is different from yours, it means "my version of the pATham is different from you version of the pATham". All good. Happy to create confusion in my head and resolve it.

arasi
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Re: Bani toworday

Post by arasi »

Confession of confusion in trying to understand the impact of the word, adds charm to the discussion--as pANi to a pAThAntaram...:)

shankarank
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Joined: 15 Jun 2009, 07:16

Re: Bani today

Post by shankarank »

rshankar wrote: 15 Mar 2018, 23:47 So, AFAIK, pAThAntara (पाठान्तर) is a word from saMskRtam ....when the word was adopted into the tamizh language, lack of certain consonants in the script lead to the word becoming பாடாந்தரம் - pronounced as pATAntaram or pADAntaram. .
At least tamizh adopted it...so I could use it even mistakenly. pADal is a quite old word!

Sivaramakrishnan
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Re: Bani today

Post by Sivaramakrishnan »

Thanks shankarank, for explaining the differences among the usages. The ongoing discussion on 'Pataantara' must be an eye opener to many.

rshankar
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Re: Bani today

Post by rshankar »

Huh? Did you mean Uday Shankar?

uday_shankar
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Re: Bani today

Post by uday_shankar »

I’m not done belaboring this. I think the confusion arises due to the fuzziness between abstract and concrete nouns in a language like Sanskrit.

We have:

1. पाठम् / पाठ (pATham/pATha) – concrete noun meaning lesson etc
2. पाठान्तर (pAThAntara) – concrete noun meaning a particular recension/version of a lesson/text/kriti/etc
3. पाठान्तर (pAThAntara) – abstract noun meaning “variations in a text/lesson/manuscript”

So I propose a new word, a suggested name for an outfit engaged in the research of variations in pAThAntara:

4. पाठान्तरान्तर (pAThAntarAntara) – abstract noun meaning “differences in recensions/versions of various texts/lessons/manuscripts/etc”

Incidentally, I discovered that google translate translates the word पाठान्तर from Hindi to English as “recession”! I think they must have hired sloppy coders during a time of economic recession :p. Hopefully the next recension of google translate will fix the error :).

Now all this talk of the concrete and abstract has triggered this hopeless condundrum in my head as to whether the annual World Building Materials Research Conference sets a deadline for abstracts or concretes :P.
(PS: don’t know if such a conference exists, but if I ran such a conference I would ask for concretes, not abstracts ! Hey we’re about building materials! )

sureshvv
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Re: Bani today

Post by sureshvv »

Reminds me of another much abused word, "Methodology", used often in places where "Method" would be more appropriate.

rshankar
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Re: Bani today

Post by rshankar »

Uday, I guess “castles in the air” are built with abstract building materials by the neurotics who construct them, and the psychotics who live in them!!

shankarank
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Re: Bani today

Post by shankarank »

uday_shankar wrote: 17 Mar 2018, 19:33
Now all this talk of the concrete and abstract has triggered this hopeless condundrum in my head as to whether the annual World Building Materials Research Conference sets a deadline for abstracts or concretes :P.
(PS: don’t know if such a conference exists, but if I ran such a conference I would ask for concretes, not abstracts ! Hey we’re about building materials! )
While the invitees to a history conference were grappled with quite abstract questions of history, the twitteratti and subsequently the media did not fail to notice something concrete.. on their face.. thing

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/03/17/u ... males.html


That all of them were...

shankarank
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Re: Bani today

Post by shankarank »

rshankar wrote: 18 Mar 2018, 00:09 Uday, I guess “castles in the air” are built with abstract building materials by the neurotics who construct them, and the psychotics who live in them!!
Now you are challenging (or may be you are indeed concurring with him! ;) ) Abhinava Gupta - who challenged the concept of rasa - based on concrete emotions! And he pretty much stated, what you just said, as a valid enjoyment of an art!
Last edited by shankarank on 19 Mar 2018, 10:24, edited 1 time in total.

shankarank
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Joined: 15 Jun 2009, 07:16

Re: Bani today

Post by shankarank »

Now I don't know if a bit of an anecdote from Science is a non-musical topic - but I had heard this from the Grunding tape collector, amidst our conversations musical ;) . The good old Richard used techniques from fluid flow (not quite concrete), to beat those with techniques from concrete structures built using finite element analysis, using quite an abstraction:

https://web.archive.org/web/20090728072 ... rintable=1
By the end of that summer of 1983, Richard had completed his analysis of the behavior of the router, and much to our surprise and amusement, he presented his answer in the form of a set of partial differential equations. To a physicist this may seem natural, but to a computer designer, treating a set of boolean circuits as a continuous, differentiable system is a bit strange. Feynman's router equations were in terms of variables representing continuous quantities such as "the average number of 1 bits in a message address." I was much more accustomed to seeing analysis in terms of inductive proof and case analysis than taking the derivative of "the number of 1's" with respect to time. Our discrete analysis said we needed seven buffers per chip; Feynman's equations suggested that we only needed five. We decided to play it safe and ignore Feynman.

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