R. Vedavalli

s_hari · Post by **s_hari** » 12 Oct 2008, 17:43

Prasaht / vijay - can you please help me on what's special on this pallavi or its structure?

-hari

vijay · Post by **vijay** » 12 Oct 2008, 23:39

Sorry no clue about why - my definition of knotty is when my hand gets it all wrong as they most certainly did at the Academy concert. Not sure, but I think the violinist struggled initally but made a great comeback...

prashant · Post by **prashant** » 13 Oct 2008, 09:01

s_hari wrote:Prasaht / vijay - can you please help me on what's special on this pallavi or its structure?

-hari

Not sure what you mean by special, hari. I don't think I am too qualified to comment on the technical aspects of the pallavi structure, but I can say that the pallavi ends in a makuTam [3+2, 3+2, 3+2 = 5, 5, 5] which gives it an attractive feel. Also, singing tisram in this is decidedly non-trivial. Let alone singing it, keeping tALa itself is difficult - I have tried it several times with absolutely catastrophic results

Vedavalli Amma, Smt. Charulata Ramanujam and Sri Neyveli Narayanan pulled it off with relative nonchalance. Perhaps our vidvAns Sri Balaji and Erode Sri Nagaraj could comment...

s_hari · Post by **s_hari** » 13 Oct 2008, 20:03

Prashant, Vijay - thanks for pallavi structure.. a nice one indeed.. I found a recording and listening it... She has done trikalam! I tried keeping talam and failed!! Did she sing tishram also?

Sample piece at http://www.sendspace.com/file/tj5upu

-hari

knrh05 · Post by **knrh05** » 14 Oct 2008, 02:42

The concert is available at http://www.sangeethamshare.org/sridhara ... avalli-MA/

sankirnam · Post by **sankirnam** » 14 Oct 2008, 08:58

I remember Vedavalli mami tried singing chatusratisram at some point as well

narayan · Post by **narayan** » 01 Nov 2008, 17:27

I have benefited greatly by a couple of lecdems that I attended by R.Vedavalli. In one, she cleared once and for all, the question as to why the Sri-ragam rishabham is how it is and why the Madhyamavati ri is how it is and all such matters. But one more that I attended, on neraval, makes me agree with bala747. She has some strong opinions, for sure!

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 01 Nov 2008, 23:25

In one, she cleared once and for all, the question as to why the Sri-ragam rishabham is how it is and why the Madhyamavati ri is how it is and all such matters.

Narayan, can you write about what she said on these matters? What are the differences on Ri and why they are so. Thanks.

narayan · Post by **narayan** » 18 Dec 2008, 10:34

Sorry for the late reply, but since the character of Madhyamavati and Sri-ragam have presumably not changed in the interim, perhaps it is still worth saying. What Vedavalli said was that gamakams often reflect a continuum of what is there and what is not there in the raga. This is my extrapolated take on the subject, but basically, in Madhyamavati, the gandharam is not present, so the ri is shaken softly but insistently to reflect that. Sri-ragam on the other hand has the gandharam and there is no need in a sense to have the rishabham touch it at all. Hence the flat ri, which is so striking and characteristic of Sri. In contrast, the softly oscillating ri is equally characteristic of Madhyamavati and in fact is one of those swarams on which one can dwell at length without it palling, as in the Dharmasamvardhani opening sequence. Same goes for Suddha Saveri-Suddha Bangala.

In other contrast, this same theory applies to why the Sankarabharanam gandharam is flat whereas the Kalyani gandharam is usually sung 'seeking' the absent suddha madhyamam. Ditto for the flat dha in Kambhoji contrasted with the shaken (but not stirred) dha in Sankarabharanam. Etc. Etc.

Narayan

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 18 Dec 2008, 13:09

> Ditto for the flat dha in Kambhoji contrasted with the shaken (but not stirred) dha in Sankarabharana
Perhaps this contrast applies more to harikambhoji rather than sankarabharanam? I mean since in the former d2-n2 are right next to each other (and n2 can take on gamaka) but in Sankarabharanm d2-n3 allows for space for d2 to "move about".

btw, did Smt. Vedavalli really use softly w.r.t oscillations of ri in madyamavathi? I would have thought it is deeper (i.e. to classify as soft) than that - as it has a lot of room to move about (upto ma). I thought r1, ma and ni all can take deep gamakas in madhyamavati

Arun

lifeisasong · Post by **lifeisasong** » 19 Dec 2008, 00:47

Here is the link for the lec dem on varnams
http://sangeethapriya.org/Downloads/lec ... i-Varnams/

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 19 Dec 2008, 21:20

Excellent lec-dem on varnams by Smt. Vedavalli. I did not know that students are asked to train by singing varnams by shifting the eduppu from samam to 1/2 eduppu and 3/4 eduppu etc. That is a great idea to learn how to change the laya/stress in small ways and keeping it in that "shifted" pattern over multiple avarthanams of the varnam. I would imagine it is hard to do that since one has to consciously break away from the way one learnt it by rote on samam and got used to that comfort zone.

Nick H · Post by **Nick H** » 19 Dec 2008, 23:08

It is hard to do it with simple mridangam lessons, let alone with a varnum!

I can see that this must instil great laya discipline.

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 20 Dec 2008, 07:22

This also leads me to think that the way the CM syllabus is set up, it is all to prepare the student for a concert career with full manodharma etc. But there are a lot of people who want to learn to sing pre-composed songs very well in a classical manner. Acknowledging that one can not simply launch into those krithis and they need a lot of training to sing and sing well, I am curious if there is an alternate path for such aspirants.

narayan · Post by **narayan** » 21 Dec 2008, 14:59

arunk wrote:>
btw, did Smt. Vedavalli really use softly w.r.t oscillations of ri in madyamavathi? I would have thought it is deeper (i.e. to classify as soft) than that - as it has a lot of room to move about (upto ma). I thought r1, ma and ni all can take deep gamakas in madhyamavati

Arun

Arun, Right you are. Deep is fine. The word soft was more a preference of mine, and would like to retract! The most interesting one here is Darbar, where the ga is really deep and in fact almost never lingers on the note itself, but keeps moving around neighbouring notes. But that's another topic, another day?
Narayan

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 21 Dec 2008, 23:56

Most ragas that have the same Purvanga as Karaharapriya ( Dorian Tetrachord ) seem to play around with that 'Ga' with significant and attractive gamakams. This seems to be true even if they belong to different melas.

rajeshnat · Post by **rajeshnat** » 19 Jun 2009, 10:15

Nice writeup of the megarAgamAlika lecdem
http://www.hindu.com/fr/2009/06/19/stor ... 040300.htm

rshankar · Post by **rshankar** » 19 Jun 2009, 23:55

rajeshnat wrote:Nice writeup of the megarAgamAlika lecdem
http://www.hindu.com/fr/2009/06/19/stor ... 040300.htm

With a quote from our very own Nandagopal!

coolkarni · Post by **coolkarni** » 20 Jun 2009, 06:53

ignoramus · Post by **ignoramus** » 20 Jun 2009, 07:38

Hi Cool

just saw the end of the session. is it on daily basis? or only on weekdays? any idea anyone?

vs_manjunath · Post by **vs_manjunath** » 21 Jun 2009, 11:03

Coolji- I also saw the episode some where in between. Is it scheduled daily evenig ? or on Fridays Only ?

In either case , since I will be in the office, I request u to pl record all these Episodes . U can help all the rasikas at a later date for U/loads.

It was really nice listening to the whole episode.
Seetha Rajan/ Seetha Naryanan( I don't know them )- One of them explained the naming of the 12 Chakras and the logical reason behind the naming followed by the KATAPAYADI scheme also.
Starting from INDU chakram- Indu means Moon in sanskrit and there is only one Moon( compared to 12 Suns)....hence the first chakram is named Indu. Second is named Nethra Chakram as we have two eyes. Third Chakram is named Agni and all the reamaining names of the Chakrams were logically explained. L&T(Chennai) had brought out a calender-depicting S Rajam's painiting having all these details.
Vijaya Shiva chipped in to explain why the Mela Raga Malika starts with "Sri " ragam.

As it's singing ragas, will produce some apaswarams Un intentionally, more so it's tough to sing these Mela ragams............and the structure of the raga malika is such that the raga keeps changing quite fast after two lines( I suppose) and apaswarams are bound to occur. So to ward off all these apaswarams " sri" raga is introduced. The Raga name itself signifies " Sri " and so on & so forth.

Smt R Vedavalli recited a Sanskrit slokam before concluding the episode.
It's really a pity that office goers have to miss these episodes.

Anway our saviour is COOLJI. I'm sure COOLJI will help.

coolkarni · Post by **coolkarni** » 21 Jun 2009, 13:17

rajeeram · Post by **rajeeram** » 02 Apr 2010, 09:07

Here is the 72 melakartha ragamalika of MahaVaidyanatha Sivan rendered by Smt. Vedavalli.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dtg_ntm6oSU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HsuHbvw83I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OF-O2PFmNxQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q34RI-d-zSQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHCCFB35p44

Enjoy!

thanjavooran · Post by **thanjavooran** » 02 Apr 2010, 10:34

Excellent. Thanx Rajeeram avl,
Thanjavooran

semmu86 · Post by **semmu86** » 02 Apr 2010, 10:38

Thanks very much for the links .

rasikas.org

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