R. Vedavalli

prashant · Post by **prashant** » 25 Jul 2006, 13:54

Since I couldn't find a thread dedicated to Vedavalli Amma, I thought I would start one to discuss this senior musician and great repository of the musical wealth handed down by Mudicondan Sri Venkatarama Iyer and Madurai Sri Srirangam Iyengar.

Apart from a few lec-dem recordings, I had never heard her live until I had the chance to attend a private concert of her in Boston in 2001. Her chaste rendering of krithis and attention to diction, pronunciation and pristine pATantaram grabbed me from the get-go. I cannot forget a short but sweet guruguhAya in sAmA that she rendered that day.

She's well-known for rendering complex pallavis with nonchalant ease - a sankIrNa tripuTa [tisra gati] pallavi 'aLikulavENi kIravANi bhavAni' rendered by her in Mumbai in 2002 was amazing in it's concept and execution, not to mention the extensive tani by Sri Easwaran for this unusual tALa. Her renderings of dIkshitar krithis especially are beautiful and she has taken care to maintain and preserve the beauty of these krithis that she has learnt from great sources. The nIlOtpalAmbA krithi in kannaDagowLa, the sahAnA navAvarNam rendered in vilamba kAlA tisra tripuTa, kshitijA ramaNam, tyAgarajam bhajEham in yadukulakAmbOdhi, pAhimAm ratnACala in mukhAri, to name a few, all sparkle in her hands.

Her tAnam singing and her approach to the RTP suite in general is a model for all students and rasikas of serious Carnatic music. Of course, her lecdems are also extremely informative and useful for learning.

Recordings of Vedavalli Amma are relatively tough to find, so hope others can share their experiences with her music as well as recordings that are not in the commercial space already. I have serious upload constraints, but I will be happy to share what I have in my collection [a fair amount of which is thanks to the benevolence of Sri Kulkarni].

rbharath · Post by **rbharath** » 25 Jul 2006, 18:28

I am immediately reminded of her strict adherence to traditional paadam.

There was a concert on the theme "popular kritis in authentic tunes" which he sang in IIT Madras last year or so. I have always found her to sing real nice concerts...

n_anush · Post by **n_anush** » 25 Jul 2006, 19:51

can u please post some songs sung by vedavalli amma

thanks,
anusha

rshankar · Post by **rshankar** » 25 Jul 2006, 21:23

This should be a good place for all of Smt. Vedavalli lovers to start from:
http://www.khazana.com/et/products/prod ... sku=&List=

Ravi

Lakshman · Post by **Lakshman** » 25 Jul 2006, 21:40

Many of her songs are available for listening here:
http://www.musicindiaonline.com/l/1/m/artist.34/

rbharath · Post by **rbharath** » 26 Jul 2006, 10:02

n_anush, here is the song list.

Sangeetha Kalanidhi Smt. R. Vedavalli - Vocal
Smt. Usha Rajagopalan - Violin
Neyveli Sri Narayanan - mrUdangam
Smt. Sumathy Krishnan - Vocal Support
Smt. Usha Padmanabhan - Vocal Support & Tambura

Music Club IIT Madras, 09 March 2005, 7:15 pm

Thematic concert on "popular kritis in authentic tunes"

srI mahA gaNapati - gauLa - misra cApu - dIkshitar (svarams at 'modaka prakAsakarO')
baNTu rIti - hamsanAdam - dEsAdI (svarams at pallavi line)
sItamma mAyamma - lalitA
nagu mOmu - AbhErI
g~nAna mosaga rAdA - shadvidamArgiNi (AlApanai)
krishNAnanda mukunda - gauDipantu
cEtulAra sRNgAramU - kharaharapriyA (AlApanai, neraval and svarams at 'aNi mutyAla')
taniyAvartanam
snatches of rAmA nIyaDa - dilIpakam, nAda lOluDai - kalyANavasantam, nAda tanumanisam - cittaranjani
ninnaruLAn gatiyinRi - vEdAnta dEsikar pAsuram in dhanyAsi, varALi, sahAnA, nAdanAmakriyA, nIlAmbari, Ahiri
gatita samaya - Ahiri - jayadEva ashtapati
mODi jEse - khamAs jAvaLi
nI nAma rUpamulaku - saurAshTram

a more detailed writeup of the concert is found here: http://me-and-music.blogspot.com/2005/0 ... adras.html

rajeshnat · Post by **rajeshnat** » 26 Jul 2006, 13:22

Vedavalli Madam is to me a remarkable personality. When she sings there is so much humility and grace in her approach . Once I attended a dikshitar memorial concert . Posted that in the site under maintenance. Reposting again

Smt Vedavalli @NGS (Mini) on Oct 30,2005
She was accompanied by RK ShriramKumar - Violin and Vellore Ramabadhran - Mridangam. The occassion being described as a
Muthuswami Dikshitar Day , predictably all krithis were of of Dikshitar

1. Vathapi Ganapathim (NS)- Hamsadhwani
2. Sri Nathadi Guruguho Jayati (NS) - MaayaMAlavaGowlai
3. Sri Kalahasti (RS) - Huseni
4. SriVidya RAja Gopalam - Jaganmohanam
5. Subramanyena (RS) - SuddaDhanyAsi
6. Ehi Annapoorne- PunnagaVarAli
7. ?SriVamshavathi Sivajuvathi?- ??
8. Raagam Taanam in Shanmughapriya
9. EkAmesha (N,S) - Shanmughapriya
10.PranAthARthi HarAya- SAmanta
11.Slokham in the lines "Naagamithanam Naajatyan Yogam???" - SAveri +SahAna + VarAli +KAnadA + ShreerAgam
12 Shree Abhayamba - ShreeRAgam

When she participates in lecdems, there is an entirely different Smt Vedavalli Madam(too difficult to map back the singer).Well I remember once when there was some kind of patti manram where she took the topic lakshya vs lakshanam . lakhanam was chaired by pitamaha SSI's sishya Shri Subramaniam and the lakshya was chaired by Smt Vedavalli . Even the moderator Dr Srivastava could not do anything . She was very sharply focussed straight to the point spade is a spade individual and was
pragmatic to the core.

kiransurya · Post by **kiransurya** » 26 Jul 2006, 13:44

?SriVamshavathi Sivajuvathi?- ??

It is Vamsavathi Siva yuvathi in the raaga Vamsavathi..

rrkaushik · Post by **rrkaushik** » 20 Oct 2006, 20:02

Greetings and Happy Deepavali greetings to all fellow rasikas! This is my first post in this forum - thanks to all the knowledgeable folks who interact here. Of course I share the deep respect and awe for Ms. Vedavalli's erudition and serious vidvat.

Would like to point to the beautiful lec-dem on "Manodharma through Varnams" available at Sangeethapriya lec-dems section. If the kind soul who posted that (or other Vedavalli students) could upload other such lec-dems by Ms. Vedavalli, it would be most useful to music rasikas everywhere.

Thank you.

meena · Post by **meena** » 26 Jan 2007, 06:51

Deleted

sumram99 · Post by **sumram99** » 25 Jul 2007, 21:25

I am working on arranging a workshop by Smt. Vedavalli Amma in NJ as she is here until the end of August. I thought this will be a great opportunity to for people to learn from her. I am looking for help from people here in NJ for arranging the same.

meena · Post by **meena** » 25 Jul 2007, 22:31

sumram

i have merged ur thread on Smt R Vedavalli.
Pl. search the forum before staring a new thread. thanks

rajeswarisatish · Post by **rajeswarisatish** » 12 Aug 2007, 05:57

I have been trying to get something organised here in NJ as well. Unfortunately Smt. Vedavalli is leaving NJ this weekend for India due to unforeseen circumstances. We will have to wait until her next trip.

bala747 · Post by **bala747** » 12 Aug 2007, 18:03

I found Vedavalli to be too much of a 'traditionalist' in the sense that she seems to have rather 'strict' (in my view at least) views on how ragas should be interpreted and how thanam should be sung. I admire the woman's immense knowledge but I really think for example Asaveri should be sung with both rishabas and other syllables are permissable in thanam as long as it doesn't lose its identity as thanam.

But otherwise her music is perfect for someone who is both a novice to learning music and has a LOT for the musically knowledgeable as well to learn from. In the world of snazzy female 'artistes' she still stands tall as the grand matriarch of real, traditional and chaste carnatic music.

sbala · Post by **sbala** » 12 Aug 2007, 21:55

That's probably because she has done lot of research and is not just a performer. If you have researched and explored topics in depth, you tend to develop strong opinions on those subject areas and some innovations or changes might appear frivolous.

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 12 Aug 2007, 22:25

Good point sbala on that aspect of Smt. Vedavalli's background. While strongly opinionated people are dime a dozen (in forums such as this or elsewhere online/offline ), it is only a few who can back it up with stuff. Her knowledge is a great combination of her own vidwat, her close interactions with other musicians and scholars over the decades and her own research and exploration. She has earned the right to be opinionated on such things.

neelotpal.m.s · Post by **neelotpal.m.s** » 26 May 2008, 21:24

if you want to liisten to a sublime TODI, go to sangeetapriya and listen to Vedavalii amma.Her 'dakshayani' of dikshitar glows in all its glory as lustrous as the goddess parvati who is extolled in that kriti.never have i heard in recent times such a beautiful and delightful swarakalpana and niraval in todi.specially,vedavalli ammas essays in kizhstayi are amazing and her sruti suddham shows her being a true'sangita kalanidhi'. nowadays even seasoned artists falter onm sruti alignment.they maintain it in first two pieces of their concerts,but slowly deviate from it.it is like a ',gopuccha yati',that part of prosody in which words are employed in abundance in starting phase but get shortened alike the tail of cow,which is long at the end and slowly becomes thin as it goes .

Vocalist · Post by **Vocalist** » 03 Jun 2008, 17:45

There was one songlist that was posted up a long time ago that I kept and wished I'd heard the concert in person based on the review. In any case, I'll post that up once I find it.

rajeeram · Post by **rajeeram** » 03 Jun 2008, 22:24

That indeed is a sublime todi from Smt. Vedavalli. Thanks for the pointer, neelotpal.m.s.

Her music is majestic as well as calming, very peace-inducing.

ragapriya · Post by **ragapriya** » 10 Oct 2008, 22:47

Can somebody give me the link to Smt Vedavalli's lecdem on 'Manodharma through varnams'. I couldnt locate it in Sangeethapriya.

thanks
Ragapriya

sankirnam · Post by **sankirnam** » 11 Oct 2008, 02:46

Vedavalli mami is one of my favorite female artists, I always make it a point to attend her concerts during December.. I will never be able to forget her Music Academy concerts from the past two years, and her Ragasudha concert in 2006... the way she sang the Dakshayani in 2007 and Shri Subramanyaya (with thanam) are forever etched in my mind.

The nadai pallavi she sang last year the Music Academy was so grand, and her thalam control is immense (of course being Mudicondan Venkatrama Iyer's student it is no surprise).

prashant · Post by **prashant** » 11 Oct 2008, 18:36

What a pallavi that was, sankIrNam!!! 'rAmA abhirAmA pari pAhi, sIta samEta shri', in khaNDa triputa [khaNDa gati], right? Your Guru provided some sparklingly intelligent accompaniment for that pallavi...

sankirnam · Post by **sankirnam** » 12 Oct 2008, 01:09

Yes the pallavi is that thalam only, if i remember right, the eduppu was 1/2 aksharam (2 matras) from samam, and arudhi karvai was 3 aksharams.

I'll never forget the thani Narayanan sir played for Vedavalli mami's 2006 Academy concert, the pin-drop silence in the hall, and especially the tisram!

prashant · Post by **prashant** » 12 Oct 2008, 08:45

IIRC, sankIrNam, this is the structure of the pallavi

khaNDa tripuTa [khaNDa gati] - 9 beats x 5 aksharams per beat - eDuppu 1 aksharam after samam.

rA - 4 mA - 4
a - 1 bhi - 1 rA - 4 mA - 4
pa - 1 ri - 1 pA - 4
hi - 6 [arudi]
sI - 3 tA - 2
sa - 3 mE - 2 ta - 3
shri - 2

vijay · Post by **vijay** » 12 Oct 2008, 13:01

True - it was a rather knotty Pallavi. Prashant thanks for the structure

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

R. Vedavalli

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Re: R. Vedavalli

Re: R. Vedavalli