In search of ancient style of music

[Shivadasan]

The raga of truth -- Mukul Shivaputra
“Shivputra transcends stagnation with every sunrise. He feels the objectivity of a truth lies in repeatability. He is convinced that he can realise the truth of a raga the way his elders realised. A raga itself is a means to salvation for a vocalist, he believes. And he lives what he realises.”
He says, “ Now, I try to decipher further meanings of particular notes structured in a raga in order to know the ancient aesthetics sung by the saints and hermits. We vocalists today sing according to the disciplined frame of a raga structured in a particular tala and get the sam or dhruv, but when I imagine how the ancient sages used to render those ragas, that very imagination re-orients my thought pattern. I have to learn more. I have to travel more.”

http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/fr/201 ... 350200.htm


Mukul Shivputra has chosen a path which is unusual in this age. He has chosen a lifestyle to search for the style of music rendered by ancient sages and musicians . He has scant respect for name , fame and money. Will his search benefit our society which is deep rooted in concert music ?

Shivadasan

[arasi]

Yes, what he says strikes a chord in me. I am merely a music lover but rAgAs hold their mystery for me in that I too think that they have not been explored to the full. The mining goes on, and the gem qualities in them have to be searched for, found and polished by musicians in order to share them with us. If I feel this way, I am sure there are musicians who feel as fervently as mukul Shivputra does, though they don't live the way he does in his ardent search.

[munirao2001]

Marga Sangeeth

As our Indian Classical Music developed only based on the oral tradition, we have no clues or clear perception of the quality in music of ancients. The musical content present in Sama Veda hymns and later encapsulated in copious compositions of Great Composers and practiced, taught and performed by Great Maestros only give us perceptions of ancient music. With the amalgamation and absorption of both kalpita and Manodharma and with contributions of Great Maestros, which are combination of both lost and gained musical contents, we do not have any ideas of ancient music. I strongly feel that without mythical glorification of the past, practitioners should first get hold of the deep values in the kalpita sangita with pata integrity in the copious numbers of existing compositions ( truly, one life time is not sufficient) and with well honed and developed manodharma, keep exploring and offer factually, new visions of ragas ( not stylized rendering/rearranged and unique rendering) as their truly creative insights and rich additions to the ragas, both for self actualization and satisfaction and for the benefit of the growth of Indian Music and its rasikas.

[arasi]

Munirao,
As you have summed up, musicians have to 'keep exploring new visions of rAgAs', and 'with well-honed and developed manodharma', 'offer new visions of ragas', 'both for self-actualization and for the benefit of indian music and its rasikas'.