madhyamam sruthi

[VK RAMAN]

Why certain songs and certain ragas are sung in madhyamam? What is the logic or reason behind it.

[arunk]

If the pitch-range of the song is limited say only not even as high as upper sa, then singing in madhyamam (which is pretty much the same as raising the base pitch) is done. The reason is that covering only the lower parts of the pitch range for the entire song can make it somewhat dull. Raising the pitch supposedly makes it sound "brighter". Of course this is somewhat subjective.

Arun

[arasi]

Though I had no idea why, I remember the madhyama Sruti switchin the old times concerts when it happened often--in the tukkaDA part. Sindhu bhairavi, CenSuruTTi and so on.

[srikant1987]

The effect of nAdanAmakriya and punnagavarALi are different considerably from MMG & tODi to a great extent because of the madhyama shruti -- it means that the song is listened to against a drone of the (mantra) pa in the raga (with an occasional sa). In fact, without the madhyama shruti, nAdanAmakriya will be very difficult to differentiate from MMG.

It might be more "audible" to sing in a higher pitch too!

[cienu]

VKR

Please find below a discussion on Madhyama Sruti in our forum around 2 and a half years back !
http://www.rasikas.org/forums/viewtopic. ... yama+Sruti

Arasi,
Though the change to Madhyama in a concert generally sees the advent of ragas like Sindhu Bhairavi etc, there are compositions in Ragas like Sindhu Bhairavi , Yamuna Kalyani etc which are sung with "Shadja" Sruti.

Srikanth,

Yes, NNK is a raga where I dont think I have heard sung without a "Madhyama" shift

[VK RAMAN]

hindolam and srIranjani. While most do sing these with the sa-pa-sa. they are also sung with sa-ma-sa. Atleast I remember a BMK (jugalbandi) concert where he switched to sa-ma-sa for hindolam. But it threw me off and I thought he was going to sing suddha-dhanyasi - because I thought the sruthi had shifted to madyama sruthi when it didnt. - This is what arunk says. Prasant was saying that it is a nuisance to change the sruthi in the middle of a concert. So why sing in madhyama if a raga or kriti is allowed to be sung in sa pa sa instead of sa ma sa

[cienu]

VKR,
BMK switched to sa - ma - sa , but as you said retained "Shadja" as tonic.
As Hindolam uses Shuddha Madhyamam and has no Panchamam, in my opinion this is the right thing to do.(as long as Sa is retained as the base note) . (ref Arun's # 17 in my link above)
I have a feeling that the Tambura artiste may have stopped strumming the Panchamam and the Sruti box changed to sa - ma - sa.
This may not have taken much time. But if it was a Jugalbandhi concert, it is also possible that the Tambura was retuned to sa ma sa in the middle of the concert given the prominence given to sruthi in HM concerts. It all depends on how you look at it and the artist may not look retuning as a cumbersome process !

[VK RAMAN]

Is it enough to surmise that turning to madhyamam sruti is upto the artist It is not something the composer or the raga demand of the artist?
I have not seen a rasika review where an artist was found at fault because he did not use madhyamam sruti. Is there an instant where rasikas felt offended because madhyamam sruti was not used? Is it necessary for the mrdangam artist to switch his mrdangam set up also?