Ragapravaham... Shri Ganesh and Shri Kumaresh, New approach

[vasanthakokilam]

I may have heard their ragapravaham in their Jaya tv presentations. I went in with an open mind. I am sympathetic to anyone who is trying something new. Let me write down the thought process I went through while it is fresh in my mind. May be it is useful to them as to how some CM rasikas may perceive this, though it is a sample size of 1.

When he started playing, my first thought was that he is trying something along the lines of Kathanakuthuhalam. Not the raga itself, but the jumps, the way he played and the bowing styles employed reminded me of how the chittaswaram of raghu vamsa sudha is played. Then I thought may be this is an attempt at playing carnatic ragas with some western idiom. I did not even realize at that time that this is a reinvention of carnatic music. Later I noticed that this is TED sponsored, I will attribute that 'reinvention' reference to that.

At the end, when he asked what raga it was, I realized I do not really know. It sounded very generic in the shankarabharanam neighborhood. He then announced it was 'Begada'. That was quite surprising since Begada is one of my favorite ragas, I should have gotten it. I went back and listened again. Yes, there is Begada there but I was too distracted with all the other things going on. Or may be the right contours of Begada gamakams were not used? I do not really know.

I was at home with the hamsadhwani part, it was relatable easily even when he was playing at lightning speeds.

His main theme was CM instrumental music sans lyrics. But the begada part sounded like a different style of playing alapana. That does not seem to be anything different there architecturally. The hamsadhwani part which I was comfortable with sounded like kalpanaswaras for Vathapi.

He is undertaking a tough task in convincing us that this is some kind of reinvention. Instrumental CM where the listener does not perceive any pre-composed lyrics is not unfamiliar to CM audiences. We already have many compositional forms which are quite low on lyrical content: RTP, Thillana etc. And one can play an unknown padam or javali on an instrument and it will still sound great as traditional CM.

May be I am not catching on to his re-invention point.

It is not that what he played was bad. It was immensely listenable. I guess that is what Suresh mentions also.

[sureshvv]

Bunch-of-swarams compositions definitely don't use all aspects of articulation of (Carnatic) music on the violin.

I think the point is that they don't have to use all. And they may use some extra stuff not found in vocal articulation. Which is really fine when you are in the mood to listen to it (easier from a CD or the net than from a carnatic sit-down kuchery - at least for me). But at times there seems to be an overly defensive rant against the gayaki style which is a bit of a turn-off.