My Posts in Sruti Blog

[KNV1955]

I have posted two articles in Sruti Blog. Ninaithen Ezuthinen. May like to read.

Developing Sruti Sense

http://srutimag.blogspot.in/search/labe ... iswanathan

The soul of a cutcheri

http://srutimag.blogspot.in/2012/12/the ... cheri.html

KNV

[VRV]

Welcome to the family of rasikas Shri KNV1955. I read with interest and I am inclined to agree 100 percent in what you say about the post tani thukadda section which can be completely uplifting. I had the pleasure of being with you father when he visited San Diego in the eighties. Those were the golden days.

In addition to the languages you listed, Marathi and Hindi re also a requirement.

Please keep posting,

Vinod Venkataraman

[KNV1955]

Thank You VRV. My purpose of writing both the articles is to make young artists focus on Sruti & Concert Structure. I have shared what I have experienced for 40 years.
KNV

[rshankar]

Sri KNV Welcome! We will be very interested in hearing your views. Please do share.

[cmlover]

Very nice observations based on your personal experience. Yes indeed KVN is the master of post-main music which is soul filling. It is indeed derogatory to dub them as 'thukkada'.
A warm welcome to you and do please share your gems of thought with us...

[rajeshnat]

Shri KNV
Nice of you to post . I would love to share few anecdotes about Shri KVN - perhaps post season in shri KVN's thread in vidwans and vidushis .

[Rsachi]

Hello KNV, we know each other from '80s when I was in touch with Sri KVN and your entire family.
Your views about the post-main session resonate well as you have witnessed the great impact KVN made in that segment. I do believe that KVN was the foremost exemplar of post-main concert planning. And execution, of course.
The key advantage of doing the post-main segment well for the musician is that it leaves a lasting, lingering, aesthetic and even devotional effect on the audience.

In my opinion, the reasons why many artistes/individual concerts fail in this segment are:
1. Poor concert planning and time management.
2. Obsession with technicalities.
3. Voice culture and stamina. (Also sruti sabotage by main/accompanying artistes.)
4. Indifferent execution.(Add poor acoustics)
5. Being unable to sense and respond to the audience, in a way connect with the audience. It tells in the chosen items!

The flip side is that some musicians seem to render the entire concert in a post-main genre!

Anyway you have articulated your ideas very well. Kudos!

Sachidananda R.

[cmlover]

Very good points Rsachi:
Though ARI is the pitamaha of concerts actually KVN is the one who perfected it and created a model. Pity, the model is not followed.
Concert planning is an Art and vidwans/viduShis should take it seriously!

[Rsachi]

Yessir. KVN himself would never allow anyone to give him credit for anything, he always pointed to his Gurunathar.

[carnatricks]

yes. sri. kvns concerts were planned very well to suit the audience and to keep the tempo up. i still hear many talking passionately about his varugalamo or his brocheva

[vasanthakokilam]

I have posted two articles in Sruti Blog. Ninaithen Ezuthinen. May like to read.
Developing Sruti Sense
http://srutimag.blogspot.in/search/labe ... iswanathan

KNV, The ideas you suggest for the 'first courses' in CM for a child are quite useful, especially listening to the tanpura daily to get the sa-pa-sa ingrained in the child's mind. And learning to tune it.
Akellaji is of the opinion that the child should also be simultaneously sound in the basic time keeping. That gave me an idea. May be what we need is a metronome whose sound is tunable to the sruthi and the child should just listen to the tanpura while keeping the beat to the metronome which is also making some pleasant sounds to the same sruthi. This way all sounds around the child are in sync with the sruthi. Then have the child singing Sa pa sa.

Also, not every child will have a tanpura in hand. So some inexpensive electronic means is quite appropriate for these purposes. But instead of completely spoon-feeding the sounds of all the strings, the electronic instrument should provide a way for the child to adjust 3 'strings' so they get in sync with the 'Sa' sound of the 'fourth' string. This way they get the experience of 'tuning' something and knowing when something is in 'tune'. I think a simple 'app' for an inexpensive handheld device should accomplish that rather easily. Let us put these modern devices that have become prevalent in the last few years to a good purpose. It naturally provides the right skeumorphism for the 'tuning by hand' of the physical device. It can be done right.

The soul of a cutcheri
http://srutimag.blogspot.in/2012/12/the ... cheri.html
KNV

I know quite a lot of people who sit through the 2 hours of the 'heavy' portions of the concert just to listen to the last 30 minutes of these so called 'thukkadas'. That is why I cringe every time folks of our ilk make disparaging remarks about artists singing 'kurai onrum illai'. I cringe at myself when I too go 'oh not again'. These are all indications of the 30% hard core rasikas not relating to the remaining 70% of the concert-going masses out there.
I liked the way you characterized it "It has to be free from technical, intellectual or any kind of exhibitionism and should connect with the listener at a deeper level.".

That is quite true, but I would like to add one thing.

it is also a time for just straight forward entertainment. That is, entertainment for entertainment sake while still keeping with the classical idioms.

One aspect of such entertainment that is quite curtailed in CM concerts during this post-main section is the potential for entertainment provided by percussionists. Again, not the kaNakku, technical or intellectual variety but just some interesting things that they can do with rhythm that the 70% can relate to directly without any prior knowledge. It may be with the swaying folkish trisram or the interesting variations afforded by kandam or just interesting patterns in chaturashram. I do not want to enumerate exactly what they are since I am very limited in my creativity on such things but given the enormous creative potential of the percussion artists, I am sure they can come up with tasteful and kosher for a classical concert. I think that is not even considered today because of the unnecessary restraint the entire system has imposed on itself. If it took an ARI to unshackle it in the early party of the last century which gave rise to the increase in length of the post-main segment, then I can definitely see a further refinement of that is possible in this early part of the current century. It needs the right place, time and personality.

I am sure the 30% will react very negatively to this initially and in a sense it is in their hands not to kill any such good initiatives with their over bearing and snooty reactions to such things. The general approach should be one of give and take. The 30% should be satisfied with the 70% of the heavy stuff they got and the remaining 30% of the time, they should learn to enjoy at the level of the remaining 70%.

Of course, none of this should be interpreted as a campaign for cheapening or lightening the classical marga etc. since that is not the only way to achieve what I am getting at.

[arasi]

I do get your drift, VK.
I know a lot of musically inclined folks who wait for the less weighty part of the concert to come.

However, KVN and MSS are examples of how the 'idara vagaigaL' (what an outmoded expression!) can retain the quality of the earlier part of the concert, and still be satisfying to those who wait out the first segment of the concert!
Nowadays, a thukkaDA song on a given deity in a popular concert stirs the audience up no end.
I'm thinking: if KVN were to sing kAnthimathip piLLai tamizh to such an audience, what will be their reaction? I have a feeling they will be moved too. Not to the extent of gyrating and exclaiming, but the impact of a song like that brimming with feeling will have its effect. That is, a thamizh song like that in tamizh nADu, a kannaDa bhAva gIte in kannaDa and so on.
With MSS, we do know this well that her singing affects many, however musically inclined they are or not.

[thenpaanan]

3. Voice culture and stamina. (Also sruti sabotage by main/accompanying artistes.)

Sachidananda R.

I am intrigued by your comment here. Could you say what you meant by "sruti sabotage"? A very interesting coinage.

-Thenpaanan

[Rsachi]

Thenpaanan,
The coinage is meant to convey a lack of respect for Sruti, or Sruti being abandoned or disregarded momentarily or altogether for the sake of some tricky or impressive swaras, top octave raga alapanas.
Losing Sruti alignment is highly disruptive. Once that happens, the rakti or bhakti during the post-main also suffers irreparably.

[arasi]

Are we coining a new word here?
Bhrakthi

[Rsachi]

I wouldn't go that far, Arasi.
I can suggest opposite of Sruti is bhramati.

[KNV1955]

Arasi wrote "However, KVN and MSS are examples of how the 'idara vagaigaL' (what an outmoded expression!) can retain the quality of the earlier part of the concert, and still be satisfying to those who wait out the first segment of the concert!". Nice comments. I fully agree.
I wrote both blogs based on my personal listening experience. And I strongly feel every artist at some stage should learn to lift the concert to a level where the listener is transported to a different world and the music lingered in their hearts long after the concert. I feel MMI/MS/KVN/DKJ achieved this.Personally I don' look for any entertainment in Carnatic Music Concert. Infact I get annoyed when the Mridangist would play a kutti thani avartanam loudly after every song. It takes away the effort put in by the singer in rendering of the kriti. If you listen to KVN-Raghu combination you will not find even one occasion where Raghu does not end with the song (pl don't post some odd case). Also Ariyakudi structure has not been assimilated properly by many performers. It had everything for everyone. I will write a blog on this sometime.

[KNV1955]

KVN Tukkada 1: Marulukonnadira (Javali) - Khamas

https://soundcloud.com/viswanathan-kn/1 ... ira-javali

[cmlover]

Don't call this a thukkada! It is soul stirring music!!
Can any one do a better aalaapana of Khamas so succinctly?
Except for its length in what way is this inferior in classicism to those rendered as Main?

[KNV1955]

cm lover. Pl read my article Soul of Kutcheri (1st post in this thread) on my views about Tukkada? It has also come in the Feb print issue of Sruti magazine. As a kid I used to wait for the Tukkada sesion. Songs like Chiitam Eppadiyo;Pani Mati Mukhi bale;Mayamma;Enneramum;Sivakam Sundari;Jagadodharana;Krishna nee;Meiporul Kandorkku;Devi Brove (I can list min 50 t0 60 songs. I used to sleep during main Ragam singing My appreciation of CM began with Tukkada & I am missing that now. Everyone hurriedly concludes the concert with one or two Tamil songs after main. No one seems to be investing time & effort in Tukkadas.

[arasi]

KVN,
Suryaprakash surprised me this season by spending fifteen minutes on my inRu varuvAnO?--an 'idara vagai song--with a lovely AlApana and svarams! J.Santhanam sang mayilERi with a virutham (sung by Padma Srinivasan who supported her).

There aren't that many tukkaDA songs as such. It's the treatment they are given by the artiste that matters. If the song isn't just a breezy number but has some emotive value, it can be elaborated on, I think. Of course, KVN made an art of it.

[cmlover]

Arasi
I am thrilled to hear that. Your efforts are not in vain!
If kVN were alive he certainly would have appreciated your songs especially for the Tamil audience.
Time will tell... I wonder what is happening to DRS's sankethi compositions!