What is ailing Carnatic Music?

[KNV1955]

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/che ... 207052.ece

Sri V Subramaniyam a disciple of Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer has written an article titled "What is ailing Carnatic Music" in The Hindu. Though the article talks mainly about Semmangudi music, his conclusion that insecurity is driving youngsters to resort to meaningless innovations seems true to me. Very few youngsters are having good voice. Even those with good voice are not doing justice to the art. They get lot of media coverage. Hindu photo coverage is superb. Jaya TV telecast of Margahzhi Mahotsav is a big hit. Top performers draw big crowds. I have not seen more than 80% of the hall filled for KVN or DKJ concert even during season. Quality of the auditorium & acoustics have improved a lot. Music Academy is million times better than what I have seen 10/20 years back. Yet they complain about the acoustics. All of them speak well in English. They talk about old masters highly. There is lot of noise & promotion made thro FB/You tube/forums like yours/Kutcheri Buzz/Dedicated Pages/Blogs/TV Shows as judges etc. All artists dress well ( no Khaadi business). Lady artists invest quite a sum on dress & Jwelleries.In the last 2 years I have listened to number of youngsters. I find duo singing has increased tremendously (Sisters more than Brothers). A clever arrangement to make up for limitations in the voice, breath control & stamina & for creating noisy effects. Except a handful the standards are pretty low. Nothing touches your heart. Again & again if you want to listen to vintage stuff you have to think of Nedanuri / Srikantan / Vedavalli / Ponnamal/TNK /VVS etc. (all 80 plus) Is the trend irreversible? Will Sampradaya Sangeetham survive?

KNV

[cacm]

WHAT IS WRONG WITH WEARING KHADI? NO NEED TO UNNECESSARILY WRITE THINGS THAT CAN BE CONSIDERED INSULTING & SHOWING ABYSMAL IGNORANCE OF FREEDOM MOVEMENT, INDIAN HISTORY ETC. PL READ WHAT YOU WRITE BEFORE SENDING IT. VKV

[KNV1955]

VKV I never meant to insult Khadi dress. Infact I love Khadi dress. Palghat Raghu's son Kumar, Allepey Venkatesan (I know them personally), Nedanuri Krishanmurthy, Karaikudi Mani & few other artists still wear Khadi Veshti & Shirt. Infact I myself want to wear a Khadi shirt atleast in summer months when I go for concerts.If it meant insult to you or hurt you my sincere apologies. But your reaction is bit too harsh.

KNV

[mahavishnu]

KNV sir

With all due respect, this same argument has been made several times by every passing generation. Things evolve and that is just the nature of the order of things.

The truth is, ageing is irreversible and makes us long for the memory of things and how we perceived these things were. The loss of great musicians is, of course, irreplaceable. A more reasonable thing to do is to celebrate their legacy instead of letting our own small window into history colour our perceptions of how something "golden" has been lost forever.

Every generation has had its fair share of flamboyantly dressed superstars (even in the height of the swadeshi movement), sibling teams, public relations czars, publicity hoarders, language mavens and heralders of the mylapore brand of conservative values (which is the ONLY correct perspective, btw).

The biggest changes in the history of karnatak music happened in the so-called golden era, after which period some of the music prevalent in the times of the Sampradaya pradarshani became unrecognizable. It is not anyone's fault; it is the way things are. Change is gradual and it is also collective. I strongly believe that there is no privileged period in history.

I am just glad that we live in an era where this form of music is celebrated worldwide so much so that if the music of certain individuals does not touch one's heart, one can listen to the music of those that do. There is more access to recorded music of the great masters than ever before.

I also want to commend you the number of things you appreciate in contemporary music. It shows your largeness of spirit, and so I hope that you will take my opinion in the constructive vein it was intended.

P.s: I am a huge fan of your father's music. I listen to something by him every single day!

[bilahari]

I am just glad that we live in an era where this form of music is celebrated worldwide so much so that if the music of certain individuals does not touch one's heart, one can listen to the music of those that do.

Aye to that. For an experimental Abhishek, you have a classical Amritha Murali.

As they say, change is the only constant. Did not the early twentieth century bring about the kutcheri paddathi, a change even in the way ragas were sung (tODi, khamAs), and even compositions too were altered (nagumOmu, mAyE tvamyAgi)? With this generation and the generations to come, too, there will be change.

[VK RAMAN]

KNV1955 -instead letting down aspiring young talents and criticizing their dressing style, appreciate whatever little they do in the development of cm; it will go a long way.

[cmlover]

Ramesh
You hit the nail in the right spot!
Do we mourn the demise of T Rex or Pterodactyls.
Evolution took care of them.
Was KVN a clone of ARI? never!
He expanded the horizon of CM whichwe all appreciate.
He had a great Guru. He attributed his success to his Guru.
Now-a-days good Gurus are hard to find; nor do they spend enough time with their shishyas. The students are askedd to learn from recordings, at worst through Skype etc.,
YathA guru tathA siShyA:

[KNV1955]

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/che ... 218607.ece

A lovely article by Ramanathan N Iyer in todays Hindu. He has said more or less the same things which I talked about. What I meant was everything has changed in Carnatic Music from media Coverage to dress etc (all positive changes) but the quality & the innovations are not the kind I have heard in my early days. I agree with with all the observations. Amruta Murali;Ramakrishna Murthy;Aswath Narayan & few others are exceptions. CM lover YathA guru tathA siShyA. I agree fully with you. I believe my father must have done lot of punniyam to get a Guru like Ariyakudi & Mani Iyer.

KNV

[VK RAMAN]

"Now-a-days good Gurus are hard to find; nor do they spend enough time with their shishyas. The students are askedd to learn from recordings, at worst through Skype" - many of the so called authorities and people of repute recommend skype class through their students in India. Many of them even do not analysis the sruti that fits in a student. More commercialized handling of students vs teacher.

[rajeshnat]

mahavishnu
You wrote so well it was simply perfect . Just add one critical point to what you have already said

Shri KNV ,
When we listen to yesteryears concerts of all greats ,we only pick up recordings of those where it was a complete kalaikattufied concert . We tend to not pass judgement on those concerts where it has bombed and not come out well . A case in point when I received a huge collection of SSI , i find there are few concerts y where till the end of first half they struggle quite a bit. Ofcourse then it is something extraordinary.

Overalll nothing is ailing , the only damn thing is DURATION DURATION DURATION of concerts which is considerably coming down. I love your dad's music , today I felt like listening to his manam irangAda in mayamalavagowlai ,He was a real pAdhi thirintha "sangeetha" bhakthan - intha pAriniLE uyarNthAr.

[srikant1987]

Overalll nothing is ailing , the only damn thing is DURATION DURATION DURATION of concerts which is considerably coming down

I don't think that's the only thing that makes CM today different from CM of yesteryears. We do sometimes come across 4-hour concerts even now, as a sidenote.

And duration has to be the way it is, except maybe for Sunday (not late-evening) or maybe Saturday early-evening ones. People lead a very different life outside the concert halls than those days.

[cacm]

VKV I never meant to insult Khadi dress. Infact I love Khadi dress. Palghat Raghu's son Kumar, Allepey Venkatesan (I know them personally), Nedanuri Krishanmurthy, Karaikudi Mani & few other artists still wear Khadi Veshti & Shirt. Infact I myself want to wear a Khadi shirt atleast in summer months when I go for concerts.If it meant insult to you or hurt you my sincere apologies. But your reaction is bit too harsh.

KNV

I do not feel its harsh esp. because I wore Khadar dress only till I left for USA in 1959 as a result of the influence of Madurai Mani Iyer. Actually I wore Khadar dress to my I.A.S. Interview & was correctly given 34 percent in the Personality test- 35 being the minimum - & now I feel correctly so. Incidentally I consider the so called "Fashionable" pants, tie in Chennai most uncomfortable & unnecessary & I am thankful I escaped this type of Tyranny to USA in 1959.....I stated what I felt & thats what these forums are supposed to express? VKV

[rshankar]

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/che ... 218607.ece

That brings us to the third and most important worry: how committed are young performers these days in acquiring and honing the basic skills needed for a long-haul career of sustained quality?

I think that the very fact that artists like Sri Ramakrishnan Murthy and Ms. Mythili Prakash (to name just a couple) have moved to India from the US to pursue artforms like CM, and b'nATyam with single-minded devotion as a career speaks volumes for the committment of these youngsters. I know that one swallow a summer doesn't make, but, I think these artists are just examples - the number of youngsters who are committing to a career in music or dance is amazing. I do think that these days, the financial rewards for a career in music are probably much more in than in 'those' days - I have heard stories of how deserving children of some of the yesteryear musicians were discouraged from going into music as a career because of the lack of an assured financial future.
I agree with Mahavishnu and the others that now is a vibrant time for Indian Classical Art forms with such an immnese depth to the talent pool, and I for one am spoiled for the choices I have.

[mahavishnu]

Now that we have identified several positives in the music scene today...

Here is something I am picking up from where VKV sir left off.

One of the less welcome trends is the recent deluge of interest in the sartorial tastes of Carnatic "stars". While I am all for the adulation of musicians, professional treatment of their remuneration needs etc., I am not a fan of this celebrity culture.

In particular, this whole "margazhi couture" phenomenon is not to my tastes at all, with all due respect to the wizards that came up with this idea. What next? Paparazzi? Something is wrong when the classic ratio of "aaL pAdi Adai padi" goes askew. I am not calling for a culture of modesty, I am suggesting that quiet dignity prevails over the "humble-brag" that seems to ubiquitous today. One might ask, in a culture of crass commercialism, rapacious consumerism and unbridled capitalist greed, could one expect any different?

Before someone quotes my own earlier point about how flamboyantly dressed vidwans existed in earlier times too (Muthiah bhagavathar, Ariyakkudi himself), my quick rejoinder is that they did not appear in a Pothy's calendar looking like Sridevi. That is not to say we can predict what they might have done if these commercial opportunities presented themselves?

As VKV says, MMI & others led by example through their lifestyle and not just by making it a point to singing desabhakti kritis and Bharathi compositions in a period where it was an important civic statement.

[kunthalavarali]

IMHO CM is making a tremendous come back after the "Carnatic Summer" ended in the middle sixties of last century. Several artistes today are classy and their enthusiasm, talent and presentation is worth lot of praise. No wonder many of them draw full houses that was not seen in the seventies, eighties and even in early nineties!

[karthikbala]

http://charulathamani.blogspot.in/2012/ ... rview.html
Another 2 cents added...

[Rsachi]

Folks, it would be nice if you give your valuable inputs to this online survey:
http://www.rasikas.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=20584
Thanks

[anandasangeetham]

What is ailing carnatic music? probably the sruti...

i may be a bit harsh here but the current crop of young musicians do not adhere to the sruti at all. Please excuse for making a very generalised statement as I do not want to name the artists here. I am OK with the artists' dress sense (anyway except for the first few rows it is not clearly visible as the kind/design of jewellry and blouse/kurta worn by the artists.) A good looking artist generally draws better crowd (again i am too harsh here but I feel it is true). Many are forgiven for singing offkey. I am absolutely clueless on the tala aspect and hence cannot comment on the artists if they have skipped a beat....

yes change is THE constant...but the change should be for better....I also partly blame the rasikas who have (IMHO) made this what it is today. I am not talking of "quality / quantity" of knowledgeable rasikas. applauding for every round of swaras, applauding for every crescendo, for every karvai...sometimes I feel like sitting in a "nonstop nonsense" show.....the bliss is lost and is more of a circus...in a very recent concert of Kadri Gopalnath (at Chennayil Thiruvaiyaru) there was a huge crowd jostling to get inside. but the moment they got inside almost everyone concentrated on filling the coupon for a prize (to be given at the end) and waving arms to catch the attention of the volunteer. then came the heady smell of vadas/samosa and other eatables followed by the crunchy noises of chips and savouries being crushed and swallowed. constant ringing of cell phones is another disturbance. I could take no more and vanished from the scene.

[KNV1955]

anandasangeetham "applauding for every round of swaras, applauding for every crescendo, for every karvai..."

I fully agree with you. To quote my friend Jagadisan "Applause is spreading like a virus.anything in excess is bad.We need vidwans like the great Ramnad Krishnan (I HAVE THE TAPE)who shot back over the mike "summa edukedutthalum kai tattadango.asingama irukku" That is called guts and sensitivity"

KNV

[Nick H]

You can add my name on that one too.

I'm not saying that there should never be spontaneous applause. Life is spontaneous. Once in a while something will happen in the middle of a song and the audience will react to it. That might happen once or twice in as many years if one attends a lot of concerts!

High notes, long notes, even obscure calculations: by themselves, these are a matter of practice and control. They may be part of the whole picture, if we applaud every one, then what value is the applause?

It is getting like a Western audience watching a tabla performance: as soon as the guy starts they all start making noise.

[vasanthakokilam]

there was a huge crowd jostling to get inside. but the moment they got inside almost everyone concentrated on filling the coupon for a prize (to be given at the end) and waving arms to catch the attention of the volunteer. then came the heady smell of vadas/samosa and other eatables followed by the crunchy noises of chips and savouries being crushed and swallowed. constant ringing of cell phones is another disturbance. I could take no more and vanished from the scene.

Was this all during the concert or before? Not that any of this is good either way but I shudder to think if this was going on after the concert itself started.

[jagan]

Reg. clapping of hands at the end of every long swara spells and the song :-

On 22nd Dec, Smt. Palkulangara Ambica Devi, aged 73, belonging to the Semmangudi School , based at Trivandrum
and one who is rarely known at Chennai, rendered sublime music at Naada Inbam.

The music was so mesmerising that it brought tears in the eyes of the listeners . A very knowledgeable vidushi whispered that clapping hands at the end of the songs would amount to a sacrilege.

[Nick H]

Ahhh... what a wonderful concert that must have been.

I had the pleasure of seeing Pandit Shivkumar Sharma some months ago: he requested that the audience did not applaud, at least not until the end of the program. I forget his words now (I posted them somewhere!) but he explained that the music was supposed to produce peace, not an energetic display.

How like sheep we can be! Sometimes I find myself clapping, for no reason other than that everybody else is, at some part of a speech that I didn't even understand! :$ :$ :$

[PUNARVASU]

Nick H,

[vasanthakokilam]

One little incident comes to mind. The artist was beautifully building up an alapana in all its majestic contours and made a great and smooth landing with a long and beautiful elongation on the Sa. The audience, sensing the alapana has come to an end, clapped wildly. It spoiled the effect the artist had been building for those 10 minutes. They could have waited for the artist to come to a complete stop and then clap. It is like the feeling when you build a great sand castle and after you put that last little piece at the top in a delicate manner, someone walks by belligerently and knocks the whole thing down. I guess my face flinched a bit showing my frustration and the person who was with me got curious and asked 'Why, you did not like the alapana?'. How can I explain!

[Nick H]

...I would have understood. I think many of us here would.

Clapping very effectively breaks up an atmosphere. It has always struck me as a strange thing to do in these circumstances.

[PUNARVASU]

VK and Nick

(for ur posts)
I fully agree. Sometimes, they even clap after the purvangam of the varnam is sung..

[kunthalavarali]

Clapping at the end of every song came into practice when AIR introduced concerts of the National program before invited artistes. The invited audience (may not have been knowledgeable) must have felt obliged and so applauded every time the song ended and before announcement of the next song came!. Once MTC played Vathapi and paused deliberately after anupallavi and the audience clapped thinking that the song was over. There was roaring laughter after he started playing the charanam.
There were also vocalists who would not come down from the thara sthayi panchamam until they receive applause. This made one scribe compare it a toddler refusing to come down from the roof (kUrai in tamil)unless a chocolate is promised!!

[seema]

I found this article, as it seems to be the one to which Mr Seshasayee has responded in yesterday's column. I thought it summarized things well :
http://www.thehindu.com/arts/music/fitt ... 187199.ece
Comments?

[anandasangeetham]

sorry for the belated reply. Vasanthakokilam....It was during the concert.....I think many would have got passes for this and they thought this is another "kaanum pongal gathering".....

Nick...love your humour filled postings....

[mahavishnu]

I am following up on my earlier post on this topic of change in CM, after having discovered a treasure of old documents from the MMA's journal archive.

Here is an article from 1933 in the Music Academy proceedings that I found quite amusing. The running general theme is that the whole world of music being diluted and changing rapidly in a despicable direction.

The author of the piece is the great music scholar Sripada Ramamurthi Pantulu (the rest of the authors and peer-reviewers of the journal in this period were very scholarly people including TL Venkatrama Iyer, TV Subba Rao, HMB, Tiger Varadachar and other giants).

Here is Sri Pantulu's take on what he sees as ailing CM in 1933. And I'm posting this here so people can see the generally myopic view we have on history (full link here: http://issuu.com/themusicacademy/docs/ma_journals_1933). I quote:

"THe history of South Indian music during the last quarter of a century is the lamentable changeover, from the reign of soulful melody, to the tyranny of the mechanical drum. Raga has been dethroned and tala has usurped the supremacy. The practice of mathematical svara permutations has frozen up the fountains of creative joy of the emotional spirit. Today it is the scale that is attacked; the raga is seldom rendered. This mechanical attitude of the musician has had its reaction upon public taste. A singer has come to be esteemed less for those exquisite touches of melody that move even non-sentient beings than for the number of svara avruttas with which he can overwhelm the drummer. Equally reprehensible is the vice which with an interminable load of monotonous sangatis, overburdens the graceful and delicate musical forms of the master composers. A certain measure of latitude for indulging in phrase extension may not be improper, where it is governed by good tast and a regard for and understanding of the bhava of the compositions. It is not true freedom which ill accords with discipline. Another weakness which is characteristic of the age we live in, is the craze for speed thrills. No more is heard of the soft and restful rendering of the great passion modes, with graceful slides and long drawn notes, teh favoured haunts where the spirit of the raga forever dwells! The age of Melody is gone; that of the Drum, the Morsing and the kanjira has succeeded!"...

So, 80 years have passed since 1933, an entire generation of Karnatak music has gone by, but the blowhards seem to still pass the same judgement. Keep in mind, that Sripada Pantulu's comments were probably made at the zenith of the Ariyakkudi-ization of the carnatic ethos.

There is much more on the site that I linked to above. I would encourage all of you to read the scanned originals at the wonderful website that MMA has now set up. You can also access from the MMA landing page, click on the journals and choose the online journals from the main menu.

So, you want to know what ails Carnatic music? It is the incomplete and inaccurate comprehension of its history, propagated by faux traditionalists, half-baked theories and people too quick to pass judgement on things they do not understand.

[cmlover]

Thanks Ramesh for the link to that veritable mine.
I am not surprised by the comment on the deterioration of the 'Trinty Music'. It was the time when the young SSI introduced fast swara kalpana which earned for him the title 'Electric cheenu' much detested by the veterans. Enter GNB with his Briga imitating Nadaswaram which was the bete-noire! HMB was ridiculed by ARI fo attempting his own compositions who himself had put the first nail in the cofffin of Trinity Music.
Why are we complaining about the direction CM is taking now! As Chairman Mao would have proclaimed " let a thousand innovations bloom in CM...

[cmlover]

Let me not forget to add the entry of Women in CM
(the suffragette movement)

[Rsachi]

I am at this moment standing on the main street of Hampi, the capital of Vijayanagara. The street is abustle with international scholars, NRIs, saints like Purandara Dasa, great lady dancers, musicians, shops that are selling gold and diamond jewelry by weight. Vijayanagara is at the pinnacle of human civilisation. It is 1520 AD and the emperor is Krishnadevaraya.
A few ponderous, wrinkled foreheads are gravely discussing, adjusting their silk turbans as they cogitate, how the economy is not all it should be, how arts are being corrupted for popularity, how winds of change are a-blowing and tradition is being diluted by the minute.


There is a parallel tragedy being enacted in the newly built stadium for gilli dandu contests between visiting Arabian traders and local heroes.
The local captain, prematurely greying due to his twin troubles of too much money and too much expectation, scores a Dozen but fails to save the match. Still, the local sponsor Srinivasappa is happy, as the next show will be a sell-out.

[ram]

In lighter vein ....

Q) What do musicians considered as greats by many Indian classical music lovers have in common?

A) They're all dead

[Nick H]

That's a lighter vein?

[kunthalavarali]

ram
You are far not away from the point. We tend to live in the past all the time. Let us live in the present and enjoy the great music rendered by many many artistes of today. Nothing ails CM, I think it is as healthy as it was during the so called "carnatic summer".