When Subbarama Dikshitar met Bhatkhande

[kanniks]

Dear Rasikas Readers:
I wanted to share with you an article that I wrote on Sruti - regarding the historic meeting between Bhrahmashri Subbarama Dikshitar and Pandit Bhatkhande and on the dhrupad that Bhatkhande wrote - extolling the raga scheme of Venkatamakhi.

http://srutimag.blogspot.com/2013/07/th ... atura.html

Thanks so much and regards,

[Pasupathy]

Nice article, Kanniks!

[Rsachi]

Kanniks,
A brilliant article, congrats.
I liked the video also you have shot of the Dhrupad!
http://youtu.be/8IK8AaapRYI

Here is a nice article on Bhatkhande (1860-1936), a great man: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vishnu_Narayan_Bhatkhande

[vasanthakokilam]

Kindred Spirits on many fronts. Thanks Kanniks for the excellent portrayal of these two stalwarts. That Dhrupad of Bhatkhande on Venkatamakhin is a great find. Well sung by Vidita Kanniks.

[keerthi]

The discussion that BhaTkhande had with Diksitar, PUci Srinivasa Ayyangar and Tiruvottriur Tyagayyar are particularly pertinent to the Hindustani/Carnatic discussion elsewhere. BhATkhande had a far-reaching wisdom, in that he appreciated the methodical structure of the Janaka-Janya scheme and the krama-sampUrNa periodic table of 72 melas, but was concerned that the excessive use of the even-tempered scale of the harmonium was leading to a huge gulf between the shrutis prescribed for familiar rAgas in the texts, and the sruthis as sung in practise. Very well-justified fears.

His concern regarding a lack of serious musicologists in Madras and the rest of tamil land, who had read and understood the shAstra tradition - Bharata and shArngadEva onwards, is somewhat assuaged, but still much the same, for the most of the Carnatic world.

Bhatkhande and S. Diksitar both, knew and appreciated the trans-scale nature of ragas, and tried hard to elucidate it through thei brilliant texts, but their intellectual descendants have mostly handcuffed themselves to a normative grammar of rAga music that is caged by the scales.

[vasanthakokilam]

Keerthi, thanks for pitching in this topic.

I am struggling to get a proper perspective with the first quoted paragraph from Kannik's article.

"“In the South, the emphasis on talas has diminished the wonder of melody... all singing here is bound to each beat of the tala. There is a jerk per matra (beat) and this ‘yaiyy yaiyy’ style of singing -if they sing like this then I will in all honesty rate their style quite low. If you calculate the number of beats between two avartans (cycles) and if you emphasize through jerks each beat while waiting for the next one and then pounce on it like a hungry cat, I honestly cannot find such music appealing.. This is my honest opinion and singers here will not be happy with it nor do I expect them to be... They will say their music is popular, but popular music is not necessarily good music.”

When a person of Sri. BhaTkhande's stature says something like that, I am inclined to dig deeper to understand what he is saying. His hungry cat analogy is quite funny and apt. I can see how such a music would sound if each beat is stressed upon like that. I assume that is what he means by 'jerk on each beat'. I can readily understand BhaTkhande assessing a major value judgement and call it bad music, especially given the classical context he is commenting on. ( I personally happen to like those songs for specific purposes like when working out and driving. there is no accounting for taste of course , but such applications of music is a far cry from what BhaTkhande should have been thinking ). So far so good.

Now, I do not think all the CM that we hear in the modern era is like that. There may be instances where each beat is stressed, like vararagalaya type of songs ( there are quite a few like that ) or even Thiruppugazh and I can easily see that people's taste can be vastly different about such fast paced highly stressed songs. But that is not the predominant mode of singing the sub-main, main and RTP these days, right?

Just to satisfy myself, I looked for a song similar to his own Dhrupad on Venkatamakhin in terms of stress patterns and I thought Nannu Palimpa type songs would be in that ball park. And of course a whole lot of MD songs have that relaxed and expansive (vistara ) quality and definitely they would not be considered as stressing each beat ( I would think )

One possibility is that during the times he visited south, the style of CM singing was like that 'yaiyy yaiyy' type he refers to. The nannu palimpa of Bidaram Krishnappa is different from the MSS version, as an example, but we would not know if that is what Sri. BhaTkhande considers the 'yaiyy yaiyy' variety!

I am deeply interested in the role of various types rhythms inherent in the songs and that is what attracted me to his statement. Any further opinion, input, commentary or corrections are very welcome. It will be a good learning opportunity.

[uday_shankar]

vk,
Just saw this. I propose a simple explanation for what Bhatkhande meant by the "yaiyy yaiyy" style of singing. I believe it is precisely the way most varnams and sangati-oriented compostions like say Tyagaraja kritis are sung till today. Even Dikshitar kritis such as Vatapi, etc.. have been similarly "sangatified". So, taking vAtApi, the first sangati starts simply as:

G,,, ,,-G, R,-S, etc...
vA..... Ta...Pi etc...

This is sung in simple akaara enunciation of the sAhitya without any gamakas except a little jaaru from G to R during "Ta".

The next or perhaps the one after that descends into total "yaiyy yaiyy" mode, as in:

GPGG RR-RG RR-S,-
(Va aa aa aa aa aa - Ta aa aa aa aa aa - Pi) etc...

This could be sung aesthetically if there's only a pure akaara sound with a small inflection. On the other hand, maybe there's a subtle aesthetic boundary which is crossed when you abandon the "Va aa aa aa" for a more emphatic something between "Va au au au" and "Va av av av" (with a little jaw movement for each matra!) kind of sound when singing sangatis. This in turn makes it more rhythmical. At this point perhaps you may have tickled Shri Bhatkhande the wrong way already .