Ramakrishnan Murthy Lecdem on Todi

[Rsachi]

Just discovered an interesting LecDem by Ramakrishnan Murthy on trinity compositions in Todi:

Click on the image above to watch the video.

[vasanthakokilam]

Excellent presentation. He has such a wide thodi repertoire already. Thanks Rsachi.

[narayan]

Thanks for the pointer. Quite an interesting recording. A tyagaraja song starting at the top sa in todi - which RM was trying to recall during the lecdem - is Koluvamaregada.

[thanjavooran]

Thanx for the link. An excellent presentation.
Thanjavooran
02 11 2013

[vasanthakokilam]

I just finished the lecdem. The Q&A got quite interesting. A question prodded Ramakrishnamurthy to sing the differences between Thodi & Dhanyasi, Thodi & Asaveri, and Thodi & Sindhubhairavi. At 1:01:48, he sings a thodi phrase and then shows how to sing pretty much the same thing for Sindubhairavi. Quite well done. This is the kind of stuff that an ordinary rasika can relate to.

He shows genuine respect, admiration and sometimes astonishment for carnatic music, its history and the past vaggeyakaras and musicians. It is quite satisfying to hear a self confident young musician like him invoking Alathur Subbaiyer for a certain unique way of singing thodi.

[mahavishnu]

As VK observes, I am also impressed by RKM's sense of clarity and insight on these issues. Especially for someone so young. There is a lot of poise and equanimity in his presentation.
Sachi, thanks for posting this clip!

[kssr]

It is interesting to see how these youngsters are asked to give such technical presentations on the one end - lapped up by the audience and at the same time on the other end, being given detailed technical corrections by senior artists, in competitions in which they appear, eg: SPIC macay- DD. Can an artist be a specialist and novice at the same time. I guess, in our music, it is accepted as normal.

[Rsachi]

You know KSSR, I think NOBODY is beyond criticism.

It's a kind of game perhaps that musicians love to play with one another. So there is a huge downside to performing artistes' coming into competitions.

I found out RKM was into the Semis.

[tanapp]

Super impressed. The way he is speaking, shows how much he has internalized this one major challenging raga. And then in ample display are humility, dignity, clarity of thought and sahityam, bhava and swara sthana. Great video. Performing artists should focus on learning and polishing the art, than come under any sort of competitive presure. But then there is no written rule.

[vasanthakokilam]

kssr, Rsachi: What competition you are referring to and when was it?

On the matter kssr raises, I do not see a fundamental problem. In each of our own fields, I am sure we can give a talk for an hour and be subjected to criticism. That is not uncommon at all. I can see a bit of discomfort when a young person does it, but that is not his problem. This is due to our own conditioning that it takes decades to attain a level of maturity before you can do a lec-dem like this. That may actually be the case in a vast majority of the cases, but the proof should be in the pudding.

I would love to hear a senior artist provide a well balanced criticism of RKM's lecture.

[VK RAMAN]

IMHO, we cannot teach any body anything; we can describe what we know and it is up to the listener how they want to process and assimilate

[Rsachi]

VKM
RKM I believe sang in the Naad Bhed SPICMACAY competition. It seems judges pointed out flaws. It has been mentioned in this forum already. (Didn't watch it)

KSSR was connecting RKM's mastery on display in this lecdem and asking how the same artiste got some negatives in the competition.

[rshankar]

I agree with Ramesh and VK et al - This young man's poise and clarity of thought certainly belies his young age. I found it so refershing when he was not afraid to say 'I have not learned that song', or 'It slips my mind' etc. Now the clip mentions the name of the mRdangam artist - now, I felt that there was no mRdangam support for the lec-dem. Am I correct?

On a completely different note - coming from California, I expected to hear more of an American accent/syntax in his delivery, but found none. This is very different from the sitaution with another Californian - Ms. Mythili Prakash - She is still so American, that it is easy for kids like my daughter to identify with her instantly.

[mahavishnu]

Ravi: I noticed that too. There is no trace of an American accent! In fact, he sounds like a typical Madras boy.
Here is another lec-dem from the same series by Prasanna Venkataraman http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8I8hvmQR9A.

Prasanna is probably a few years older than RKM, but is also very articulate, poised and scholarly. I enjoyed his demonstrations of differences between bhairavi and mukhari very much. Bodes well for the future of CM!

[Rsachi]

Ravi,
Next day was scheduled a concert by RKM with Charulata Ramanujam violin and B. Ganapatiraman on mridangam. RKM clarifies that there was no role for mridangam in the raga lec-dem.

I think a thick American accent doesn't go well for an Indian classical arts performer.
Recently I heard an odd 'foreign' roll in Shashank's announcements even in Indian concerts. I didn't like it!

[rshankar]

Recently I heard an odd 'foreign' roll in Shashank's announcements even in Indian concerts. I didn't like it!

Now, that would be completely put on and possibly fake. Whereas, for someone born and brought up in the US, it is the natural way the language is spoken and it does not feel awkward to me at all. OTOH, in some of the Lec-Dems in English, I find some of the language usage a bit strange.

[Rsachi]

Ravi,
I have worked now 38 years in international markets for multinationals. If a Japanese, Russian, or German or French or Korean, were to speak their mother tongue with an 'American' accent, they would be lynched and excommunicated. I know this because I was trying to find out if the 'ABCD' phenomenon operated for them also. I do not know about Philippinos and Vietnamese.

My senior colleague from '90s, Fujimori, a brilliant PhD from California and a top management talent from GE USA, was given the job to lead GE in Japan. He was a thorough flop initially because being Japanese, his staff expected him to speak Japanese. What he mouthed was an accented excrescence. He was compelled to spend time with tutors and get his Japanese right before his staff even trusted him as human.

The Indian phenomenon is unique.
And whereas its quaint to hear our kids say 'ghagra choli'' with an accent, it's hard to digest an accented 'Mokshamu Galada'.

But all this is an issue only for us back on Indian soil. And the issue for me is Indian languages (=words! expressions) with an accent, not English accent.
Indian soul and Indian soil are not the same.
So the moment I arrive on the shores of Oh America, I am totally OK with American accents for our kids.

(Mythili and Aditya (I'm related) get their accents commented on in all Indian reviews).

[rshankar]

And whereas its quaint to hear our kids say 'ghagra choli'' with an accent, it's hard to digest an accented 'Mokshamu Galada'.

RSachi - while you are correct about an accented ghAgrA cOli, I have, to date not heard an accented mOkshamu galadA! I have always wondered how these kids are able to sing without an accent but not speak. BTW, who is Aditya?

And just to be clear, I was not commenting on the lack of an 'American accent' in the tamizh/sanskRt and telugu words of the young artist - as a career musician, I'd expect no less. My comments were directed at the way he spoke and structured his English words. (And if anyone is interested in the unique structuring of English by Indians, I would highly recommend the books by one Mr. Tarquin Hall). I am not sure I am making sense - but take my daughter and her friends from her dance class for example - their pronunciation of dance-related tamizh words is ok...words like 'gudittameTTavaDu', 'sarukkal aDavu, 'aTTami', 'araimaNDi', 'muzhumaNdi' etc. are pronounced properly, but if you heard them say 'that was not an araimaNdi, it was not even a kAlmaNdi' - you'll understand what I meant - the Englsh words will be spoken in their everyday American accent, while the tamizh words will be pronounced 'appropriately' as well.

[mahavishnu]

Ravi: Very interesting.

Evidence from seamlessly bilingual speakers suggests that there seem to be separate/non-overlapping neural representations for each language. This spills over to non-interfering accents at the level of the speech production systems. As an extension, my conjecture is that individuals can learn two separate versions of the same language and represent them differently.

BTW, was RKM born and raised in the US? Sandeep Narayan has a very similar background. Although, I have only spoken English with Sandeep Narayan (and I honestly couldn't remember what his accent sounded like, although it sounded fairly neutral to me). I am now curious how his tamil sounds! Of course, when he sings there is not even a trace of any Americanisms, like RKM.

[rajumds]

It is interesting to see how these youngsters are asked to give such technical presentations on the one end - lapped up by the audience and at the same time on the other end, being given detailed technical corrections by senior artists, in competitions in which they appear, eg: SPIC macay- DD. Can an artist be a specialist and novice at the same time. I guess, in our music, it is accepted as normal.

A lec-Dem is quite different from a concert. A lec-dem basically brings out your technical knowledge, how well you have understood the nuances of the raga and you ability to understand/appreciate the diversities with in a raga and the way different composers (or the same composer in different kritis) have handled the raga.

While giving a performance it is your form on that day which matters. Even minor physical discomfort may result in few notes sung off-key.

Off topic, if the same level of judgment is used, we can find 10 times more errors in almost every concert we lisiten to. The worst performance was by the Parur family violinist who provided support. Had he participated in the competition, he would have been thrown out in the first round. Wonder how he was selected to provide violin support

[Rsachi]

Ravi,
Points well taken.
Aditya Prakash is a vocalist on the CM stage and also sings for his elder sister Mythili Prakash's dance recitals.

[sureshvv]

being given detailed technical corrections by senior artists, in competitions in which they appear, eg: SPIC macay- DD. Can an artist be a specialist and novice at the same time. I guess, in our music, it is accepted as normal.

I suppose the senior artiste had not heard RKM before and based his comments on the 4 minutes he heard on that stage. I am sure that if he had watched this lec-dem before, he would have been more guarded with his comments.

RSachi.. Thanks for another great video!

[msakella]

Yes, this is the kind of stuff that an ordinary rasika can relate to as this is the general kind of Lec-dem which everybody can follow, understand and relish. Even any senior artist also relishes this in the same manner as a performer.

But, even though many may not agree with me as usual, I cannot relish it as a true teacher at this age as the perspective of a teacher or learner is entirely different. Either a true teacher or a learner expects only a technical Lec-dem which helps them to improve their technical knowledge. In fact, while demonstrating a Raga the inter relation of the constituent notes in respect of different oscillations is most essential and, in this respect, it is apt to sing each and every note of a Varna and bring out the inter relation of the respective oscillations with the other adjacent notes. For information, I have already uploaded 9 Varnas to ‘youtube.com/user/msakella’ singing them at a slow speed running @ one note per second magnifying all the different oscillations and also uploaded 5 Varnas of them with detailed notatiion to http://sangeethamshare.org/chandra/AMS- ... PerSecond/ in the Ragas Natakuranji, Kambhoji, Darbar, Todi and Bhairavi mainly utilizing the note Kaishiki-nishada. If such things are properly demonstrated in detail they will abundantly increase the technical knowledge of the aspirant. amsharma

[Rsachi]

Thank you, sir.

A footnote: whereas 570 people saw this video on YT from July to Nov. 2013, 300+ people have seen it in the past 5 days. The power of rasikas.org!

:ymapplause:

[rshankar]

Evidence from seamlessly bilingual speakers suggests that there seem to be separate/non-overlapping neural representations for each language. This spills over to non-interfering accents at the level of the speech production systems. As an extension, my conjecture is that individuals can learn two separate versions of the same language and represent them differently.

Ramesh - these kids will not even remotely qualify for the label 'bilingual'! I think of them as purely English (American) speakers, with a good tamizh vocabulary (albiet very strongly bent towards dance-related words and terms for the most part) - they just happen to pronounce the words as they have heard them, just like they do with music.

[vs_manjunath]

RSachi- Thanks for this amazing video !