2015 April 16 Neyveli Santanagopalan @ SRSM

[badari]

Vocal : Vid. Neyveli Santanagopalan
Violin : Vid. Delhi Soundarrajan
Mridanga : Vid. S V Ramani
Ghata : Vid Dr. S Karthik


01 nera nammithinayya VarNa kAnaDa k aTa pUchi shrInivAsa iyengAr (O, S)

02 swAminAtha paripAlayA shumAm nATa Adhi m.dhIkshithar (O, S)

03 tanavAri tanamu lEda tArakAdhipanana vada bEgaDa Adi tyAgarAja (S)

04 vADEra deivamu manasA pantuvarALi Adi tyAgarAja (A, N, S)
nereval@ dhAtru vinuchuDaina

05 mOkshamu galadhA sAramathi Adhi thyAgarAja

06 kanugonTini bilahari Adi tyAgarAja

07 shrI rAmam ravikulAbdhi sOmam nAraAyaNa gauLa Adhi m.dhIkshitar

08 kaligiyundEgadhA kIravANi Adhi thyAgarAja (A, N, S, T)
nereval @ bhAgavatAgre sadulaku

09 mAnasa sanchararE brahmaNi sAma Adhi sadhAshiva brahmEndhra

10 dEvaki nandana nanda mukunda sindhu bhairavi purandara dAsa (O)

11 tiruppugazh madhyamAvati

12 nInAma rUpamulaku mangaLa sourAshtra Adhi thyAgarAja


Vid NSG tried his best to deliver a memorable concert when his voice and accompaniments were not co-operating. Dr. Karthik was at his best to participate as a team member, playing at an appropriate decibel level.

Non Co-operative voice, a screechy violin and a high decibel mridanga were the lowlights of the show.

[hnbhagavan]

These days Sri Neyveli Santhanagopalan has difficulty with voice not able to deliver in high pitch and hence cannot deliver the required effect during alapana as well as krithi singing.The sound accompaniments were higher as mentioned by Badari.Perhaps it looks like loss of several music stalwarts who were earlier heroes.I remember a concert by Sri TN Seshagopalan at the same venue a couple of years back when he had a very bad throat.
By sheer experience and his vidwat,he could keep the audience and he wound up earlier by 9 00 PM.

[mssnlayam]

I was there at the concert and I found Delhi Sundararajan very melodious, pleasing and a great support. He is a high quality artist and does not need my vote But I am writing here because I completely disagree with badari's portrayal.

S V Ramani on the Mridangam was great playing as required for each song. Maybe badari's missed Ramani's soft accompaniment full of Gumukkis for "mOkshamu galadhA". Immediately after this song, he accompanied with full vigor for "kanugonTini". A Mridangist's job is to strike a balance between being passive and being aggressive, and especially choose the right balance for the right song. I thought he did that very well.

As badari mentioned, Dr. Karthik did a very good job. This was inspite of an injury to his arm.

Overall, the artists played as a team and boosted the concert.

A general rant about folks complaining about decibel levels: The audio was not too loud or too soft where I sat. Maybe this was an an issue where badai sat. If that is an issue, blame the sound engineer and not the artists because they can only hear the monitor and not the house!

[musicman]

I was infact very lucky to attend this amazing concert. It was a high quality concert. Sri NSG was at his usual best. Such extraordinary flow in alapana and swarams can only be got through experience. His panthuvarali was a class apart. The combinations of chathrasram and tisram he made in vAdera was amazing. The masterpiece of the concert was his kiravani. The swarams he sang were highly entertaining and aesthetically sound.
Sri Delhi Sundararajan enhanced the quality of the concert by his neat and able support. He caught onto the manodharma of the singer very deftly!
Sri SV Ramani was just brilliant on his mridangam. The way he followed NSG's style and lifted the concert is, according to me, an example to all the upcoming musicians. He showed his sensitivity when he followed the brisk kanokontini and the slow paced mokshamu galada. His khandam and tisram in the thani along with Sri Karthick was complex and genuine.
Sri Ghatam Karthick, inspite of an injury in his left hand was asusual brilliant with his Ghatam and lifted the concert to another level. Totally it was a wonderful team effort and a Thursday treat for all the art loving rasikas.

[mridhangam]

One word about the decibel levels. What we hear on stage is different from what the audience hears. 99% of the concerts the mridangists and ghatam artistes don't get enough levels on the monitors in front of them. I have even seen in many concerts where there will be two speakers in front of the stage being monitors. Even then mridangists cant hear properly due to improper positioning of the speakers and we even get complaints from vocalists asking us to request the sound engineer to reduce the volumes for our mridangam, when we don't hear what the vocalist hears.

In Bigger sabhas where there are surround speakers I found a strange adjustment happening. there were 6 speakers all around us on the stage and the sound engineer managed the speakers in such a way that the speaker near the mridangam reflected mridangam very well and the front speakers reflected the vocal very well so on and so forth. This had a disadvantage because the speaker where mridangam was higher the vocal and violin was lower marring the effect of playing for sensitive artistes like me. I intentionally asked the engineer to keep the monitor volume for this particular speaker low and allowed him to give me more volume for vocal and violin and also balance the volume for mridangam at the auditorium.

Believe me, everyone appreciated this move of mine and said they could enjoy the concert because of such a balance.

It is a tough job for the artistes as well as the sound engineer. I, as an artiste, always try to leave his job to himself and I do mine.

Shri SVK of Ragasudha, at the beginning stages of the concerts at his venue never had a monitor speaker and he used to say the volume of your mridangam should be what you hear on stage without amplification. We will take care of it at the auditorium. I have felt many times that this technique works very well especially if the artistes voice is a bit strained or a bit un-cooperative. just by virtue of getting an amplification an artiste doesn't score and vice versa.

Carnatic music is about sensitivity and sukshuma. As artistes we try to give the sensitive nada into the listeners. Most of the times the sensitivity is lost due to excessive amplification, lack of audience participation (especially rows 10 onwards-if any there ???), lack of recognition of sensitivity etc. Apart from all these factors the mood of the artistes play a vital role in any performance.

Assume a situation as follows : "chakku" is called a Banana in some vague language. Only a person who knows that language recognises it as banana and others wont recognise at all. Even that word chakku will not even register in his mind as a legitimate word. In the same way the sensitive nada requires sensitive ears of the discerning audience. If the audience have never heard a pattern or a particular sound earlier, unless he is very attentive, I am sure it will escape his attention. This I am saying from my personal experience and I hope this will be experience of many other artistes and audience alike. an addition to this logic was given by Vellore Ramabadran sir about playing the same korvai again and again. He opined that what the people have already heard has an easier reach than a new pattern or a korvai.

All said and done all of us artistes and audience should have to be collectively blessed to have the same blissful experience which happens once in a bluemoon. All others become run-of-the-mill concerts. Also the best concerts don't happen in big sabhas or big auditoriums, they mostly happen in remote villages where the artistes have personal rapport with the audience and keep eye-contact.

Mannarkoil Balaji

[thanjavooran]

" Also the best concerts don't happen in big sabhas or big auditoriums, they mostly happen in remote villages where the artistes have personal rapport with the audience and keep eye-contact. "

I fully agree with Shri Mannarkoil Balaji . In Perambur Sangeetha Sabha the interaction between Artistes and Rasikas is actually experienced. This is a continuous feature in this Sabha ever since the programs arranged at RBCC school venue in earlier sixties.
Thanjavooran
05 05 2015

[rshankar]

Sri Balaji - Inspired writing!

[arasi]

Balaji,
'Spoken' like Balaji Hope it's
'Heard'--at least by some and
'listened to'--for musicians,rasikAs'
"Aural' sowkyam and sukham

[kunthalavarali]

Sri Mannarkoil Balaji's writing is fit for a separate thread IMO.

[shankar vaidyanathan]

Sri Balaji, your views as a performing artist are invaluable for us Rasikas to understand the issues with sound amplification and balance. You are helping us comprehend the stage side of affairs. Fact remains that most of the times the laya instruments are over amplified and too loud for us to focus with an intent to distinguish new patterns. I find the sound person can make or break a quality concert even when the artists take an active role in getting the right audio settings.

சாமியே வரம் கொடுத்தாலும், பூசாரியும் கொஞ்சம் தயவு பண்ணனும்! (Not sure what's the exact translation.)

[mridhangam]

In india mic men get offended if artistes tell them to reduce or amplify thts also a prblm . In australia even the mic man was offended when our team violin artiste tried a tweak .... We dnt want tension before durin or aftr cncrt sir. Also we r there to relieve ur tensions as well. So the job is better left to them nd thts wat i do

[hnbhagavan]

Sri Balaji,

It is the listeners who suffer.Even good concerts get marred by bad acoustics.In Chennai,Music Academy has the best acoustics.The problem in Bangalore is that a long festival like Sriramanavami is held under an erected pandal or in halls where the sound man sets it up each time.
The feed back from listeners should be considered.

[pperumal]

sri balaji,

thanks for the wonderful write-up.
no wonder you are so inclined to playing aesthetically.

regards,
pp.