help on unknown recording

[msuresh55]

I am trying to make sense of an unorganised collection of recordings obtained from a relative. One subdirectory is a violin recording of Lalgudi Jayaraman, Srimathi, and Umayalpuram Sivaraman. Only the ragams are given in the title of each track. So far as I can make out, the tracks are:

1. Nadadina Mata - Janaranjani - Misra Chapu - Thyagaraja (11:16)
2. Balagopala - Bhairavi - Adi - Dikshitar (27:02)
3. Some piece in Senjurutti (5:01)

I strongly suspect that this is digitised from some LP record, but I can't trace it via web search. Any ideas?

My difficulties in trying to organise the collection has made me aware of the poor state of Carnatic Music archives. I am aware of efforts like Archive of Indian Music (initiated by Vikram Sampath) which is digitising many of the old LP records. There is also some archival effort in Chennai but such efforts are few and far between. The world of Carnatic Music compositions is equally unorganised - finding the details of a relatively unknown composition is an equally painful task and most often, you end up relying on the knowledge of a few individuals like Lakshman Ragde (who posts here). The folks who undertake such archival tasks deserve appreciation as it is really a thankless job. The Music Academy or some other organisation should consider awards to appreciate archival efforts and also try to coordinate individual initiatives. Otherwise, like many other things in our country, old records and many compositions will also be lost irretrievably. Many old movies, for example are no longer available to us - the first talkie "Alam Ara" is gone, for instance. Even a classic movie like Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali was close to being lost as the print was degenerating due to acidification. It was saved only by the individual effort of Ismail Merchant.

It is also worth thinking about the poor state of Carnatic Music releases in general. The sleeve notes on CDs and cassettes, and even LP records, are atrocious. It is not unusual to find many details completely missing. Accompanying artists are not listed, and tracks are not listed completely or labelled wrongly. The tala is often not given and this seems to be the norm with RTPs. The individual ragas in Ragamalikas are similarly omitted, as are the names of the composers. (Only rarely is the composer of a varnam or tillana listed.) It is only when one encounters the Carnatic Music releases from foreign labels like Navras or Ocora that one realises what is missing.

All this may not make much difference to knowledgeable rasikas who I guess form the majority on this forum. But for people like me who are less knowledgeable, the quality of the recordings matter, as do the details of individual songs. They can make the difference between a continuing interest and just giving up on Carnatic Music.

Rather than pester the government to start Carnatic Music education in schools - something unlikely to be realised soon - we should try to put pressure (through sabhas, influential rasikas) on some of the better companies to be more professional regarding their Carnatic Music releases. If you want people to listen to Carnatic Music, at least ensure that quality recordings are available. Among Indian companies regularly releasing Carnatic Music CDs, Charsur and Rajalakshmi Audio are somewhat better but even they leave a lot to be desired.

Suresh.

[Lakshman]

Suresh: Thanks for singling out my name in the above post. I am always looking for information on songs as well as lyrics that I don't have. Since you mentioned cassettes, for many years I have been looking for a Gitaa cassette GCT570 with Ambujam Krishna's songs sung by Padma Rajagopal. If you come across this gem please get in touch with me. Thanks.

[msakella]

While many are showing interest mostly in all the sundry subjects, I truly appreciate you for having brought out a very nice point, the archival importance of the audio-recordings which is very helpful to the aspirants learning our music.

For a music-lover or listener or even to the aspirant learning Vocal music this kind of archive of audio-recordings is needed to meet his/her needs. As you rightly wrote, even though some of the important details are missing, we have thousands of such audio-recordings easily accessible to all kinds of people. But, in respect of instrumental music the situation is very pathetic and deplorable while, even in this age of modern technology, not even a single video of the very rare hand and finger-techniques of the Great Violin Giants of our Karnataka-Violin-Trinity, MSG-Lalgudi-Chandrashekharan, has ever been taken for educational purpose and preserved for the benefit of the Violin aspirants.

In the so called Mecca of Music, Chennai all the music lovers and organisations treat even all the instrumental-music on par with the Vocal music only and not only music-lovers or listeners or even the instrumentalists have never bothered about preserving these very rare hand and finger-techniques of instrumental Maestros. As even these instrumental-maestros themselves are far more of performer’s perspective and far less of teacher’s perspective they have always been used to do anything and everything for their self-aggrandisement only but not for the benefit of the aspirants learning our music. That is why, even though there is no parallel to our Violin-Trinity even in the entire world we are the most unfortunate lot of people to have very pitiably lost all the invaluable treasure of their very rare hand and finger-techniques of Violin.

Thus, even though we have umpteen maestros or legends or veterans in our music in very ably performing thousands of concerts all over the globe we do not have even a single efficient and honest teacher who can very ably initiate the aspirant in learning Swarakalpana and Ragalapana in our music independently, quickly and efficiently hardly within a short span of one or two years. That is the pity. amsharma

[Purist]

[quote][/quoteThus, even though we have umpteen maestros or legends or veterans in our music in very ably performing thousands of concerts all over the globe we do not have even a single efficient and honest teacher who can very ably initiate the aspirant in learning Swarakalpana and Ragalapana in our music independently, quickly and efficiently hardly within a short span of one or two years. That is the pity. amsharma]

Except "msakella"

[Pratyaksham Bala]

Post #3 -
Finding fault with everybody and everything for the nth time !
Utterly boring and irritating.

[VK RAMAN]

I agree with PB. A distraction from original topic.

[msakella]

Jaundiced and egoistic persons cannot see or agree with the facts and figures but loose the logical view and feel distracted or irritated or bored. Please enjoy !!! amsharma

[kvchellappa]

A good coming clean.

[hnbhagavan]

Dear Sri Chellappa,

Bangalore gayana Samaja has a large collection and is zopen for listening to all.Similarly Ananya @Malleshwaram has a large collection.

[Pratyaksham Bala]

Jaundiced and egoistic persons cannot see or agree with the facts and figures but loose the logical view and feel distracted or irritated or bored. Please enjoy !!! amsharma

Instant reaction. On the expected lines!
But, there is still scope for change.

[msakella]

Purist.

Yes, dear. While all our maestros or legends or veterans or experts are unable to quicken the process of learning our music I could only do so in the very limited area of my locality and help the poor aspirants and their parents honestly and sincerely in saving their invaluable time, energy and money unlike any other teacher on the globe. Even my disciple Chi. Sow. Dr. Prasanna , who has recently undergone a surgical operation and advised not to sing for some time, also became able to initiate more than 20 kids in their residential school, Adavimallela, Khammam District, Telangana, (refer http://www.rasikas.org/forums/viewtopic ... 53#p288753) without singing herself even Sa or Pa and proved that the teacher should not do things like swimming or cooking but initiate the aspirant only in doing things. She also undoubtedly proved that this is the correct way of learning music.

If all other teachers also spread all over the globe do the same honestly and sincerely the entire Karnataka-music-world feels extremely happy and become grateful to all of them. We shall all hope so.

Even if you wrote my name only euphemistically or even truthfully it became the truth by the grace of the Almighty. amsharma

[kvchellappa]

I read long back Trachtenberg system of Maths. Also, there is a lot of talk about Vedic Maths. As far as I know, the system of Maths we learnt seems going strong. A few things seem to be easy in the alternatives, but it does not seem to have served a universal purpose. It only baffles me why almost everybody will turn a deaf ear to what is so elegant and easy to teaching music. I also read the exchange with Ravikiran. And, Ravikiran has trained many a kid to worthy singers.

[SrinathK]

The OP has hit the nail on the head. To get back on topic, the sad part is that in no catalogue of CM compositions or CD or cassette song list or newspaper review or even the majority of the reviews here will you find any of the details such as the kalai of the tala and the eduppu point. In many cases I am horrified to see that sometimes the tala is simply given as "chapu" leaving us to guess as there are 6 chaapu talas possible in CM out of which 3 are mostly always used - mishra, khanda and viloma. Without these details the recordings are of limited use to rasikas and students.

I am currently working on a solution to this issue by making my own song list with these details. It is still a while away before I will unveil the first beta release. I still have to complete adding the full list of available thyagaraja and dikshitar krithis and I only add after having heard the full song. It is also likely to have many many bugs and errors to be ironed out as it is the first version of it. When I am satisfied i'll give a link to my dropbox or archive.org. Then we will have to remove the bugs - i'll be very grateful if knowledgeable rasikas or musicians point those out. It will continue to keep expanding as time passes. I expect beta 0.0.0 to have at least 2000 or so krithis and about 100+ varnams in it. (For the record as of now it already has 1200 krithis and 65 varnams.)

[msakella]

In my novel system of learning music the aspirant works independently on his/her own and learn things very quickly and efficiently. Even the music-classes are regularly held weekly twice only that too mostly on telephone and I, without singing even for 1% (1% is 18 seconds in a class of 30 mts.) in any of the music-classes of not exceeding 30 mts., am able to properly initiate my disciple sing right from the preliminary exercises up to Varnas only (in this system nothing is taught beyond Varnas). However, the aspirant becomes able to sing both the Purvanga and Uttaranga of 9 select Varnas in complex Ragas (not in Mohana or Hamsadhavani however) @ 4, 6 & 8 notes per beat, learn 5 or 6 Kritis on his/her own and sing even intricate Swarakalpana and brief Ragalapana hardly within the span of one year. This system is very helpful to the aspirant and their parents saving their invaluable time, energy and money as against the traditional system in which they have to waste their time, energy and money lavishly where there is no guarantee of becoming a maestro even after 10 years. More over, while the traditional system wantonly kept the masses away from this art this novel system has become handy to those down trodden classes of people in learning this art very quickly and efficiently possibly saving even their time, energy and money.

As a professional teacher my main aim is to make the aspirant work independently on his/her own without dependency upon any other person and learn things very quickly and efficiently hardly within the span of only one or two years. If he finds fit and become assured of becoming a professional singer in this short span well and good. If not, without wasting his invaluable time, energy and money he can very well choose some other profession and get on.

Since a long time I have been appealing to all the teaching community to sit and discuss things at length and find an amicable solution in saving the time, energy and money of the aspirants and their parents in this respect. I am always ready to such discussions to help our poor aspirants.

I heartily welcome if Chi. Ravikiran or any other person for that matter, makes the aspirants work independently and learn things very quickly and efficiently even than me which help the poor aspirants and their parents still more.

As this is going off of the original topic I hereafter prefer to respond in the sub-thread AMS-Easy Mehtods-2007 under the main thread Music School if needed. amsharma