Madhuradhwani - Nadabrahmam Sri Thyagaraja Revisited - Tadepalli Lokanatha Sarma & HMV Raghu

[shankarank]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2s0Lp8L0HA

This could be just a continuation of the thread on "Shri Guruguhasya dAsOham" by Vid. K. Arunprakash. I will summarize the points I took ( which would include a bias of what I wanted to hear from it).

1. His emphasis on sAhitya - I think requires serious consideration. This is just learning the candas ( verse and meter) without regard to meaning and how sandhi splits and joins - a detailed topic that was made a metaphor of cosmic proportions in sIkSha valli in taitriyOpanishad.

2. Meaning is only literal to begin with and is a life long pursuit - so that is a personal quest. I will leave this out of debate even though all elders say learn the meaning.

3. BhAvA could be an up bringing thing - even within a homogeneous culture - something subjective. But a person disconnected from it , could connect back to it using civilizational ideas which would include Sanskriti. A certain need for identity could help there. An outsider simply learns everything - for example about Thyagaraja, like what somebody like John Higgins would have done, and pretty much develop that affinity.

4. As regards melody, rhythm and expression and their interplay - I have to pretty much agree. Students should take this as a journey and gain control on the time to be able to smoothly execute sAhitya , without faltering on the tALA. But if we get to the level of "art" music, we have to consider the fact that "art" can exist in time as much as it exists in "frequency" (of sound).

5. Lastly his Harsh critic on what goes on. That is just a transposed version of what Sri TMK has been asking. If the practitioners have been paying only a scant regard to the sense of the composer, the words are rendered meaningless - but where I differ from Sri TMK is whether that makes it even "art" music?

It seems there is enough scope within "art" music which may mean several things by itself - it's methods, the community practices and what not - to ensure fidelity to sAhitya and BhAva and this is not a done job in Golden era , or post Golden era - and there is room for constant improvement and course correction where things have gone astray.

[Sachi_R]

Shankarank,
My friends like Varsha have told me how knowledgeable Sri Lokanatha Sharma is, and how unique his Thyagaraja renditions. Didn't expect the man to be so outspoken.
I feel he belongs to a bygone era of vocalists. His views on what's wrong obviously show why he hasn't been in the limelight.
I am sorry to say I was neither moved nor impressed by the other speaker, his unwanted interjections, and the I Me Myself story, apart from the way he was sitting (unable to manage his dhoti) during Sharmaji's talk.

[bhakthim dehi]

I have two points to say here:
1. Whenever the main speaker demonstrates proper pronunciation or splitting of sahityam, his music was a free flowing one. It was not fixed to a talam component. How this can be accepted? Sadly, this is the case with all examples.
2. He himself says I will not sing in the same way when you asked me for the next time. He says this with respect to rendition of a krithi and not with manodharma component. What does that mean? How can this inconsistency be accepted?
He also says I have changed a few things from what his Guru has thought. But didn't mention the change.

[shankarank]

2. He himself says I will not sing in the same way when you asked me for the next time. He says this with respect to rendition of a krithi and not with manodharma component. What does that mean? How can this inconsistency be accepted?

So is the definition of creativity universal? How did we get to the point of considering kalpita sangIta bereft of any manodharma? Isn't that Mozartification? Again - I am using that term loosely the way Indians have understood it and assimilated it - or lets say the way I see the notion being played out - may be it is a wrong term in the real Western world. If something is composed, is that static - set in stone?

This is the biggest intellectual subversion done to the Indian traditions - not just music.

A guru SiSya conversation is to be considered a debate of every generation - albeit not between equal parties. But the Guru is not just his person/body. In his act of teaching, new questions ( from contemporary ideas) will pop up in front of him, without the student asking. Then the act of sAdhana.

Watch this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bLUgYkhQzE

That deserves its own thread by itself - but posting it here as it is somewhat relevant.

[Sachi_R]

Bhaktim Dehi,
For sure, singing the words correctly and emphasising the sentiment of the main composer CANNOT be at the cost of the tala alignment. I think a good singer will manage the combination well. That is a kind of creativity.

So when Sri.Sharma says he doesn't repeat the exact musical lines=Sangatis in the next concert, he is, I think, re-emphasising the spontaneous creativity involved in that aspect. Of course too much experimentation will be musically risky. Which is what I think you are saying.

[shankarank]

@#5 -> Yes the best way to see it is in MDR's music .. Quoting an anecdote from the Grunding tape collector conversations .. sometimes it is like the actress in old tamizh/telugu movies walking in steps on stones laid over a pond. A wrong step would result in a fall and drowning!

[shankarank]

1. Whenever the main speaker demonstrates proper pronunciation or splitting of sahityam, his music was a free flowing one. It was not fixed to a talam component. How this can be accepted? Sadly, this is the case with all examples.

For your convenience I extracted one item from this : https://www.sangeethamshare.org/asokan/ ... -23-Oct26/

into here: https://archive.org/details/LokanathaSh ... hakravakam

That may answer your question 2 as well in the sense that , the way he constructs his sangati, with kArvais taking liberty on the dhIrga it may not turn out exactly same , sometimes even melodically not just temporally.

[Sachi_R]

Shankarank,
Like this?

[shankarank]

The movie sets have a more curated/ordered version of that