laya of a keerthana

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MadhavRayaprolu
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laya of a keerthana

Post by MadhavRayaprolu »

Hello,

I'm a student of both Carnatic and Hindustani music, so I can't help comparing the two and wishing the good things in one to be available in the other style. One of those differences I noticed is that, in Hindustani music, we present a raga using multiple compositions at different speeds. Alternately, we can pick a single composition and simply increase the speed of it when we present faster swarakalpana or aakaram (aka taans). In Carnatic music, we don't seem to have this flexibility. We present only one composition in a given raga at one constant speed through out, and do the nerval, swarakalpana in that speed in multiple kalams.

To me, many keerthanas with a lot of bhakthi bhaavam sound better when they are sung a bit slowly and relaxedly. But by the time it comes to the second speed nerval or swarakalpana, I like them better if they are sung about 20-30% faster. Since our format doesn't allow for this flexibility, I'm having to choose a speed that suits the keerthana or the swarakalpana and not being able to do justice to both. In fact, I find professional musicians often singing keerthanas at much higher speeds than (what I perceive as) the natural speed of the keerthana, probably to show case their swarakalapanas at the faster pace.

I find this format extremely limiting and I want to get some honest opinions from others whether this resonates with anyone else. If so, so you agree we should take the liberty to increase the speed during the improvisations?

Madhav

Lakshman
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by Lakshman »

Madhav wrote
in Hindustani music, we present a raga using multiple compositions at different speeds
Would you kind enough to explain what this means?
Do I understand this to mean that the vilambit could be in ektAl, the drut could be in tIn tAl and the tarAnA could be in a different tAl? the Thanks.

sureshvv
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by sureshvv »

MadhavRayaprolu wrote: 21 Jan 2018, 12:04
To me, many keerthanas with a lot of bhakthi bhaavam sound better when they are sung a bit slowly and relaxedly. But by the time it comes to the second speed nerval or swarakalpana, I like them better if they are sung about 20-30% faster. Since our format doesn't allow for this flexibility,
I don't think you are right. It is allowed and it is done.

MadhavRayaprolu
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by MadhavRayaprolu »

@Lakshman: this means that the taal remains the same (say teentaal), but you present a vilambit, madhyalay and druth compositions and improvise at each speed. Or you start with teental at 120bpm and do slower alaaps, and raise the speed to say 160bpm for the taans.

@sureshvv: If you happen to know a recording that shows an abrupt jump in speed of a given piece, could you post?

vasanthakokilam
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by vasanthakokilam »

MadhavRayaprolu is talking about tempo change and not kalam change. In CM, the practice is to keep the Tempo the same. Tempo is characterized by the metronome ( real or in people's minds ) rate. Within that tempo, speed can be increased or decreased but only at double or half or when Nadai bedam is done, it is to the 3, 5,7 etc. We normally do not see an arbitrary change in tempo.

While you can accomplish the perceived speed difference by increasing the kAlam during swarakalpana, it is not quite the same as changing the metronome rate.

The two places where I see the metronome rate change is

a) Some mridangists including some senior ones change the tempo by a perceivable amount during the Thani. That is for their own creative aesthetics
b) In a lighter vein, you can observe 'Ottam' in many singers past and present, great and not so great.. Ottam is indeed a change in the metronomic rate (tempo)

MadhavRayaprolu
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by MadhavRayaprolu »

Thanks for the clarification @vasantakokilam. My question to the group is whether you felt the need for this tempo change, either as a singer or as a rasika. I seem to feel the need often.

I like to sing a typical medium tempo keerthana at around 130-140 bpm. But second speed swarakalpana sounds too dragged out at that speed. I like to sing the second speed at least at 160bpm or more to bring out the excitement of the faster swarams with all the rhythmic patterns. These two are in direct conflict. I also have scores of examples where I felt that artists have sung keerthanas at unnaturally high speeds just so that the swarakalpana is exciting. Wondering if any of you had a similar reaction. I know my opinion is biased from my HM influence and I enjoy keerthanas at a slower pace than a typical CM rasika.

sureshvv
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by sureshvv »

I have heard the charanam taken at a slightly brisker clip. It is infrequent and certain artistes do this more than others. Think it is more common in instrumental concerts.

MadhavRayaprolu
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by MadhavRayaprolu »

Here’s an example of what I was talking about. If TMK sang the keerthana at its “natural” pace that most others sing, perhaps the swarams wouldn’t have been as exciting.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=J9k5aYdGR7Q

Nick H
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by Nick H »

If you do not keep second, tisra, third, speed at something close to the "right" number, the audience metronomes will go crazy. They will not return to your concert!

sureshvv
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by sureshvv »

This is a great question for practicing musicians. It would be nice if someone chips in. May be we should have a moderated forum for such Q/A threads where musician(s) can volunteer to answer.

narayan
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by narayan »

I think the basic limitation is a valid point and is a self imposed one of style. There is a lot of talk of maintaining the same kalapramanam throughout, in songs in Carnatic Music. This is very rarely observed very rigorously, especially where there is neraval swaram.

However, there are many other roads to Rome, i.e. the experimentation with different speeds. Pallavis where lines are sung at different speeds and where there is neraval in multiple speeds would be close to the goal. KVN style neraval also happens at multiple speeds in a progressive way, including a middle layer where there is a more continuous singing of the syllables, akin to the hindustani style. I think this is quite prominent in his Vasavadi sakala deva neravals for Sri Subrahmanyaya namaste (Kambhoji)

Quite common are slow songs rendered at twice the pace from the original - the prominent examples being Angarakam (Suruti), Nirajakshi kamakshi (Hindolam) and Sri varalaksmi (Sri ragam). I think even Sri sukra bhagavantam is sung at twice the pace in some versions, though I have not heard it. In Tyagaraja songs, I have heard that Muddumomu (Suryakantam) and Sangeeta Gyanamu (Dhanyasi) have slower versions (have not heard them). Srikumara (Atana) has the caranam sung at double the pace, compared to what I have learnt. I'm sure there are more examples. This does show that there is no sacrosanct speed.

Personally, I have experimented in singing entire songs at slightly or significantly different speeds and it has usually been interesting! In the reverse mode, I have tried singing Makelara (Ravicandrika) and Ninnada (Kannada) at slow pace. Tanayuni brova (Bhairavi) if sung at a streched out pace is pretty much like the Bhairavi padam (Rama rama prana sakhi?) in its vibe!

The only song where in vocal music I can remember a conscious shift in pace which seems to be accepted is in Evarani (Devamrtavarshini) where the caranam is often sung at a faster pace. Of course many varnams are taken up at a faster pace caranam onwards.

Finally, I think some artistes calm down in their kalapramanam in later years as compared to their earlier years! Ramnad's Mummurtulu (Athana) is at a nice leisurely pace compared to most songs in his earlier years.

MadhavRayaprolu
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by MadhavRayaprolu »

@Narayan, interesting you say that there is no natural/sacrosanct speed of a krithi, that it is equally interesting when you speed up or slow down. Be that as it may, my general complaint is that the trend in CM has been to explore faster speeds more than slower speeds. There are several factors for this trend, and I’m speculating that one of the reasons is the inflexibility of tempo, so krithis have to be sung at faster speeds for the second speed nerval/swarams to sound exciting.

shankarank
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by shankarank »

MadhavRayaprolu wrote: 24 Jan 2018, 10:31 Here’s an example of what I was talking about. If TMK sang the keerthana at its “natural” pace that most others sing, perhaps the swarams wouldn’t have been as exciting.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=J9k5aYdGR7Q
During his years of transition (about 2006 or so), he rendered ETi janma as a viruttam almost.. where Arun could not figure out where the beat was. But he gradually made it tighter and did svara prastams in sarva laghu at what you could call madyama kAlapramaNam. There was nothing amiss to any aesthetic person there. Completely natural.

Only gripe I had was , slow pace rendition can be done with fidelity to tALA in a concert stage. In Chamber music , when they sing padam with no Mridangam accompaniment, that is one thing - they can have flexibility! You will notice that when people sing invocation renditions before an event, they generally are not picky about maintaining tALam. I cherish a bhajana Parula by Smt. Usha Sagar - a disciple of Ramnad @Houston tyagarAja festival , without any percussion accompaniment and I don't think she was tight on tALa. She wanted to express the suruTTi in that composition in it's full beauty.

I only felt that TMK seem to have made a point that the Mridangist should simply follow whatever he chooses to sing. A slow pace ( a pace that feels slow enough to express your melody!) is possible maintaining a sense of tALAm in a concert stage , given that a Mridangist is trying to accompany.

Other than that I have no issues there.

Well now to Arun's poser in a lecdem : https://youtu.be/UATLAC8yShw?t=3354 . I don't know if doing justice allows for any flexibility in varying speed. But the way Arun approaches accompaniment in general , he seem to have this dogma.

Lastly, as regards the Audio posted, if TMK wanted to do svarams anywhere closer to the kalapramANam of his starting ( which he himself slowed down as the song progressed), assuming he adjusted a wee bit to have certainty on the tALam, a sarva laghu style svara singing is not implementable at that speed. You will need Pallavi style mathematics. Even if he contrived to do sarva laghu, it won't sound like the svara prastAra - it will be like teaching a student on how to do sarva laghu, not a performance with aesthetics. But svara prastAra can be done in a slow pace tALam, with just enough speed to have some certainty on tALam, using Mathematical approach.

MadhavRayaprolu
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by MadhavRayaprolu »

@shankarank: the point of my posting TMK’s recording is to show that, if he had sung the krithi at a slower pace to make it melodious, like the way Malladi brothers sang at around 160bpm: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O_QmPS8TP6Y, he couldn’t have done such a wonderful and exciting duritha kaala swarams as the one I posted earlier. He had to jack up the tempo close to 200bpm to do what he did. Hence the tradeoff, between the melodious krithi at 160bpm vs exciting duritha kaala swarams at 200bpm, and the format doesn’t allow you to have both.

shankarank
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by shankarank »

narayan wrote: 03 Feb 2018, 20:18 I have heard that Muddumomu (Suryakantam)
https://soundcloud.com/shankar-krishna- ... uryakantam

This is the rendu-geTTAN kAlapramaNam of ARI.

இத வுடா மெதுவா போனா ஸௌராஷ்ட்ரம் தான் ! மத்யாமத்திலே நிக்கர மூர்ச்சனையிலே சின்ன நிஷாதம் வந்து போவும்.
Anything slower than this will lead to saurAshtram. dwelling on madyama will cause a mUrchana effect to reach kaishiki niShada.

That is assuming a musician is attempting chaste Carnatic music. But TNS brings in brigha , kannaKKu, and an Ilayaraja type melodic touch around D2 to stay the course.

Madurai Sundar was on tanpura too that day ( 1998 Cleveland Sangita Ratnakara) - and in some following years for the Columbus Ohio tyAgarAja utsavam, on my request, Sundar converted this to a main piece!
narayan wrote: 03 Feb 2018, 20:18 and Sangeeta Gyanamu (Dhanyasi) have slower versions (have not heard them)
இதிலென்னய்யா பிரச்சினை ! நீங்களே பாடிக்கலாம் மெதுவா. What is the problem with that? You can stretch it yourself. Some rAgas ( lets say most real ragas shall we? :evil: :twisted: ) are conserved on speed variation :ugeek: .
Last edited by shankarank on 05 Feb 2018, 11:32, edited 3 times in total.

shankarank
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by shankarank »

MadhavRayaprolu wrote: 05 Feb 2018, 11:14 the format doesn’t allow you to have both.
To hell with the format. He has already done it even before he declared that :twisted: :lol:

சர்வ லகுவில் மயங்கி திணறுபவர்கள்ளுக்கு அவர் ஓட்டுவதே தெரியாது! Those who are in awe of his sarva laghu, will not even be able to notice his speeding up. He will do it in stages, initially lower kAla svarams will appear to have fidelity to the original ( already up a notch) and then he will slowly introduce higher kalam and produce some effect and bring it to his speed.

According to a tanjorite marathi grundig tape collector, it was Thanjavur Vaidyanatha Iyer who told Palghat mani Iyer, that he cannot reset the speed for his tani as he wished, which means people did it! :o :lol:

MadhavRayaprolu
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by MadhavRayaprolu »

shankarank wrote: 05 Feb 2018, 11:18 To hell with the format. He has already done it even before he declared that :twisted: :lol:
Haha, yes he did. But only a tiny bit and even that sneakily :) I actually measured it, it went from about 195bpm in the song to about 205bpm in the swarams.

shankarank
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by shankarank »

Well in your case (the concert you posted!), it may be true human inability and may not actually be counted as a speed up. What I am talking about is completely something else. It was actually very slow like a padam and then it became a madyama kAla svaram. He made it like a formal art - he created a new format :twisted: . In other words he legalized it .

I remember (IIRC) , I think harimau gave a vyAkhyAna for that, like droplets of rain starting to fall slowly and then speeding up and a river flows something like that - in sangeetham.com .

So this is all beyond your measure! May be a new movie title, oops mazhai/varsham is taken in 2005. We could say in sub-altern tamiLu maLa!

shankarank
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by shankarank »

narayan wrote: 03 Feb 2018, 20:18 In Tyagaraja songs, I have heard that Muddumomu (Suryakantam) ....slower versions (have not heard them).
https://youtu.be/oODqmJCdBj4?t=976

So here is another one, you can hear true middle eastern music, with 53 commas.. sometimes vakulAbharaNam, sometimes ahir bhairav etc. So that is a different segue! He wants to hit the svaraksharam of N3 ( N3 minus) in celengENO ( in the NO). Such a plain N3 spells M2 also.

That said : A chasty shade of sUryakAnatam will be actually present in vEgavAhini in the way D2 is handled and even N2 is stretched away from its position in paradyakIla, karAravindAm, kalyANatAm, kanaka campakadAma! If it is indeed a mighty rAgA as Prof. SRJ claims, I kind of expect that ambiguity.

Incidentally, Prof SRJ's Lecdem somewhere in Sastri hall or ragasudha, featured a slower version of muddu mOmu - don't remember where I read it.

MadhavRayaprolu
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by MadhavRayaprolu »

shankarank wrote: 05 Feb 2018, 19:06 What I am talking about is completely something else. It was actually very slow like a padam and then it became a madyama kAla svaram. He made it like a formal art - he created a new format :twisted:
I see what you are saying. I vaguely recall hearing something like this where TMK downplays the rhythm in the beginning and picks it up later. Good bold experiments from him. It opens up more avenues to explore the melody side when we take liberties with the rhythm.

shankarank
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by shankarank »

shankarank wrote: 06 Feb 2018, 12:03 So here is another one, you can hear true middle eastern music, with 53 commas.. sometimes vakulAbharaNam, sometimes ahir bhairav etc. So that is a different segue! He wants to hit the svaraksharam of N3 ( N3 minus) in celengENO ( in the NO). Such a plain N3 spells M2 also.
Lets announce a new Raga : Surya Kalyan :twisted: - if that name has not been taken ( I checked : http://www.dpattammal.com/raga-pravagam.php)

S r1 G3 M1 P M2 D2 N3 S
S N3 D2 P M2 P M1 G3 R1 S

that would take it away from any semblance to Saurashtram.

narayan
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by narayan »

sankarank, Thanks for the pointer to muddumomu. Enjoyed hearing it. Have no idea what you are referring to in some of your other points (suryakalyan etc), but never mind.

MadhavRayaprolu, I think the basic point you made is a valid one. But I doubt if the tempo of a song selected by a singer is inevitably influenced by the ornamentation the musician wishes to create along with the song. At the least, one can sing kalpana swaras in at least two tempos, and there are occasions when one or the other is emphasised or even omitted altogether. So there is sufficient flexibility there, I think.

shankarank
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by shankarank »

narayan wrote: 10 Feb 2018, 12:18 Have no idea what you are referring to in some of your other points (suryakalyan etc), but never mind.
If Saurashtram was begotten with a (suddha) madyama muRchana, why not get a real rAgA with N3 as mUrchana - felt me when I heard Dr BMK stalling there. So they can have a more free flowing rAgam at least in one sampradAya system of music, instead of TNS negotiating D2 lightly and Dr BMK stalling like a Westerner in N3 - so we got Surya Kalyan! :D - there may be a dvimadyama in SKR list , but lets retain "Pa" to get an emphatic rAgA than a touch sensitve mine that will blow up.

Vayoo Flute
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by Vayoo Flute »

Going back to the original issue raised, correct me if I am off-base: my understanding is that Hindustani classical music lyrics are rather simple sentences involving just a few words, and invariably in praise of a deity. So they are amenable to be stretched and moulded to different speeds and patterns. Carnatic compositions are more complex and elaborate and are not amenable to the same amount of stretching and contracting (timewise) without losing some of the meaning of the lyrics. The lyrics also dictate the pace of the songs. Imagine singing ninnuvina (narasak kanada) at a very slow pace or some of Dikshitar’s navavarnam kritis at fast pace.

Hindustani composition singing generally mirrors their approach to alapnas, starting slowly and increasing the pace. The alapna approach, to me, is too constrained and mechanical. Carnatic musicians have a lot more freedom here. Listen to TN Rajaratnam’s famous thodi record.

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

The first part is at lightening speed. He then settles down to a wonderful slow and introspective pace. Similarly, listen to how Flute Mali starts this sankarabharanam alapna

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04chwhKHRME

with a flourish and at high pitch, then settles into a contemplative pace that brings out all his creativity. A creative musician can vary the pace throughout the alapna, changing the direction up or down. This more flexible approach to pace gives the musician another tool for his creative abilities.

In compositions, though the talam cycle remains at the same speed, there is often much variation in pace within each cycle, especially during neraval and swara renderings, again without the mechanical slow to fast prescription.

shankarank
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by shankarank »

Vayoo Flute wrote: 14 Feb 2018, 04:45 The lyrics also dictate the pace of the songs. Imagine singing ninnuvina (navarasak kanada) at a very slow pace or some of Dikshitar’s navavarnam kritis at fast pace.
https://youtu.be/auAhhnjs1GE?t=1046 - This is slow for generally what we hear .. and I remember a slow initial rendition from Madurai MPN brothers cassette that played @ home.
Vayoo Flute wrote: 14 Feb 2018, 04:45 or some of Dikshitar’s navavarnam kritis at fast pace.
kamalambam bhajare - Kalyani: GNB's rendition is pace much higher than even madyama kAla - I guess keeping with his general style. There is a slow TNS rendition ( the Trivandrum one with CSM , Harishankar ) - of this released by Carnatica - even slower than the Seetha Rajan rendition which I would say is madayama kAla.

The slowness of Hindustani is not their lyrics... it is the approach of rAga .. and mUrchanas I would say. A Surya KalyAni ( it may already exist with a different name) would make perfect sense in their system.

A Suryakantam in our system is not a Raga, it is just a laya - you will have to accept that syllables and not notes make for music.

A vaNi Mahal RTP by Sanjay in Suryakantam early 2000s - I remember the event but nothing about it. I guess tAnam is ornamentation - hence can be done. Pallavi is pada laya vinyAsam - it is just TP!

Vayoo Flute
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by Vayoo Flute »

"The slowness of Hindustani is not their lyrics... it is the approach of rAga .. "

That is exactly what I am saying when I stated that the approach to compositions mirrors their approach to the alapnas.

As for the 9varnams, even Madurai Mani Iyer sang the Kalyani piece at a fast piece in his record )probably due to recording time constraints). I challenge you to show me a place where the Ghanta or Ahiri composition have been rendered at a fast pace!

shankarank
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by shankarank »

You are generally observing that some rAgAs are having a pace of their own. But then I will tell you , that may not be actually physical speed. Somewhere in his Series of lectures @ IITM, TMK delved into that , that a what is physically fast may actually feel slow. The composition. Let me stop there. First I hate the notion that we look at it as if it is something on its own. We don't know what we mean sometimes. I can only say that the composition , if it ever is a distinct entity contributed the right kind of long/short pattern to the whole of music.

So what could be a slow rAgA in one could also be a physically faster paced in another. https://youtu.be/UCW0X_V0Dqs?t=1397 .

Some rAgAs scale up and down! A somewhat faster dEvagandhari does not spell Arabhi and there is also a nAyaki varNam where it physically flows fast in ciTTa svaram.

But an Arabhi cannot be slowed down much. Unless for teaching purposes.

>> On that regard on further edit: karuNA samudra used to be sung like Arabhi ( quoting RKSK) by ARI , MVI and SSI for a while, until an IPS gnAnastar challenged SSI - so what if seniors sang like that - what happened to your mind?

Which means speed in real sense ( not physical) has a bearing on rAga svarUpa!! SSI modified it on that advice - I heard!

I would think Ahiri may be inherently slow, but in the hands of a specifically endowed musician ( by means of gift, a particular mode of training, sAdhana, felicity of sArIram) the physical speed can increase, but it will feel slow. If a musician has developed the execution skills to show the long/short alternates of the rAgA in a faster physical speed, may be it can happen.

But in terms of slow/fast close pairs - ignoring lakshana/svaroopa differences , purely on feel:

dEvagandhari - Arabhi
nAyaki - darbAr
saurAShtram/Bhairavam - sUryakAntam
vEgavAhini - cakravAham
SrI - madyamAvati

janaranjani - pURNacandrika
varALi - vijayaSrI
DhanyAsi - Suddha DhanyAsi
Mukari - Bhairavi

And I am adding:
karnAtaka kApi - karaharapriyA

Funny I ran into this: https://sriramv.wordpress.com/2008/12/3 ... mber-2008/

We have too much product differentiation in Carnatic music, still we are a bad sell. A book that critiques U.S market calls this out as the scam - using product differentiation to entice customers.

It feels like I went to a Drug store ( a legal one that is) to get Cough Syrup for the Flu season, And I get lost with so many combinations there, fever reducer, decongestant, Anti-Histamines! Couple of Brand streams tussin and Tapp , and the store brand generic version for each! For some combos I have to produce an ID, as it is part of some abuse cocktail.

Speed, it seems, it is some last issue to worry about. When rAgA situation is muddy, why do they lay their hands on layam? Mridangam is not music etc.!

அதுல கைய வைக்க வேண்டிய அவசியம் என்ன. மிருதங்கம் மியூசிக் இல்லை என்னல்லாம் சொல்லிக்கிட்டு!

MadhavRayaprolu
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by MadhavRayaprolu »

Vayoo Flute wrote: 14 Feb 2018, 04:45 Hindustani composition singing generally mirrors their approach to alapnas, starting slowly and increasing the pace. The alapna approach, to me, is too constrained and mechanical. Carnatic musicians have a lot more freedom here.
Agree, Carnatic alapana is the most free format for expressing a ragam. It is free from lyrics and rhythm, free from any rules on how the movement should be. No slow to fast, low notes to higher notes etc. As long as a phrase is aesthetically connected with the previous phrase, the artist is free to sing whatever he/she likes.

Format is one thing, trend is another. While the alapana format allows all the freedom, I feel the trend in CM is to explore ragas using more complex and faster phrases than the simpler and slower ones. There are a few mavericks that tried to turn the trend, but by and large it is on the faster side. This is not a new trend, in fact the average alapana speed may have slowed down a bit among the new generation. I just wish there are choices available for rasikas that prefer a more relaxed raga exploration.

Coming back to the format, while CM alapana offers the most flexibility, the freedom is a lot reduced once the laya kicks in. The first is the constant tempo that we already discussed in detail in this thread. Second is about the fact that laya is fairly prominent while rendering compositions or in the improvisations. In other words, most of the syllables, swara transitions and phrases happen precisely on the beat. There are a few times artists abandon the laya temporarily and make forays into raga (and I love it every time that happens) but by and large the laya is kept in tact. In HM, these forays are more of a norm than an exception, giving an extra dimension for exploration.

We are of course comparing two infinities here, the comparisons are only for academic purpose and doesn’t point to any big limitations in either style.

vasanthakokilam
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by vasanthakokilam »

"A Suryakantam in our system is not a Raga, it is just a laya"

How does a Mela become a laya? If you can explain that (or rephrase that ) in the broadly understood meaning of laya, that will be good.

Having said that I do see what you mean by 'you will have to accept that syllables and not notes make for music'. I take it as 'notes are necessary but not sufficient'.

If I stretch myself a bit to understand what you are saying given the context of the thread, yours is a different form of saying 'UccharaNa bEdA is raga bEdA'. Uccharanai ( intonation ) can have some rhythmic component.

shankarank
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by shankarank »

I meant: mELas like that , which are just sequences, get used to express a syllable formation. They don't have standing as a rAgA, which I think is a deeper concept.

I said in a provocative way to bring out my view that syllable formation has independent standing in Carnatic music as music. And that is more than just conforming to a rhythm!

This is especially important when musicologists claim that rAgA is the core of our music. We cannot just take unique sequences and call them unique rAgAs just because they have been given a name.

They will have to rationalize and reduce what are distinct rAgAs. Rest have to be called tunes.

shankarank
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by shankarank »

MadhavRayaprolu wrote: 15 Feb 2018, 18:19 I feel the trend in CM is to explore ragas using more complex and faster phrases than the simpler and slower ones. There are a few mavericks that tried to turn the trend, but by and large it is on the faster side.
During the faster trend of recent decades, the exquisite nature of the phrases reduced. I am not sure what you mean by complex. Technically complex , does not translate into beautifully intricate!

Vayoo Flute
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by Vayoo Flute »

A raga can be described as being somewhere between a pure scale on one end and a very fixed melody or tune on the other end. A raga that resulted from the 72 melakarta scheme that has a very minimal composition base will fall very close to the pure scale end. A raga that evolved from a single kriti or 2 (eg katanakutuhulam) falls close to the tune end. As a raga develops (more and more compositions created by highly creative composers bringing in new patterns that become popular over time), the raga shifts from the pure scale end. A highly developed raga falls somewhere in between, that is, it is neither scale nore pure tune.

MadhavRayaprolu
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by MadhavRayaprolu »

That’s an interesting way to define a raga. Although I would have the spectrum as going from the most concrete to the most abstract. Starting with the lifeless scales, then some interesting melodic materials, tunes, compositions and finally the most abstract and infinite raga at the other end. Perhaps raga itself is not abstract enough. There are ragangas which supply the melodic themes for multiple ragas. So ragas and ragangas are essentially an abstraction of related melodic material that evoke a specific feeling.

Given this spectrum, not all ragas are at the same level as people mentioned. Some stop at the scales and some barely take off from this level with limited themes. The “big” ragas are the ones that are abstracted over a wide variety of melodic material. And “strong” ragas are those whose underlying melodic material is most closely related to each other and/or produce the most characteristic feeling.

This is not super scientific of course. But it would be interesting to classify ragas along these lines and figure out which ragas have similar level of bigness or strength.

Madhav

vasanthakokilam
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by vasanthakokilam »

Madhav, what you describe is the HM way, right? There is lot to learn from such a model and way of thinking about ragas. I would call them the ‘semantic’ approach.

CM has such concepts as well. But such things have fallen victims to the extraordinary brilliance, attractiveness and success of the melakarta scheme which is more a ‘syntactical’ approach. May be this is a case of too much of a good thing. Over time, such an attractive syntax based classification had that hypnotic effect on the musicologists of the south. Fortunately it did not have that big an effect on the composers and musicians. They use such a scheme for what it is.

Syntax gives structure, order and framework to semantics and as a result it can reveal some hidden semantics. The melakarta scheme had that beneficial effects as well much to the benefit of humanity. But the CM ecosystem and meta theory, in my personal opinion, overplays syntax and underplays semantics. One example where this aspect plays out in a dramatic manner is in deciding which bucket to put a raga in. Mohanam is the syntactic child of HK and semantic child of Kalyani. Possibly Hamsadhwani has such a dual parent. How did that come to be? When several parents syntactically fit, CM resorts to yet another syntax to resolve the tie: ‘go with the lowest numbered melakarta number’. A semantically oriented tie breaker possibly would have placed Mohanam under 65 rather than 28.

MadhavRayaprolu
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by MadhavRayaprolu »

I wasn’t describing the HM classification (except for the reference to raganga, which is an aside). Nor was I proposing any fundamental reclassification. I was just building on vayooflute’s spectrum line, which makes sense in terms of how ragas may have evolved. And suggesting an informal secondary classification of ragas. Like throw them all on a 2D matrix of bigness vs strength. I think it has practical benefits. A student can look at this chart to know which are the big ragas to elaborate more. A new CM rasika can look at which ones are the strongest ragas so she can begin to identify them. And so on.

vasanthakokilam
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by vasanthakokilam »

Madhav, understood.

Please elaborate on your definition of 'big ragas'. That is what led me to think in terms of grouping ragas by their semantic closeness rather than syntactic closeness.

MadhavRayaprolu
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by MadhavRayaprolu »

Vasantha Kokilam: I understand what you mean by semantic (meaning) vs syntactic (grammar) classifications. I'm partial to semantic classifications since ultimately music is about what is meaningful to us in terms of emotional responses.

Re big ragas, oddly enough, nearly every professional musician knows what this means and perhaps even have a list of big ragas. So the question is not whether "bigness" makes sense as a concept, but more about how we can define it crisply.

I'd simply define bigness as the total number of non-trivial distinct phrases that characterize a raga. So if you take Reethi Gowla, PM-GRS is a distinct phrase. We can always extend this phrase to GM, PM-GRS. Or RGM, PM-GRS. or SGRGM, PM-GRS. But these are trivial extensions of the core phrases.

I need help here, but I feel a raga like Bhairavi has a lot more defining phrases than than Reethi Gowla. However, I also feel that the phrases of Reethi Gowla have a lot more semantic closeness than those of Bhairavi. So Bhairavi is a bigger raga than Reethi Gowla although Reethi Gowla is a stronger raga than Bhairavi. And of course, some crazy melas and their derivatives are neither strong nor big.

Does this make sense?

Vayoo Flute
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by Vayoo Flute »

MR: I do like your concept of extending my one-dimensional spectrum to 2 dimensions, and perhaps even three. Clearly this area is ripe for a lot of thinking and evolution. Would make a perfect PhD thesis for a budding music student.

vasanthakokilam
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by vasanthakokilam »

MR, thanks. I get it now. Actually I mistyped, I understood the 'bigness' but I was not sure of the 'strongness'. Now I get it. May be 'Strong' is not the right word but we can worry about that later.
VF, good idea. Go for it.

Just as an aside, a heat map visual representation can be put to use if we are interested in a third dimension to be visualized. That is just one, there are plenty of such methods to choose from.

We may need a separate thread to surface this to a broader set of our members. Let us see how this thread evolves.

MadhavRayaprolu
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Re: laya of a keerthana

Post by MadhavRayaprolu »

VK you are right strong is not a very strong concept like bigness and it is harder to define. I was using this word to represent the strength of character. So puliodharai has a stronger character than say fried rice. It is easily identifiable, allows less experimentation, there is less debate between two cooks on what constitutes a good puliodharai, the rasikas enjoy its authenticity more than its taste, etc. A related concept is “stickiness”. Some ragas stay in our heads for a lot longer than some others. Perhaps this is a result of the strength of character. Or maybe it is a new dimension on how addictive a raga is.

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