Patantaram

Miscellaneous topics on Carnatic music
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kvchellappa
Posts: 3598
Joined: 04 Aug 2011, 13:54

Patantaram

Post by kvchellappa »

From FB:
Radha Bhaskar

Sri MA Krishnaswamy Swamy made a very valid point in his speech recently while sharing his memories about Sri A.Sundaresan. He mentioned how learning good Patantharam of kritis is very important to students & how great gurus like Sundaresan transmitted very structured Patantharams to his disciples. He also said that his father was strict about maintaining the Patantharam as learnt by him & would never deviate from it while teaching. He expected that discipline from all his disciples as well. A very good observation by Krishnaswamy was that many musicians nowadays sing the kritis like neraval singing ! A point to really ponder over!
I personally feel that with a lot of fusion & other such music becoming popular, Patantharams of kritis is given scant respect & many times the Kriti becomes just a peg to hang the musician's manodharma!

kvchellappa
Posts: 3598
Joined: 04 Aug 2011, 13:54

Re: Patantaram

Post by kvchellappa »

Sri Madhava Muni Rao wrote this in a private correspondence:
"Manodharma has modes of raga alaapana; tana; kruti/keertana-composition; niraval; pallavi; svara prastara/kalpana; sloka/viruttam/ugabhoga/vachana. In the mode of kruti/keertana-composition, the scope is for recreativity of the original creativity of the vaggeyakara, if notated by himself/herself or conforming to the bani, in absence of vaggeyakara's own notation or a popular style, in absence of both notation and bani.
Our Karnataka Sangita's growth and development was in karna parampara and with minimal documentation. Vaggeyakaras, with very few exceptions, had reasons of superstition or rejection of notation for documenting for its perceived poor quality in conveyance of lakshya and lakshana. Popular practitioners with good patronage created bani, a system and method, both in learning and practice of vaggeyakaras compositions. This became the standard for following. Much more popular practitioners with the support of masses (critical) took liberty and created stylish renditions and due to the popularity of both the practitioners and the stylish deliveries, stylish delivery became the patantaram of practitioners (majority) and minority, rejected and followed bani.

When KM's patronage took in the form of Sabha and Sabha's powerful event promoters, managers and administrations, pressure on practitioners to offer the values of excitement and sensations, majority of the practitioners took the liberty to bring in changes to the pata and pata integrity was lost. Only a very small percentage of practitioners (like my Guru & Father) conformed strictly to pata purity and integrity. It demanded highest discipline both from the practitioners and rasikas. Lacking both in value system and strict discipline, patantaram has suffered very seriously. Popular and great maestros themselves deviated from the patantara and introduced many changes to the pata and were hailing the patantara values only to cover up their guilt or their innovations to get acceptance with values in line with the original creativity. Truth and almost tragedy is that practitioners who conformed strictly to patantara purity suffered ignominy and never received the support as performers, with very few exceptions like Chitraveena Ravikiran."

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