what's absolutely necessary?

ramarama · Post by **ramarama** » 05 Jan 2007, 16:13

Browsing through various postings I missed here before I realized (thanks sri vijay) that this where everyone from sangeetham.com had decamped to, I notice that slips of sruti (or uncertain sruti adherence), perhaps even the occasional abaswara, and for sure, mangling of lyrics are all tolerated by many of you, especially in artistes whose music you have an unvarnished and absolute admiration for. It does not even appear that these are just temporary losses of form that lead to these aberrations in the music of some of these great musicians - rather, it is a "feature not a bug" of some top-rated musicians (of today and yesteryear) that their sruti adherence isn't that great, or that they don't pronounce (especially telugu and sanskrit) lyrics too well (or if an instrumentalist, play in such a way that does no justice to the lyrics). I have almost never heard a complaint that some top-rated musician's laya sense was not that great, with tendency to slow down and speed up at whim, or that they repeatedly missed the eduppu or sam or something like that.

Makes one think - sruti mata, laya pita, sahitya paramatma - or just laya pita? And all else is OK, as long as one is attempting complex kanakkus, rare ragas, long renditions of raga alapanas (even if a bit repetitive), variety in kriti selections, etc.?

Should not absolute and unswerving adherence to sruti be a basic requirement even for a beginning Carnatic music student? or any student of Indian classical music? Also, given that so much of Carnatic music is composition based, should not a basic knowledge of the correct pronounciation of each word of the composition (and if it is not asking too much, some thought about the mood of that particular composition), also be an absolute basic requirement before one even gets up on the concert stage? How do so many musicians achieve commendations of greatness on this forum while others carp at their lack of what would seem to be basic requirements for even a beginner? Perhaps I am missing something.

As an aside, as a struggling veena student, I have almost never had a teacher who insisted on learning the sahitya of the composition before taking up the veena to try to play it. All they would teach would be the swara notation. And I have had a few very accomplished teachers who have been trained by great masters. When I switched to trying to learn vocal music, so I could perhaps better appreciate the nuances of the sahitya, I found that even for basic varnams, some gurus had no idea what the lyrics meant - and given the tamizh lack of distinction between p and b, and k and g, tamizh transcriptions which many of them relied on for their own notation taking had no way of correctly indicating how to pronounce a particular telugu word.

Is all this much ado about nothing? Or should sruthi and sahitya suddham be in a basic "listener's bill of rights" before they unleash a musician on stage, let alone give them awards?

kamavardhani · Post by **kamavardhani** » 05 Jan 2007, 18:27

Very well articulated, ramarama... my thoughts exactly re: the sruti and laya aspects. Unfortunately, most lay listeners just don't care or don't know enough to care. Sruti sense, especially for a layman, is an extremely delicate aspect to master. Sruti slippages and 'OTTam' (or 'vOTTam' as some ppl here prefer to spell it) make me wince. I am forced to think of at least one leading light who has garnered the most number of reviews on this forum in the last month...

ps - your post and writing style reminds me of a certain gentleman from Pittsburgh (US - country as well as initials!) during the sangeetham.com days! are you he, by any chance?

ramarama · Post by **ramarama** » 05 Jan 2007, 20:32

heh! I didn't realize that some top rated folks don't pay that much attention to laya either at least in the sense of keeping a steady pace during a composition - what I had meant was for many serious rasikas, slips of sruti and sahitya seem to be OK as a regular feature, while slips of laya and tala would probably not be. But absolute adherence to laya is perhaps a difficult thing to judge - unless you do that expt reported in Vijay (2006) in sangeetham.com. Also, it is difficult perhaps to judge if the mridangist is the one who is speeding things up - I've seen Hindustani artistes struggle sometimes to control the laya of their accompanist. So perhaps for many people a combination of good tala sense, complex kanakku, variety in compositions rendered, unusual ragas and lengthy alapanas together are a sufficient condition for greatness.

I find for myself that even one slip of sruti (and I don't have that great an ear for sruti even) ruins a concert, because after that moment, you are constantly nervous about when the next error might happen.

Absolute perfection at everything can hardly be expected of course (though I have indeed heard at least technically perfect renditions over a four hour concert by Ravi Shankar - and many long concerts Carnatic musicians of yesteryear) - but basic sruthi adherence should surely be ingrained in beginning Carnatic students, yes?

and nope, i am not Pittsburgh Udumalapettai Srinivasaraghavan

kalyani · Post by **kalyani** » 05 Jan 2007, 21:16

Bravo, ramarama! I'd been wanting to write on the topic of shruthi shuddham (or rather, the lack of it) amongst some singers, but did not, simply because I couldn't find the time.

Here's my two cents on the topic:

Let me start with my experience at Nithyasree's concert at Parthasarathy Swamy Sabha on 30th Dec, I think. I had to rush out of the hall after her 4th or 5th song (rangapura vihAra), because I couldn't take any more of it. Her long ranjani and brindavana saranga alapanas were mere voice culture exercises, totally devoid of bhavam or shruthi. The kalpana swarams were longer the kritis themselves, again they had no pattern, no bhavam. Every time she touched the upper octave M or P the audience would erupt in rapture. For the audience, all that counted was the brighas (shruthi and bhavam are secondary, in fact, unnecessary in the alapanais, the length of the kalpana swarams ( the longer, the better, obviously), and the highest note she could reach (who cares if it sounds like Pallavan bus conductor's whistle?). I would like to know others view of this concert.

I observed with shock(?) this season that a good number of people in the audience have absolutely no clue about ragams or talams. Needless to say, they have totally no idea when the performer goes off shruthi. Some of them even reel out those aha-s and sabhash-s at the exact inopportune moments when the performer goes off shruthi. They attend the concerts of the 'biggies' simply because everyone else does.

I could go on and on about this issue but I'll stop here, hoping that I've managed to put my point across. Also, I'd love to hear other rasikas' views on this subject.

vijay · Post by **vijay** » 06 Jan 2007, 00:49

My 2 cents on this...

Slippage of laya is probably as frequent if not more than slippage of sruthi and to me both are serious problems. Several big names in CM are said to have a very poor grasp of laya...however laya slippages, except glaringly obviouos ones, are a little more difficult to spot (thanks to percussionists making suitable adjustments) than sruthi slippages, which are usually quite evident...

Perfect sruthi is subjective and, in fact, physically impossible to achieve although many CM musicians stray well beyond acceptable norms...but between someone who sings ordinary music with sruthi suddham (most film songs for example) and an otherwise creative artist with the occasional sruti lapse (we all all know who we are talking about here!!), my choice is quite clear...same goes for someone who takes chances with laya but falls flat occasionally. A carnatic concert ought to be a challenge, an adventure, with every chance of failure - if I wanted perfection, I would attend a ghazal mehfil or some such thing....

But all said and done we need to introspect about basic teaching methods as far as both sruthi and pronuncoation are concerned - CM has seriously problems on both fronts.

rasam · Post by **rasam** » 06 Jan 2007, 02:22

My opinion ... (since pretty much everyone has that disclaimer at the beginning of their post

)

Sruthi slips are very common in Carnatic music as such, be it current or yesteryear artists. It is as easy to lament the state of this w.r.t. to modern artists, as it is to conveniently forget that this has always been an issue with older artists as well.

What's acceptable and what's not is, of course, really subjective, but I like to think of this in terms of the origin and context of the sruthi slip and how often it happens:

1. Does it occur in a common alapana phrase or a standard sangathi of a krithi or suddenly, without any reason, without the artist even realizing the mistake?

2. Does it happen when the artist is in a creative mood and is exploring a rare phrase or sangati or while doing a complicated kanakku during swarakalpana or while bringing off a brigha for embellishment?

Sruthi slips in the former category are simply unacceptable as it reflects on the indiscipline of the artist and possible lack of practice. You cannot bring a krithi or a raga to the concert platform without having practiced it meticulously at home. This is the least that a professional musician can guarantee to the rasika.

Mistakes in the latter category can be tolerated to a certain extent. If it happens too often it is indicative of the fact that the artist is singing beyond his/her ability and cannot pull it off without additional voice/instrument exercises. However, sruthi perfection is always the eternal goal of a musician: one can practice every phrase, sangati, neraval and swaram sequence till its reasonably perfect (kind of like 'takes' in a studio), but that simply robs the spontaneity of a CM performance, not to mention resulting in concerts becoming extremely predictable.

As with all things in life, there is a happy medium that one strives for, the definition of which, in this case, is extremely subjective (i.e. the question of how much is OK).

jayaram · Post by **jayaram** » 06 Jan 2007, 05:06

I find for myself that even one slip of sruti (and I don't have that great an ear for sruti even) ruins a concert, because after that moment, you are constantly nervous about when the next error might happen.

My feelings exactly. This has happened to me a few times, and the being-on-the-edge feeling is hard to describe!
Sruti alignment is paramount to an enjoyable experience, whatever gymnastics the artiste performs. Stalwarts like KVN, MDR and Ramnad Krishnan scored over others on this front.

ramarama · Post by **ramarama** » 06 Jan 2007, 09:01

Those examples are great - KVN, MDR, Ramnad Krishnan (but how about some contemporary examples?) - these are not ghazal singers (though it would have been fun to have heard MDR singing a ghazal in Yadukula Kambodhi or Reethigowlai) - so does one really have to compromise between creativity and sruti/sahitya/laya suddham? And I am not talking about the odd slip here and there which can happen to anyone. I am talking of musicians for whom this is a central and long existent feature of their music.

And yes, type 2 errors in rasam's typology are perhaps a bit more tolerable than type 1 - but it is precisely this challenge that vijay is talking about that you want to see competent artistes take up and hit out of the park. It's like a fast bowler who can bowl really fast or really accurately but not both - if you cannot bowl fast and accurately, then do you belong in a national team (many Indian pace bowlers have had this problem) - or more basically, can you even be called a fast bowler? Or like a spinner who can only spin the ball really well when he chucks. Well, those are foul balls - and saying I was going for something extra in that delivery is no excuse. Two strikes, and you are out of the game.

Something is surely lacking in our traditional way of training Carnatic musicians if we are not emphasizing sruti suddham, laya maintenance, pronunciation of sahitya (and if not asking too much, understanding of each word of the composition, and some thought about what the poet is talking about) from the first day of class. Dancers in general, I find are a lot more fussy about laya maintenance, about anga shuddham (maintaining the basic dance pose - that is relevant to that particular style), and about thinking through the lyrics, (and all the various nuances of the lyrics) that they are emoting. You could say, well, dance is about the exposition of the lyrics, and that is how it should be - but bhaisahab/behenji, should music also not be about exposition of the lyrics? Or are the lyrics just a crutch for a musician to show off raga elaboration and swara singing skills?

There is this South Indian Hindustani musician, M R Gautam who has written a pretty prejudiced piece somewhere about the problems of Carnatic music - and one of his main cribs, is that Carnatic musicians are trying to do too much - e.g. keep beat (which the tabla usually does for the Hindustani vocalist, unlike the mridangist who is playing along with the vocalist, rather than turning into a human metronome) while singing complex swara passages and sahitya. The Hindustani vocalist has neither laya, nor tala (and not a lot of sahitya) as much of a challenge - and they can immerse themselves in sruti adherence and raga development. I used to think that Shri Kanan's gripe was just sour grapes - but perhaps he has a point? Carnatic music is in fact a lot more challenging (at least in this multi-tasking requirement), and perhaps something is failing some place for many musicians in that challenge - often the laya or sruthi adherence is what gives in first. But that is why those counter examples are so useful - for every Javagal Srinath, there is a Glenn McGrath out there who shows that it can be done. And that it can be done, over after over, in Test after Test.

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 06 Jan 2007, 10:41

Speaking of sruti alignment, I noticed in some concerts of the season that whenever a vidwAn or vidUShi stayed with the upper shadjamam and was preparing himself or herself for a take off as it were for a better elboration of the rAgA, people would applaud as if it were a feat. This, for the audience and the singer too, impeded the flow of the music and hindered the meditative moment of rAgA singing...

sindhu · Post by **sindhu** » 06 Jan 2007, 10:53

arasi

I think the VidwAns/vidhUshis have found a new meaning for

'talapu lanni nilupi nimishmaina' of Sait TyAgarajA.

-sb-

vijay · Post by **vijay** » 07 Jan 2007, 00:15

Arasi, quite true - although I've indulged in a few whacks of the palms myself at times when they would have been off, locked in some meditative posture!

Coming to Sruthis again, Rama's crickering analogy about chucking is an apt one. The problem really is what constitutes chucking and what does not. It is possible that HM, with its lesser emphasis on laya and gamakas, makes it easier for the artist to focus as much on Shruthi. Even assuming this to be true (I don't believe so - it may make it more difficult but certinaly not impossible), I would have serious problems with CM if artists stops keeping time or mrudangists start playing takadhimi ad nauseam.

Rasam's dinstinction on contexts and origins is very useful as well- I would break up "transgressions" as follows:

Vocal slips - these are not sruti slips but a brigha not coming off as desired or the voice not co-opererating entirely and so on. The recovery is usually quick but can sometimes lead to a persistent misalignment. I would say that these are Ok as long as the it is not too common an occurance.

Not being able to hold on to a note - this is the TNS syndrome. The vocal chords are simply too muddled over years of breath-taking brighas to be able to cling on to notes with confidence any more. He is perfectly aware every time his karvais get out of hand - he just can't do anything about it if it is not his day. Yes, it does make one cringe when it happens but let us applaud the man for having the courage to try it boldly everytime and forgive the imperfection for the years of brilliance on which it sits. I would say that this largely a one-man problem and other than those who choose to attend his concerts, no one need worry about it.

Going off sruthi gradually - usually dropping. Probably the evil that all of us are really discussing and easily the most pervasive of the lot...and in my experience it happens not so much during alaapanas or even kanakkus as during hyper mel-kala swaraprastharas usually accompanied by a good dose of "ottam" as well. I can't see why it cannot be avoided if there is a conscious attempt to practise swaras with an eye on the shruthi, limiting the pace to one that does justice to the cause of sruthi...look at MMI, of course it is possible...

Lack of sruthi gnanam - this is really the most unpardonable sin of all and alas, I cannot say with confidence that all our top stars are free from it. To me this is a sign of musical incompetence and artists who suffer from this on a persistent basis, are not concert worthy. It is understandable for the sruthi to be tenuous on a bad day but with many artists I really wonder if they are aware of it at all - the sruthi is no more than a broad reference point.

Solutions - to me it is the teaching method - not the gamakas, not the layas (take away these two and you are left with HM anyway)...students need to become more familiar with the intervals between two notes. The present training method only gives you a vague idea - if I played Thodi with straight notes, I suspect a good number of musicians would not recognize it! Musicians should be trained to break any random musical phrase (of any origin) into its constituents...even if they are woken up in the middle of the night they should be able to pluck the sadharana gandaram out of thin air the moment the drone is sounded. Ideally some kind of intstrumnetal training would be of great relevance in developing a sruthi sense. With this kind of training, the voice is just another musical instrument and just as a properly tuned violin cannot but reproduce the note on which the finger is placed, so will the well-honed voice execute the singer's command to perfection.

vira · Post by **vira** » 23 Jan 2007, 15:43

If strain on the voice is, arguably, the primary cause of shruthi-slips, I submit that the primary solution would be to minimise that strain. One innovative way of doing that would be to limit the number of concerts one performs in a given period of time. But one must do what one must, eh?

sbala · Post by **sbala** » 23 Jan 2007, 15:59

There is an excess in every sphere compared to the past. But, since they are all commercialized, you have opportunities for fitness experts, physiotherapists, coaches etc. who take care of the performers. And it does seem to help in the longevity of the performer. Maybe, there aren't enough experts to help our singers. I think if the season really becomes a big extragavanza then we might see these guys coming in. Singing less isn't a solution. It's like asking the Federers and Nadals to skip a few Slams.

bala747 · Post by **bala747** » 26 Jan 2007, 10:42

ramarama:

Should not absolute and unswerving adherence to sruti be a basic requirement even for a beginning Carnatic music student? or any student of Indian classical music? Also, given that so much of Carnatic music is composition based, should not a basic knowledge of the correct pronounciation of each word of the composition (and if it is not asking too much, some thought about the mood of that particular composition), also be an absolute basic requirement before one even gets up on the concert stage?

bala747: Very true, RR, but again one must take it with a pinch of salt. Occasional sruthi lapses are forgivable and it is also not right to expect every musician to be perfect masters of everything on stage. There will be some points some artistes are strong at and some points where they might need some improvement. Even greats like GNB, MMI etc had these issues, and not just recent artistes. As for layam issues I had raised this about Unnikrishnan three years ago, in which he seemed to really be at sea in some of his renditions as far as layam is concerned. Although his rendition was very good, and the pieces were well chosen, the laya element was lacking. But personally I still come out saying it was a good concert because overall, the experience was satsifying. For me personally, the most important is sruthi suddham and sahitya suddham. Layam while very important, is an element I am willing to be a bit more indulgent in, because there is still an inherent continuity in any kind of singing, even if there is an occasional lapse of half an eduppu or something, as long as it's not too glaring. Sruthi lapses, or even sahitya lapses, on the other hand are much more glaring and obvious. An expert mirudangist can handle the odd error in talam by the main artiste but a sruthi error or bad diction cannot be so easily masked. Also it is easy to sit back and criticise (god knows I do this all the time) but also it's not easy to sit and sing for three hours plus, and still come out without any sruthi lapses. (Trust me folks, I do keep this in mind when reviewing concerts). But if it is starting to become chronic or what vijay calls the "TNS syndrome", it can really affect the quality of the concert.

Your views on sruthi suddham and laya suddham are interesting. I would like to add to that discussion. Raga liberties are common. For example even MDR did take occasional 'liberties' with ragas, but the essence of the raga was never lost. He did for example sing SRGM in Kedaram on occasion, but it was intentional, and fitting with the mood of the raga. Musiri used to occasionally add the Suddha Dhaivata in Abheri to bring out a beautiful, poignant side of the raga. But since this issue is so subjective, it is hard to fault someone on this. Laya issues are far more objective. Time is unforgiving!

But on the other hand, one intuitively knows when a prayoga is out of place or when there is a serious dissonance in sruthi. Even people with no exposure to CM can spot places where there is a real shift in raga or sruthi, vakra prayogas aside. But laya is far more difficult to spot unless one is putting talam all the time, whether on hand or in the mind, and even then, one is often likely to attribute the error to one's own laya limitations, than blame the artiste. Hence people don't usually fault artistes in this department because they tend to think the fault was their own, despite the fact that laya aspect is supposedly more objective than the other 'mistakes' one can make.

ramarama:
KVN, MDR, Ramnad Krishnan (but how about some contemporary examples?) - these are not ghazal singers (though it would have been fun to have heard MDR singing a ghazal in Yadukula Kambodhi or Reethigowlai) - so does one really have to compromise between creativity and sruti/sahitya/laya suddham?

bala747:
Your examples just prove that there is no compromise necessary! MDR's laya gnanam was amazing, considering the tempo he handled compositions. His raga creativity was fantastic: the life he brought to ragas like Kedaram, Yadukula Kambhoji (what a Mohanamayi he sang!), Reetigoula, Sankarabharanam, Surutti (Geetharthamu by MDR should be a lesson in every music clinic for serious musicians, along with KVN's rendition of the navarathri krithi Devi Pavane in Saveri)! Words fail me in this department. Sruthi suddham, needless to say, was there. KVN's renditions were noted for their simplicity, yet when someone tried to sing like that, it sounded so difficult to produce those sangathis and maintain sruthi (his Devi brova Samayamidhe comes to mind)!

But that does not mean that an occasional sruthi lapse or thalam lapse should completely mar the performance. If it is chronic however then yes, it is something that can ruin the concert.

You asked for contemporary examples? Sadly, none in my opinion come close to KVN, Ramnad Krishnan or MDR in any of these departments. They were men who lived music. The current crop of musicians are very good performers, and even some great ones, but it is hard to develop that level of passion for music that KVN, RK or MDR did. The problem is, nowadays musicians renditions are too polished, and too 'professional'. Sounds very good, and very easy to appreciate, but for real soulful renditions of Satre Vilagi or Mokshamu Galadha, it's still MDR and KVN for me. I better stop now before people accuse me of eulogising them too much!

(Sorry for rambling so much, but these are my favourite musicians. My fiancee says that watching me listen to their concerts is entertainment itself!)

Oh and MDR singing a ghazal?! In a strong southern indian malayali accent? (*Shudder*) oh good lord no!

ramarama · Post by **ramarama** » 28 Jan 2007, 20:26

heh - okie, so we'll pass on that MDR ghazal - but i still think he would have been able to bring as much or more bhavam to a ghazal rendition as any of the ghazal "greats" of our time. And yes, bala747 - it is indeed tough to find contemporary examples, though there must be some, who may not be as heralded as the oft-mentioned favourites on this forum - which is why i was hoping that someone would offer up a name or two. Any of DKJ's students or D K Pattammal's lesser known students?

BTW, I guess I should have been clearer about layam and sruti adherence - I did not mean adhering to the grammatical rules of tala and raga, but to maintaining the sruti constantly across a concert (even while attempting complex vocal exercises

) and maintaining the laya at a steady pace, and just precisely doubling when moving into the second phase of a swara prastharam etc.

So I was not talking about tala lapses (missing a beat here or there or landing on a sam a little unsurely occasionally) as much as continual lapses of kala pramanam e.g. speeding up and slowing down at will throughout a rendition unable to even maintain some semblance of low variance around an average length of an avarthanam. Or to increase the pace of a composition gradually from the pallavi into the anupallavi for example. Also the occasional abaswaram is a bit different from an inability to hold on to the base sruti on a sustained basis. My tiny point was that absolute adherence to maintaining the base sruti (over a concert) and the base laya (over an item) should be just a minimal requirement for someone to be allowed to sing on a stage. And if you are unable to do that, you should work on that until you get that in order - for it is not clear that you can be called a Carnatic musician until you are able to do that.

I wonder if our Carnatic music practice routines stress tala way too much and sruti adherence not enough. e.g. should the ability to start a sarali varisai directly from the dhaivatham or from the gandharam not be practiced over and over again, until one is able to identify swara positions at will off a base. Or is this skill indeed taught by some of the better teachers.

And how was Shri SSI as a sruti holder, eh? Does he belong in this pantheon of MDR and KVN? I find his voice to be so mesmerizingly powerful that I suspect that I may be overlooking any occasional sruti lapses - can a more seasoned rasika comment on Mama's sruti adherence capability?