Appreciation of musicians Past and P;resent

gobilalitha · Post by **gobilalitha** » 16 Apr 2008, 07:38

look at the following 2 lists
Ariyakkudi,Chembai, semmangudi,madurai mani iyer, GNB and thus goes the list
ladies MSS,DKP,MLV, and others.
Present TNS,TVS,TMK,OST
LADIES. Sudha,Bombay jayasree, so goes the list.
but we always have a feeling that the persons mentioned in the first list(past) are the best and praise them with superlatives that the language posesses. the point not to be ignored is that the artisis mentioned in the second list are noway inferior to those in the first list and their capab ilties are of the highest order. it may be argued that the past vidwans had their own style of rendering . Is it the only fac tor? gobilalitha

MP · Post by MP » 16 Apr 2008, 08:00

Having grown up with my dad's collection of concert recordings from the 1950s and prior - of Madurai Mani Iyer, GNB and other stalwarts, I am sorry I am unable to give even artistes like DKJ, KVN the same position, let alone TNS and more recent artists.

I believe the difference lies in their - manodharmam - while rendering alapanai, niraval and kalpana swaras. Theirs was not a 3 mt or 15 mt alapanai - it ran into hours. "Apoorva pidis" were the hall mark of their presentation.

I truly believe the gurukula system had something to do with it. When you live and breathe music every day, the quality tends to be much better . Add to that, all of the foll. in the past vis-a-vis the present

1. Longer duration of concerts
2. Well educated rasikas - who welcomed an RTP over a mere keerthanai
3. Different times and life styles - when money was not as important
4. Different value systems
4. Not as much foreign influence as today
5. Lesser technological advancement- which meant you cannot sing badly and have it taken care of by a better mike system or better mixing in studios.

The list goes on....

MP · Post by MP » 16 Apr 2008, 08:07

And most importantly, I think...

the artistes of the recent years have been very interested and spend a lot of their time marketing themselves

recording cassettes for sale
foreign tours
lobbying for titles like Kalaimamani, Padma sri etc

In a 24 hr day, how many hours could you really spend on music, if you do all of the above plus have a family? I dont believe the yester year stars were as keen on the above - they were quite devoted to music.

Thats my 0.02 cents worth.

gobilalitha · Post by **gobilalitha** » 16 Apr 2008, 08:53

I saw from your profile that you have joined only today,and taken so much interest to post a reply, giving an unbiassed view of what yo felt. really the forum is going to be very interesting with members like you. wish you all the best gobilalitha

mahesh_narayan · Post by **mahesh_narayan** » 16 Apr 2008, 16:26

2. Well educated rasikas - who welcomed an RTP over a mere keerthanai

I don't know why rasikas thought that way back then or why they would think that way even now.

Is kirthanai rendition such a trivial and dismissable thing? Stalwarts like DKJ Sir, Nedunuri Garu, RKS Sir successfully carried their concerts on the backs of kritis, specifically their majestic patantara. How wholesome their concerts were/are even when they didn't include an RTP !!!.

In those days, the raga alapana and the kriti that followed were contiguous logical progressions. These days, my feeling is artistes tend to view an alapana and the succeeding kriti as disjoint entities, with the result the two sound out of sync, or disproportionately presented.

How could one listen to a Kiravani followed by Kaligiyunde, a shankarabharanam followed by Akshayalingavibho, a bhairavi followed by tanayuni brova or Balagopala, a kambhoji followed by Sri Subrahmanyaya Namaste or Evari Mata, and still feel these are mere kriti renditions as compared to an RTP? One Balagopala by KVN Sir or one Muripemu by Nedunuri garu is enough to fill you up for a week !!!

MP · Post by MP » 16 Apr 2008, 16:59

Certainly the krithi rendition is not a trivial feat and the stalwarts you mention are of the highest order. But, they afford only so many opportunities to show the entire gamut of the raga. However you delineate it, it still has to be within the precints of the krithi itself. i.e - its basic structure as envisaged by the composer.

But an RTP on the other hand affords greater opportunities for the singer to show his/her merit in a much larger scale.

If you have studied and practised carnatic music for enough years, the kriti rendering in its best form is relatively accessible to any musician. But only a musician with manodharmam can do justice to a good RTP.

Again, I am not decrying the talent and the pathos required to sing krithis- but RTP needs more capabilities, therefore more challenging.

A GNB + Lalgudi shanmukhapriya alapanai lasting 2 hours is certainly more thrilling than listening to Mariveradikkevarayyarama, Saravanabava, Parvathy nayakane etc. that exhausted their possibilities a long time ago. Sorry

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 16 Apr 2008, 17:37

While the longer alapana+krithi in the past was indeed there, it was NEVER the case with ARI. His alapanas except for RTPs never ran very long. This is in contrast with GNB, where just the alapana part can run for 1 hour. But ARI was never in that category and is considered the best (even by his peers incl. GNB, PMI etc.).

So IMO lengthy renditions has nothing to do with this. I am sorry to be blunt but these are cases of us trying to find "logical reasons" to explain our strong preferences. If the current day concert format remained 3-4 hours minimum like those days, I can bet safely that most current artists can EASILY match the yesteryear stalwarts in length. But I can also safely say that *in spite of that*, many would claim "but it still has no soul like yesteryear maestros - it is just not as good". In other words, blah blah blah, and Boo-hoo! A simpler explanation is "I like the music of the older year maestros. It is my preference, my liking, my taste. No matter what". Instead of that why resort "nowadays people are interested more in money" etc. etc. Needless generalizations.

RTPs - yes they were there in all glory but not in fancy talams going by recordings we have (except Alathur brothers if we are talking about golden era). In Cleveland I saw a RTP in catuSra jhampa set to miSra naDai. We see RTPs in new ragams but we see people complain "in those days people did RTPs only in bhairavi, Sankarabharanam etc. But these youngsters have no clue". Hey - then I see an Alathur Brother recording label of an RTP in vAcaspati. Yes the same raga which was scoffed by a family known for tradition.

Bottom line - we all have strong preferences, biases and tastes when it comes to music. Music appreciation is not about "fairness" and "equal opportunity". We may not prefer someone's music "just because". Accept it as is - that is how an human tendency is w.r.t something it gets emotionally attached to it. Logic is not in the picture. So dont bother trying to rationalize it i.e. "i have these preferences. Guess what, there is perfect logic that tells me these preferences make the most sense". Hence anyone whose tastes dont align -- well they are just misguided and misinformed.

My 5 rupees.

Arun

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 16 Apr 2008, 20:39

Arun:

I am with you on those points. There is a huge nostalgic component to it.

But there are two things that have changed from the earlier generations one of which MP alluded to.

1. The effect of Guru kula system on the music. That is a fairly major change in the system of education and I would not be surprised if that changed the music in a significant way at the aesthetic level.

2. Most of the musicians today are educated and possibly could have gone to different careers if they chose to. But that was not the case with the older generation musicians. I remember reading that GNB was one of the few musicians to even have a college degree. I am not saying if this is good or bad but I tend to think it will have some effect on the music over all. Is there an over-intelluctualzing the music, possibly?

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 16 Apr 2008, 20:53

vk -
#1. MP mentions he cannot place KVN in the same level and that his older generation's gurukula system had to do with it. Well KVN certainly underwent gurukula.

No question that gurukula is a different way of learning and is good. But is it is necessarily the most ideal? Or is it one the best i.e. is it really the only top method? Again, how much of our "attachment to tradition" is playing a role in evaluating it? Sometimes I find it very very ironic that our Hindu Spirituality says to not have attachments, and many conservative and religious people have most attachments to tradition

(but that is a different topic).

Also consider professional musicians' career now or then - in its entirety (so say 50 year span). I will bet that the time they spent in gurukula is a small percentage of that. But they breathe music day in and out *throughout*. So while the gurukula system may lay an extremely good foundation, it would be mistake to think that only people who went through it "breathe music day in and day out". IMO, all leading professionals do it - now and then - pretty much every minute they are awake.

Note: I am not downplaying gurukula methods. I am asking if we are overplaying so much, in that we are using that to short change current generation.

Arun

kadambam · Post by **kadambam** » 16 Apr 2008, 21:10

TNS, TVS and OST should not be compared in the same list as Sanjay, TMK or Vijay Siva, as there is at least a 'generation gap' between these two groups.

When we talk about Guru Kula System, the focus is essentially on the 'learning' factor, but there is also a huge 'listening' involved. TVS/TNS would have had the priveledge of listening to live performances of MMI/SSI/may be even GNB, but the younger generation would have listened to these artists only through tapes.

IMO, there is a difference in absorbtion when i listen to a live performance as against a tape or CD. May be the realization that the Tape music is easily available and can be reheard could be a limiting factor as against listening to (say) MMI live.

The same could be applied to the learning methods.
Today most of the lessons are taped, so that 'could' resort to some kind of complacence in the student. He/She 'could' assume that they can refer to the tape/cd even if they missed paying attention to a fine point that the Guru demonstrated. On the other hand, from a teacher perspective, would they be constrained in expressing their ideas freely, because of the little Ipod? Mostly yes...

So, it is not appropriate to compare past vs. present. May be when the present becomes past, then that present will acknowlege whether the immediate past or past past is more valuable.

cacm · Post by **cacm** » 16 Apr 2008, 22:42

The only statement I wish to make right now is that if you have listened to MMI or MSS WITHOUT MIKE OR ANY AMPLIFICATION SYSTEM it WAS AN OUT OF THE WORLD EXPERIENCE! It is permanently embedded in my brain cells & I feel EVEN on set of Alzheimers will not be able to alter the perfect Sruiti alignment or Swarasthana Perfection. The only comparable "high" I have experienced is when Richard Feynman explained Quantum Electrodynamics & why a positron can be considered an electron travelling backwards in time!....VKV

MP · Post by MP » 16 Apr 2008, 23:03

1. First of all, I did not say: KVN cannot be considered at the same level as MMI or GNB because of the absence of the Gurukula system in his education. I know that he and several singers in his generation underwent the gurukula system.

Gurukula system was offered as a general diff between yesteryear stars and recent ones . I am a big fan of KVN too - the predominant features of his singing being - the pathos, the style of his music. But one dept I think he was different from MMI or GNB was in kalapana swara rendering.

The swaras were quite simple without too much variety or apoorva pidis and limited to "kanakkus" and that was the case with DKJ too. If you listen to DKJ and KVN on one hand and immediately turn over to MMI, GNB, Semmangudi you will see what I mean.

Maybe those 3 were in a class of their own - the creme de la creme- intra and inter generations - and it is unfair to compare others to them, I will agree with that.

2. The gurukula system is given as a reason for better quality music education . It is based on logic and not because of any affinity to tradition.

When you are living with the guru and in addition to participating in classes, you start singing at a young age " pin pattu" with guru , listen to him practice, have him share information about the theoritical aspects of music, have your guru supervise you constantly and last but not the least, you practise for hours, the quality is bound to be better.

3. Tell me this - if today's singers themselves dont feel GNB, MMI etc to be superior, why is it that when you listen to a raga alapani in Mohanam in a kutcheri today, you feel some portions are straihght off an MMI record?

What do they say? Imitation is the sincere form of flattery.

baboosh · Post by **baboosh** » 17 Apr 2008, 21:07

vkv43034 wrote:The only statement I wish to make right now is that if you have listened to MMI or MSS WITHOUT MIKE OR ANY AMPLIFICATION SYSTEM it WAS AN OUT OF THE WORLD EXPERIENCE! It is permanently embedded in my brain cells & I feel EVEN on set of Alzheimers will not be able to alter the perfect Sruiti alignment or Swarasthana Perfection. The only comparable "high" I have experienced is when Richard Feynman explained Quantum Electrodynamics & why a positron can be considered an electron travelling backwards in time!....VKV

Quite true.I have heard on a couple of occasions,MSS singing without mike or when power went off.The crystal clear enunciation and perfect sruthi alignment and the Swara and anuswaras pitched perfectly,it was really for Gods to savour.Such rare audio treat,Iam still rejoicing in my mind.