Prince Rama Varma @Music Academy (mini) on Aug 18th,2009

wordpecker007 · Post by **wordpecker007** » 20 Aug 2009, 21:09

Dear Nick and Rajeshnat JI,

1. Just for the record. I agree with Nick H that Varmaji is one of the most down-to-earth persons I have met over the years.
2. And@ Rajeshnat Ji, no offence meant, but I still don't agree with this term 'keralite' voice. So is Bhmsen Joshi's voice a Marathi voice or a Kannadiga voice. And how about the late Gangubai Hangal's voice - a Kannadiga voice? And Parassala Ponnammal must again be a Keralite voice... right? wrong? I still maintain music is universal and there is no such thing as a Keralite voice. Accent yes but not a 'voice'. I have heard Varmaji sing Bengali and Hindi songs and my Bengali friends tune in just to go gaga over his flawless accent.
3. It is not a question of being proud of where you hail from. I am proud of my roots and proud of the place I have chosen to stay too. But please don't divide music on the basis of linguistic parameters.
4. @ Devi - Why do we 'jump' to his defence? Let me explain:
a) Well, you claim to be a trivandrumite. But you seem to have missed the face that it is only because of Varmaji that TVM is on the global music map of Carnatic music. As a child I remember going to a packed Navaratri Mandapam. By the late Eighties, when I happenned to be in tvm, the festival had become a ritual. If it has again become the cynosure of all eyes and ears, it is thanks to the efforts taken by Varmaji.
b) Similary Kuthiramalika has become a much sought after event today. But for him, many living in TVM would not have got an opporutnity to listen to musicians and singers like prof Venkatesh Kumar (who created a storm in Kuthiramalika the previous year), Amrutha Venkatesh, Kaushiki, Thamarakad, Ganapathi Bhatt... That is the organiser we respect.
c) Now for the singer. I have had the privilege of listening to him many years ago and it is amazing to see how he has evolved in his style and his rendering. And I have had the privilege of attending several of his classes. I think he is one of the best as a teacher. By the way, did you know that a refresher course he took as part of the UGC programme was one of the best attened ones wherein 99 per cent of the students thought he was excellent.

d) And why are we talking about his skills as an organiser and teacher. Because that is so much a part of Varmaji, the singer, teacher and organiser and human being. No one is a pinnacle of excellence. But one can excel in several areas!
And no, I am not a "humble fan" of Varmaji. I am a "proud fan of his music and his skills as a teacher and organiser.

devi · Post by **devi** » 20 Aug 2009, 21:22

@ Wordpecker007

I only wish atleast one of Sri.Rama Varma's Music Concert review in this forum deal with music mostly and do not digress from the topic.

Skutty and Wordspecker can kindly notice that I had posted the following posts too..

http://rasikas.org/forums/post95143.html#p95143

http://rasikas.org/forums/post93427.html#p93427

http://rasikas.org/forums/post87877.html#p87877

http://rasikas.org/forums/post116064.html#p116064

best regards,
Devi.
(still remaining a humble fan of Varmaji)

wordpecker007 · Post by **wordpecker007** » 20 Aug 2009, 23:02

@ Devi,
Just a quote from a previous post of yours ('I am a proud fan of the realistic and grounded person he is, sometimes wondering whether I am fan of his personality or of his music').
mmmmm Contradictory!
I wish his fans, humble or proud, would enjoy his music or critique him and let him be!

a still proud fan

regards

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 21 Aug 2009, 01:20

Nick,
Ha! Held back a letter, that is!
Let me get serious here and point my finger at you for pointing a finger at me, a senior. Your prejudice for us in our golden years is obvious in your post

Those of you who take everything literally or seriously: please do not mind us. This is between Nick and the old lady who both believe (like several others on the forum ) that a bit of humor is healthy.

Nick H · Post by **Nick H** » 21 Aug 2009, 01:34

I love a good typo

VK RAMAN · Post by **VK RAMAN** » 21 Aug 2009, 02:58

That is a low point

bilahari · Post by **bilahari** » 21 Aug 2009, 06:02

Time to close this thread

coolkapali · Post by **coolkapali** » 21 Aug 2009, 11:37

Emotional outbursts, i see. However, the man himself , a member of this forum has wisely stayed away from these discussions, i am sure he will be ashamed of. And rajesh, i really pity you, it was a casual comment, and we have here the typical fault finders ready to draw their sword at the slightest opportunity.

wordpecker007 · Post by **wordpecker007** » 21 Aug 2009, 14:01

Nick H · Post by **Nick H** » 21 Aug 2009, 14:02

It iccurred to me that Varma, if he saw the amount of non-musical content in this thread, would be disapointed, and I can sympathise with his reasons for not contributing to this forum these days.

I hope that doesn't sound self-righteous --- as a contributor of all kinds of nonsense to a number of internet forums, that is the last thing I have a right to be, and I do not exclude myself from my own criticism.

skutty · Post by **skutty** » 21 Aug 2009, 20:20

@nickH Thankyou for being the voice of reason at times. But I believe that when we write something in public foras, we should be extremely careful and not make errors that changes the whole meaning of the post. Had I not pointed out what Devi had posted, perhaps she herself wouldn't have noticed the change in meaning a single word or the absence of it can produce. And everyone who goes through these threads may not take the trouble to go through the writer's previous posts to find out what his or her stated opinions are before.

As for digressions, I have seen threads where a concert or workshop review has changed into a very involved discussion on the costume that the artiste wore and then its history and so on and so forth- just an example that came to mind- I believe that such is human nature. We, from different parts of the world, coming from diverse backgrounds, cultures, languages are brought together randomly on the basis of a single common interest. But as human beings are social animals who love all sorts of interactions- pretty as well as ugly-sometimes, discussions tend to deviate from the topic at hand.

I see no harm in that. As long as the language used is decent and not vitriolic, and comments not below the belt, what is the harm in stating your opinion ??

As you are acquainted with Varmaji, I am sure you will soon know from him what he thinks of all this.

As for this particular concert is concerned, I am glad that rajeshnat liked it. I have no doubt that, with his knowledge, passion and dedication, we will surely hear more of Rama Varma in the days to come.

And as a final offering, I would like all of you to enjoy this almost one-hour documentary on MDRamanathan, made by a dedicated fan of MDR (Venkatasubramnian Viraraghavan) and passed onto Varmaji a couple of weeks back. I believe that it is a labour of love and certainly deserves to be seen by as many people as possible. Please do watch the videos, even though it is an audio-video:) as the comments are extremely enlightening.

I will be posting these links in the Vidwans and Vidushis Topic also- Moderators please don't remove them as duplication.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 2824&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 6604&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 5459&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 2777&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 2400&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 7917&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 1833&hl=en

Enjoy!

Nick H · Post by **Nick H** » 22 Aug 2009, 00:54

Thanks for the compliment! I can very very intemperate and far from reasonable, at times <Blush>

If Varma is in Trivandrum when I go there, I might be lucky enough to spend more than a few minutes with him, otherwise, our acquaintance is limited to a few post concert minutes.

Oh! Irrelevant though it is, I have just recalled that the last time I spent more than a few minutes with him was when we sat together at the wedding of the mutual friend I saw, after a long time, at his concert!

ignoramus · Post by **ignoramus** » 22 Aug 2009, 09:44

Skutty

thanks for the lovely links. i thank Mr VV too for his dedication and efforts. Is he a member of this forum?

Layavinyasa · Post by **Layavinyasa** » 22 Aug 2009, 17:13

Skutty,this is unbelievable! It is like seeing an x ray of MDR's soul! I don't think you could have posted anything sweeter or purer than this to clean up the air at the end of a typical review. Please accept my
thanks and please convey my thanks to Venkatasubramaniam Viraraghavan and Varmaji too for this.
I hope many music lovers will get to watch this.

s_hari · Post by **s_hari** » 22 Aug 2009, 18:34

Wow! skutty - great links on MDR, equaly great effort by Venkatasubramaniam... MDR is MDR....

-hari

bilahari · Post by **bilahari** » 22 Aug 2009, 20:45

Anyone else having trouble playing the MDR doc videos? It keeps saying '"Loading...""

cienu · Post by **cienu** » 22 Aug 2009, 21:05

Excellent link Kutty. Thanks a million

skutty · Post by **skutty** » 22 Aug 2009, 21:16

@ignoramus- I do not know Mr.Venkat personally. The links were passed onto me very kindly by Rama Varma, who has thrown so much light on my musical journey in general and on his spiritual guru, MDR and with his permission, I decided to post them here so that the thousands of members here can appreciate his dedication.

Layavinyasa, cienu,s_hari - I totally do not deserve these thankyous- all kudos to Mr.Venkat and Varmaji.

@bilahari- please keep trying. I too had problems with the site loading. It resolved itself after a day and I have watched it countless times since.

I do hope the many others here would also enjoy the movie.

mohan · Post by **mohan** » 23 Aug 2009, 07:41

Thanks for the MDR video presentation!

Mods, Can they be cross posted in the MDR thread?

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 23 Aug 2009, 10:02

Mohan, skutty has already done that.

Rasika911 · Post by **Rasika911** » 23 Aug 2009, 11:30

skutty wrote:http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 2824&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 6604&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 5459&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 2777&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 2400&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 7917&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 1833&hl=en

Enjoy!

Thank you soo much this is brillant! I dont know how to thank the person who made this video.

His words about singing mangalam in the last video were very nice. I hope all those people on the forum who say "why doesnt tmk sing mangalam as main" listen to it.

rajeshnat · Post by **rajeshnat** » 23 Aug 2009, 12:48

All
Please lets discuss about MDR and the beautiful clips in MDR's thread only .
http://rasikas.org/forums/post134728.html#p134728

skutty · Post by **skutty** » 27 Aug 2009, 10:48

MDRamanathan, whether he is discussed here or elsewhere will remain great. On the other hand, there are very few practitioners of music in today's scenario who profess such love, admiration and awe for MDR compositions as Rama Varma. Ofcourse, these days we have TMKrishna who is trying to bring to light Dikshitar's compositions and Ravikiran of Oothukaadu- I have heard Varmaji declare time and again that one of the main reasons that he even performs is because he wants to throw more light on MDR, BMK and Swathi Thirunal compositions and he does so with single-minded dedication. If it is not a thematic concert, he makes it a point to render atleast one composition of these great vaggeyakaras.

But isn't it a pity that a forum which consisits of nearly 2000 members, of which many of whom profess that MDR was and is the greatest of all times, fail to even appreciate such a labour of love as this movie ?? Ironical, to say the least....

rajumds · Post by **rajumds** » 28 Aug 2009, 13:15

skutty wrote: But isn't it a pity that a forum which consisits of nearly 2000 members, of which many of whom profess that MDR was and is the greatest of all times, fail to even appreciate such a labour of love as this movie ?? Ironical, to say the least....

After reading through your posts in this thread, I just don't understand what you are trying to convey, particularly in the quote above.

Layavinyasa · Post by **Layavinyasa** » 28 Aug 2009, 19:47

As for the part not quoted by rajumds, you said it, skutty.

wordpecker007 · Post by **wordpecker007** » 28 Aug 2009, 21:37

What a melodious labour of love. Thank you skutty, Venkatasubramnian Viraraghavan and Varmaji. This is vintage stuff. I have lost count of the number of times I have listened to this. MDR's genius can be understood by a new generation of listeners who could not possibly have heard him live. And Varmaji deserves kudos for spreading the sweetnes and genius of MDR's compositions too. Now, there is an MDR Day in Thirupunithura where I understand only MDR compositions are sung. Now, in certain circles, it has become fashionable to say that one is a fan of MDR.But long before that happenned, on the very first MDR Day in Thripunithura, Varmaji sang, what must possilbly be the very first concert dedicated to MDR compositions only. Similarly, thanks to him so many singers have made 'Sagara Shayana Vibho,' a stately composition of MDR, a part of their repertoire.