I agree that whatever Prasanna has done so far does not amount to any kind of innovation in the mainstream carnatic music context.
Also, his article sounds a bit over-reaching especially when he drops in big names from different fields.
Here is another way of looking at it. This Open systems architecture in the title of this thread is not Prasanna's title but the original poster
chose to highlight it. But Prasanna does anchor his thesis using that as a metaphor, so highlighting that aspect is appropriate. In such open systems, you have to replace a layer at both the
sending and receiving end. So, what can happen is, when he builds in something new on top of, or in between, Carnatic music elements, the receivers
may not be the same CM rasikas. ( the receiving end rasikas or their mental layers have to be replaced too ). In many cases, this leads to a completely different stack ( genre ) with the new layers.
Another interesting thing can happen. Those rasikas to whom the new thing appeals can look down or loop up at the layers on which
it is built and learn to appreciate those preserved CM layers and probably make an effort to get an appreciation of the parent genre.
Prasanna has done some excellent work in his tribute to Jimi Hendrix. It suits his style of playing on the guitar.
Listen to his "layering" in this piece:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87n1hb0L ... re=channel
It starts as carnatic. Around 3:40 you can feel something is changing slightly but still carnatic. Around 4:00 you see more of a change and around 4:20 he is
fully into 'Hendrix in front'. After this transition to 'Hendrix in the front', you can sense CM is still there as the base layer.
If one is not familiar with Hendrix, listening to a few songs by Hendrix will help appreciate the layers and transitions.
