A stagnant music? - M.V. SWAROOP
Guitar Prasanna, one of my favourite musicians, said in a recent interview, "Jazz is constantly evolving, while Carnatic music is static. That is the reason Carnatic music is in such a pathetic state today."
A stagnant music?
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rajesh_rs
- Posts: 184
- Joined: 01 Dec 2007, 11:18
Interesting stuff. I too am a big fan of Guitar Prasanna, but not his Carnatic work - I loved his album Electric Ganesha Land where he uses elements of Carnatic music fused and arranged simultaneously with western jazz and rock styles. Don't get me wrong - I don't know a single guitar artist who can play complex ragas like Thodi, Bhairavi convincingly. Overall I could say I rather like his musical repertoire.
But it is sort of ironical that he's saying this because I began seeing him as a sort of new generation of Carnatic musicians who also dabbled in other styles - in other words, they're true to the form, and preserve the bhava and the spirit of the musical styles they play, and yet, they are happy to experiment. Precisely the sort of thing most artists should be doing.
On the other end of the spectrum, we have classicists like T M Krishna - equally impressive - I don't know of a single other recent artist who renders Dikshitar kritis well. And yet, with either Guitar Prasanna or TMK, I find a sort of similarity in the perfection they strive for when representing Carnatic music. I don't find this in other artists.
Jazz, for example, seems to have its origins way back - in the Baroque times when composers like Bach composed stuff like the Contrapunctus series (which, if you were to listen to today, would sound like jazz in parts). However, artists in the 1930s and 1940s gave Jazz the feel it has today and it has become an improvizational art form. Its attractiveness hasn't died in the West because of the possibility of improvization - and in this sense, it is similar to Carnatic music - where a small but consistent set of people fall in love with the art form and continue the traditions that it represents.
I guess it is a novelty-communicability problem; the greater the novelty of an art form, the lesser its communicability - and by novelty here I mean the extent to which one has to be acquainted to something to be distinguishing and an expert in it.
But it is sort of ironical that he's saying this because I began seeing him as a sort of new generation of Carnatic musicians who also dabbled in other styles - in other words, they're true to the form, and preserve the bhava and the spirit of the musical styles they play, and yet, they are happy to experiment. Precisely the sort of thing most artists should be doing.
On the other end of the spectrum, we have classicists like T M Krishna - equally impressive - I don't know of a single other recent artist who renders Dikshitar kritis well. And yet, with either Guitar Prasanna or TMK, I find a sort of similarity in the perfection they strive for when representing Carnatic music. I don't find this in other artists.
Jazz, for example, seems to have its origins way back - in the Baroque times when composers like Bach composed stuff like the Contrapunctus series (which, if you were to listen to today, would sound like jazz in parts). However, artists in the 1930s and 1940s gave Jazz the feel it has today and it has become an improvizational art form. Its attractiveness hasn't died in the West because of the possibility of improvization - and in this sense, it is similar to Carnatic music - where a small but consistent set of people fall in love with the art form and continue the traditions that it represents.
I guess it is a novelty-communicability problem; the greater the novelty of an art form, the lesser its communicability - and by novelty here I mean the extent to which one has to be acquainted to something to be distinguishing and an expert in it.
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bilahari
- Posts: 2631
- Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 09:02
Even if CM is static, the breadth and depth of the art are so immense that several decades and perhaps even centuries of generations of musicians and rasikas cannot exhaust its content. I vaguely recall a comment made by LGJ expressing that he would like to be reborn once again as a musician because there's so much yet to be unravelled about the art (something to that effect). But this is just my not-so-well-considered opinion.
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srikant1987
- Posts: 2246
- Joined: 10 Jun 2007, 12:23
I think CM is already highly evolved form of music, with truckloads of literature (read compositions). Now, we should be very careful in developing it further: simply spilling out all our ideas won't do. We need to make small changes considering their compatibility with literature existing in a raga. (This doesn't hold for creating new ragas of course! Or adding to ragas with just one or two compositions.) A musician can choose to bring in just a phrase or two to a raga s/he likes very much.
The less evolved ragas like, shall we say, devamrutavarshini, need more compositions: they will comprise of good and bad features. The good features shall stand, the bad ones shall disappear in due course.
But shankarabharanam is already highly evolved, we should create small disturbances in it, with great care.
The less evolved ragas like, shall we say, devamrutavarshini, need more compositions: they will comprise of good and bad features. The good features shall stand, the bad ones shall disappear in due course.
But shankarabharanam is already highly evolved, we should create small disturbances in it, with great care.
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munirao2001
- Posts: 1334
- Joined: 28 Feb 2009, 11:35
Statements of 'CM is stagnant/static' and the present status is’ pathetic' are made in haste and out of the artistist's frustration either with their own progress in creativity or tardy progress in achieving higher recognition and rewards or their first love with chosen other genre of music.
Prasanna must be fully aware of the fact that Great Genius and Great Maestros Shri GNB and Shri BMK, have made extensive explorations with creativity, at their Best, with deep dedication, commitment and tapasya (practice of higher order) and their rich contributions are strictly conforming to the theory and practice of CM and tradition. Yes, they have with their unique styles in renditions, created Bani of their own. Both the Great Maestros never made statements, even when they were facing tough criticism or rejection of their ideas/contributions, as mentioned above. Their own Compositions are evidence of their deep love of power of manodharma in CM and CM, it self, in totality.
One must really try to understand Prasanna (either the context of this statement or statement not made openly or unsaid). He must be actually saying that having not received due recognition and rewards as a practitioner and performer of merit in CM, frustrated with stagnation of the career/progress as performer in CM, he is trying cross over or joining those popular artists who are reveling in inter-cultural music genre, now evolving fast and gaining popularity.
I recall Gita sloka" Akasas patitam toyam, yatha gatchati sagaram, sarva deva namaskaraha, Kesavam pratigachati' and to be interpreted in the context of CM as " All individual creative input droplets, by their natural flow and strength, join the ocean of music, whatever genre of music you worship/love, leads to ultimate realization of CM".
munirao2001
Prasanna must be fully aware of the fact that Great Genius and Great Maestros Shri GNB and Shri BMK, have made extensive explorations with creativity, at their Best, with deep dedication, commitment and tapasya (practice of higher order) and their rich contributions are strictly conforming to the theory and practice of CM and tradition. Yes, they have with their unique styles in renditions, created Bani of their own. Both the Great Maestros never made statements, even when they were facing tough criticism or rejection of their ideas/contributions, as mentioned above. Their own Compositions are evidence of their deep love of power of manodharma in CM and CM, it self, in totality.
One must really try to understand Prasanna (either the context of this statement or statement not made openly or unsaid). He must be actually saying that having not received due recognition and rewards as a practitioner and performer of merit in CM, frustrated with stagnation of the career/progress as performer in CM, he is trying cross over or joining those popular artists who are reveling in inter-cultural music genre, now evolving fast and gaining popularity.
I recall Gita sloka" Akasas patitam toyam, yatha gatchati sagaram, sarva deva namaskaraha, Kesavam pratigachati' and to be interpreted in the context of CM as " All individual creative input droplets, by their natural flow and strength, join the ocean of music, whatever genre of music you worship/love, leads to ultimate realization of CM".
munirao2001