vizianagaram D vardhini@NCA on Dec 26th,2009

rajeshnat · Post by **rajeshnat** » 26 Dec 2009, 20:47

vizianagaram D vardhini@NCA on Dec 26th,2009
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Vocal : Vizianagaram D vardhini
Violin : Neela Jayakumar
Mrudangam : Jayakumar
Concert duration : 1 hour and 40 minutes(afternoon concert)

1. eDayagaTi - chAlanAttai - KI
2. UrakE galguna rAmuni(R S) - sahAnA -T
7 mins alApanai , 4 mins violin return
4 mins swaram

3. nee valayinche(R S) - chAyaranjani - GNB
8 mins alapanai and 5 mins violin return
7 mins swaram
4. Arumuga aDimayai - suddasAveri - Psivan

5A. sarOjadhala nEtri (R N S T) - shankarAbharanam - SS
8 mins alapanai , 5 mins violin return
neraval for 5 mins in 'saamagaana vinodini gunadaama shyaamakrishNanutE ambA'
9 mins swaram
5B. tani for 5 minutes

6. Ayiram Ayiram -chArukEsi - K.N.Dandayudapani Pillai
7. kurai Onrum iLLai - shivaranjani + kApi + sindhubhairavi - rAjAji

NCA is a very dear sabha as it is my personal home ground . COncerts of maharajapuram santhanam in 80's was priced minimum at 50 bucks and it was more than full house .2 years back arunA sayeeram drew a very high crowd , last year mallAdi had about 40% crowd and sanjay about 70% full crowd ,suryaprakAsh had about 20% crowd last year in morning slot. There are 30 rows of 30 seats , roughly 1000 can be easily accomodated

But today at 02:25 pm when i went a young violinist girl who played with only a mridangam artist had about 30 or so in the crowd and was wrapping with her last no in kApi. At 2:35 the hall is empty ,when the curtains came up at 02:38pm (7 minutes before start time), I was scared to death.Why????

Why??

Why??

Because:
I was the only person sitting in the auditorium , when the curtains went up .It was Odd as I dont know how to clap(I usually avoid clapping).

When the vocalist was taking up sA pA sA shruthi 3 more souls joined them [3 in the stage vs 4 in the crowd] and calanattai took off.The crowd was about 7 at the end of the first song, it reached about 15 which was the peak strength , 15 seats were filled out of 1000 seats available, the kutcheri was free from 02:45 to 4:15pm on a saturday.

But this vidushi is just wonderful, she did not mind. She started with a fairly fast calanAttai , a koteeshwara iyer krithi . sahAna was excellent , the rAga alApanai was gripping and the krithi a rare T krithi was sung beautifully, her sense of aesthetics was beautiful in sahAna

The pick of the day was the simmhendra madhyamam minus , also known as chAyaranjani . GNB's krithi in chAyaranjani with the alApanai and swaras were sung beautifully(GNB is a brilliant composer I like all his speedy kalapramanam krithis) , this krithi also had 2 rounds of cittaswaras . A fast sudda sAveri filler did not register that well to me.

Her classicism continued with shankarabharanam , I have to say I liked her singing very much , just towards the end of kuraippu swaras she lost her voice , the shyama sastri krithi neraval was not that great , possibly she was little too conscious of timely completion.Two tukkadas followed one reminding Mlv in Ayiram which was sung beautifully, but kurai onrum illai it was bit offkey, aesthetics was not coming out too well

Both the violinist and mridangist played beautifully,particularly the violin play was apt and very good.The mridangist was having a very good nAdham and only in few avarthanas in tani and during the main he lost bit of steam.

Overall the concert was classical , this vidushi is very good.The disappointment was only in the turnout of the crowd . Each of you should hear her atleast once. One of my accquintance in concerts said yesterday or a day before she sang a rare rAga vijayasaraswati and a hmb krithi for about 45 minutes. One of the day coolkarni is planning to hold a concert of hers , it is pending. This monday 28th at 9AM , she is singing in Indian Fine Arts, T Nagar.

Overall for just the small 1 hour 40 minute she did full justice. She is indeed very classical and almost in the league of Gayathri venkat, pantula rama and raji gopalakrishnan (these are the last three whom I attended this season, so she is +- 15% of these three), perhaps she does not have much marketing might.I am not exaggerating go hear her.

OVerall a very good concert . This musician is indeed rare and personally a class find.

sivakami · Post by **sivakami** » 26 Dec 2009, 22:33

last year, I had attended one of her kucheris here at Hyd, and hence, I can understand..
She had taken Kalyani as main ragam and rendered so well.. Perhaps the crowd was bigger.. say 30-40 people who sat till the end..
Also, telugu being the native tongue, the diction is so clear.. On the whole a good, classical kucheri, with scope of better performance, is how one feels at the end.. lliya?

keerthi · Post by **keerthi** » 26 Dec 2009, 23:33

She sang on the 24th at gokhale Shastri hall, (7.00 p.m)

The concert was held under the aegis of the music education trust, I believe Sri. TRS was instrumental in identifying and introducing this Vidushi to the chennai music scene.

the theme of her concert was songs on saraswati.

she sang the following -

- SaraswatIm upase vidhisatIm - Saraswati - hari nagabhUSaNam-garu
- ParAkEla saraswati - natakuranji - Tirupati Narayanaswami
- mAmavatu sri saraswati - hindolam - VasudevAchArya
- SArasadalanayane - sarammati - HMB
- MAIN piece - SharaNam vijayasaraswati - vijayasaraswati - HMB
- tamil song
- VeLLai tamarai - bhimpalasi
- Telugu folk song ... matalli..

The saraswati in the first song used some unusual pdpdns phrases, which she consciously used in swarakalpana (I know because I asked)

sArasadala used several novel and interesting sangati-s.
Elaborate vijayasaraswati was very impressive - sgmpdns/snpmgrs is a difficult asymmetric scale.

Her music is after a very original, vigorous and well-deliberated style..Lots of swarakalpana improvisations impromptu, and cascading long Alapana phrases. there were 15-20 people at this concert

A musician whose career is worth following...

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 27 Dec 2009, 00:06

Wouldn't it be something that your recommendations go viral and a lot of people show up for her next concert... Imagine this, the screen pops open and Vardhini is shocked to see a houseful of audience instead of the usual 10 or 20. I would like to see a picture of her reaction to that

Though it sounds like a movie fantasy, in this internet world, it can happen.

Rajesh, I can imagine your scare when you were the only one in the audience. It has happened to me in movie theaters and it is a bit odd even in such situations. It is great that artists have internal determination to give their best even when the audience is very small.

Just as an aside, what is the general audience level in chennai this season? Rajesh has provided some indication and I know he rightfully worries about the demand side of the equation. It will be interesting to know about the attendance level at the secondary and tertiary sabhas inside and outside the Mylapore circle for both well estabished and not so well estabished musicians. I always wondered if these many concerts can be reasonably well attended even in Chennai.

rajeshnat · Post by **rajeshnat** » 27 Dec 2009, 08:25

vasanthakokilam wrote:It is great that artists have internal determination to give their best even when the audience is very small.

She like scores of others have a great determination, certainly a case of singing for her own Athma thripti.

Keerthi
Tx for your posting of previous concert, the same concert of vijayasaraswati is what I was referred to .

mnsriram · Post by **mnsriram** » 28 Dec 2009, 09:13

She is a disciple of Sri P V S Seshiah Sastry garu

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 28 Dec 2009, 10:20

Rajesh
Is there a prejudice against unknown 'non-tamil' artistes?
The known ones like Malladi/Hyderabad/ Pantula/... will draw a crowd through reputation. But folks will be hesitant about unknowns on the basis of their place of origin, I guess.
Same probably is true outside TN as well wherein they may be hesitant about Tamil artistes!
This is only a hypothesis. Is it true?

rajeshnat · Post by **rajeshnat** » 28 Dec 2009, 11:14

cmlover wrote:Rajesh
Is there a prejudice against unknown 'non-tamil' artistes?
The known ones like Malladi/Hyderabad/ Pantula/... will draw a crowd through reputation. But folks will be hesitant about unknowns on the basis of their place of origin, I guess
Same probably is true outside TN as well wherein they may be hesitant about Tamil artistes!
This is only a hypothesis. Is it true?

To the best of my knowledge there is no bias at all , overall the right way to put is these are musicians who have class who possibly have no clout, there are few like say skasturirangan too who is based out of madras only. Incidentally since you put three andhra based artists , let me add my thoughts on malladi , hyd and pantula all have class.

#Hyderabad brothers are very senior possibly they occupied slots of say vOleti and nedunuri

# One elderly rasika who is close to 70 told me that mallAdi has reached a comfortable position ,that person told me that in the last decade or the beginning of 2000 , there is an elderly patron by name , an industrialist by name P.Obul reddy(the philanthropist who gave lot of money for vanimahal) , he was helping and really did a lot for mallAdi.

# Smt pantula rama is getting quite a bit of slots this year , she is well recognized.

Overall I guess D.vardhini has possibly no patron to support her. I would blame her luck and fate , than prejudice.

On a side note, yesterday I attended the morning concert of suryaprakash@narada gAna sabha (free) and vijaysiva@ rani seethai hall (paid one min rs 100). The hall was about 200 to 250 full in 1200 + in NGS, and about 350 to 400 full out of say 600 or so in kalarasana.

On the same day TM krishna @ academy was sold out(I checked initially TMK instead of vijaysiva but did not go as tickets were not available . ), i am assuming sanjay at parthasarathi would have been very close .sudha and Ranjani -gayathri (i would personally rate them next to arunA ) are drawing huge crowds.Overall bottom line , lot of people still flock only established sabhas and preferably go to mylapore based sabhas only and artists who have more marketing might(either passive or active rule).

Day before yesterday Smt arunA sayeeram had a mega -super full house in academy, people are waiting from 6 am to buy tickets (crazy I would say, one of my relatives paid 1200 bucks or so with his family and went to academy, this relative pays 4000 rs per month for his car driver.) and the very next slot sreevalsan menon after arunA had few attendees, overall few of them like arunA are appreciated as though she is a madonna which is good for carnatic,where as musicians like vardhini are not shown even minimal appreciation which is bad. Good and bad co-exists at the same time, carnatic market can be a better case study than american automobile industry for harvard business schools.

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 28 Dec 2009, 11:36

rajesh: Excellent analysis and data. Keep such good notes on attendance and post a summary at the end of the season if you think it is worthwhile . Same request to others who attended concerts of different levels of artists. Such data has some real value.

bilahari · Post by **bilahari** » 28 Dec 2009, 11:39

I didn't realise private patronage was so important to advance the careers of artistes. My best wishes, then, for D. Vardhini and others in her boat to find their Medici.

cienu · Post by **cienu** » 28 Dec 2009, 12:21

rajeshnat wrote: carnatic market can be a better case study than american automobile industry for harvard business schools.

cienu · Post by **cienu** » 28 Dec 2009, 12:28

Talking on the same subject of audience attendance, I have heard that in one concert of the legendary MDR at Tamizh Isai Sangam in the early 70's, there were 4 people on stage and only 5 in the audience, (who were also scattered.)

It appears that MDR requested the audience to sit on the stage (just in front of the performing artists) and gave an outstanding 4 hour recital

rajaglan · Post by **rajaglan** » 28 Dec 2009, 14:19

One more person in our list to followup.
Saranam vijaysaraswath is sung more often by Seshagopalan and Gayathri girish.

prashant · Post by **prashant** » 28 Dec 2009, 16:00

keerthi wrote: The saraswati in the first song used some unusual pdpdns phrases, which she consciously used in swarakalpana (I know because I asked)

How is PDNS permissible in saraswati?

sridhar_ranga · Post by **sridhar_ranga** » 28 Dec 2009, 16:23

rajeshnat wrote: Because:
I was the only person sitting in the auditorium , when the curtains went up .It was Odd as I dont know how to clap(I usually avoid clapping).

When the vocalist was taking up sA pA sA shruthi 3 more souls joined them [3 in the stage vs 4 in the crowd] and calanattai took off.The crowd was about 7 at the end of the first song, it reached about 15 which was the peak strength , 15 seats were filled out of 1000 seats available, the kutcheri was free from 02:45 to 4:15pm on a saturday.

The members of NCA seem indifferent to even well established names...Earlier this season, may be a couple of weeks ago, the crowd was just about 10-15 persons which grew to may be 25 towards the end of concert for a fabulous 4 violin concert by MSA, his two sons MAS and MAK, and a Shishya whose name I can't recall now. It was 2 hours of finest music I have heard this season.

mokshamugalada · Post by **mokshamugalada** » 28 Dec 2009, 20:40

quite truely said rajeshnat!

it all depends on marketing. vardhini who got diploma in music from vizianagaram music college, was an upcoming artist in early 90'S, performing in the coastal andhra and hyd regions, but had to wait until now for sri. trs to happen, the rest - we know.

pantula rama sang a grahabedham kharaharapriya as a 9 or 10 year old in a debute concert in vizag for which her guru sri. ivaturi vijayeswara rao played violin, she sang in sarvani sangita sabha in early '90's as a teenager, won many prizes in competitions including madras before that, and has been performing all over india but has been unknown.

msn murthy(rama's hubby) - started very young and has played for each one of the great masters. his mother and aunt used to perform(duet) at music academy as youngsters and none other than smt. dk pattammal amma used to eagerly attend their concerts - they are totally unknown.

so is the burden upon the artist to refute and establish beyond all reasonable doubt the bottom line that she/he is not good?

recently we heard a pleasant veena(yes - the endangered species) concert in dc area - we had never heard of the artist - sri. srinivasan (nilaya vidwan - akashavani, chennai) earlier.

by the way - speaking of veena - how many of us have heard of smt. manda manikyam (not related to sudharani) - lecturer in vizianagaram music college? she is a natural and has got one of the best veena technique.

it is all in the marketing and may be it is time for corporate style managers to step in like the ones madonnas and yoyo-mas have.

there may be countless others that we have not even heard of. sad but true.

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 28 Dec 2009, 22:17

Thanks Rajesh!
Glad to know there is no linguistic prejudice! However name-recognition plays a big role. Aruna/TMK/Sudha/Sanjay/.. will draw a big crowd invariably even when they sing so-so. Perhaps many attendees go just to show-off. I can partly guess the psychology of Chennai crowds. But is this true outside in TN and even outside TN. Do they draw big crowds in say Bangalore/Hyderabad/Trivandrum/... Does our Forum help in any way bringing some recognition for the hidden 'gems'? Reviews like yours and objective discussions like that of keerthi will help a lot! At least we will watch out for these names if and when they get to visit abroad or even recommend them to our scouts when they want to recruit talents to perform abroad...

keerthi · Post by **keerthi** » 28 Dec 2009, 23:01

prashant wrote:
keerthi wrote: The saraswati in the first song used some unusual pdpdns phrases, which she consciously used in swarakalpana (I know because I asked)
How is PDNS permissible in saraswati?

i went up, and asked her, after the concert.. And she said,'it figures in this krti, so I sang the phrase'. Her felicity in swarakalpana was proved by vijayasaraswati ,which had an elaborate, faultless swarakalpana.

Ramasubramanian M.K · Post by **Ramasubramanian M.K** » 28 Dec 2009, 23:46

Nice write-up by Rajeshnat--apropos the comments by CMLover et al let me throw my 2 cents into it with an anecdote--poignant for me.
I have listened to several of the young artistes during this season--yes for some the audience is very thin--one cannot use the word crowds!!
Since it has been over 4 years since I attended the december festival,I noticed this time that with the proliferation of the sabhas and other Music promoters like SAFE,Sampradhaya--all having full-fledged program from 8 A.M. to 10 P.M. starting with lec dems,concerts etc=I found it very difficult to be at two places at the same time--still I managed to catch as many lec dems,senior artistes concerts and junior concerts as possible--WHY? because I was centrally located between Alwarpet and R.A.Puram and thanks to my father(the late K.S.Mahadevan) I had season tkts to atleast three of the major sabhas--and I simply decided that I would not venture west of Mylapore which effectively shut out the Mambalam sabhas although I did sneak into a couple of junior concerts in Mambalam--more due to family/friends loyalties(NRI collegiality!!). With many working days,lots of young music lovers --given the work pressures--year end closing-sales/marketing etc,the available audience is mostly older men and women. Amongst these, I noticed that every household has such a busy routine in the morning till Noon that the housewives however much they may be interested cannot make these sessions. So you see the :Law of the raspberry Jam" is in operation--the more you spread the thinner it becomes. I can recall in my student days there were only three sabhas(MA,Indian Fine Arts) and tamil Sangham--of which MA had the bggest schedule and the audience could attend most of the sessions in the morning as well as the P.M. concerts. The situation is totally different now--with the phenomenal increase in the supply pool of talent despite the best efforts of sabhas,several young artistes struggle to get traction--here is where some respectable critics can play a vital role.

Although I am biased my late Father K.S.Mahadevan(writing for Indian Express for over 30 years) was relentless in pushing artistes cases before the various sabha secretaries in Chennai as well as in Mumbai--where he had clout by virtue of his prior association with Shanmukhananda Sabha.

Two instances almost 15 years apart.
1. In the Mid Nineties,when we celebrated my father's 80th birthday--several leading vidwans in Chennai volunteered to play a concert=--my father brought Balaji(DKJ's disciple--DKJ had died four years earlier) to sing and to accompany on the viloin he brought a young girl from Mumbai based on recomendtions from hsi friends--that girl now a young woman was the younger of the Ranjani-Gaythri duo--they were playing violin duos--needless to say the artistes crowd in Chennai whom we had invited(a sidebar story to this--on this occasion we made DKP and MSS sing Mamava Pattabhirama together for the first time--the recoding is scratchy --what with all the noise and commotion endemic to South Indian celebrations!!) were all mighty impressed with both Balaji and Gayathri. Then after several attempts my father managed to get the violin duo a chance with kapali Fine Arts in BVB during the December season--a 10. A.M. slot--not a great time slot to expose young artistes. Still my father managed to 'round-up" several of his friends and artistes. To cap it all he persuaded Subbudu(who was close to my father and had tremendous respect for my Dad's reviews although they sharply contrasted with his lambasting review techniques) to attend the concert--Subbudu was extremely reluctant(every sabha had sought him to attend their events especially in the A.M.). Finally he came-- the Violin Duo played wonderfully--Subbudu stayed the whole concert and R/G's father was introduced by my father I still remember the scene-- Subbudu asks the father of R and G-in Tamil--Ennaganum, foto vecchirukkela--do you have a snap of the kids-the father was totally taken aback--he said he did not carry one--Subbudu playfully chided him for his "alleged lack of worldly wisdom"- and by the afternoon the snap was sent and the next day Subbudu wrote a raving review of the Duo--the rest is history--ofcourse they made their names on the Vocal concert circuit on their own subsequently--but the turn of events was certainly propitious--POINT;You need people who are well-respected to push the case and even then aggressive marketing of the talent is necesary--I asked my father at that time WHY he asked Subbudu to write when he(my father) himself could have written a glorious review extolling their positives whereas with Subbudu there was a danger that he might throw a punch or a jab --my father said that he could not be as effective as Subbudu and he was right.(Despite his reputation for being constructive he felt his Bombay "roots" would bias the readers!)

Another anecdote re; my dad "pushing' another artiste.

I think around 2003 early, he had come across(perhaps during one of his bangalore visits to sabhas) a young girl who was very much recommended by the "locals'--my father heard her and was convinced that she had talent worth "pushing". back to Chennai he started pestering the organisers in Chennai to no avail to give this girl a chance . Nothing hapened till late 2006.

My father took ill around the middle of August and died on Sept 4,2006. Even when he was sick he used to phone people enquiring about the staus of the girl--my mother used to chide him as to why he should lower himself before sabha Sectretaries for the sake of an unknown girl--afterall there are several girsl with talent who are not able to make it. My father will brush off these comments and felt if he gets rejected that is not an ego thing--anyway a few hours before he died, one of the sabha sectretaries(I think it was kartik Fine arts or kapali Fine arts) calls my mother and after enquiring about my father's health, tells my mother to inform my father that the girl that he had been championing has been given a slot in the December 2006 season.(

WELL!! forumites that girl is none other than Amruta Venkatesh--who has 16 concerts in Chennai during this year(2009) season. I heard her today at the MA and she was good--nice voice,gnanam,poise and dignity(needs to add some weight to her sweet saareeram--right now she reminds me of a younger Unnikrishnan!!-and also needs better concert planning which she wil learn thro experience!!

Likewise my father used to relentlessly push Gayathri Venkataraghavan(from a housewife in Tirunelveli where her husband was an Opthalmologist) to a leading female vocalist today.(At a recent MFA concert I attended she expressed her gratitude to my father for his support). Ofcourse SHE has put in tremendous efforts to improve her repertoire and delivery,voice culture etc

At the risk of being verbose my point is that even in this day and age one needs a lot of push to launch an artiste of true merit--ofcourse this is only 10 % of the whole thing--90 % still depends on the artiste to "capitalise" on the breaks and acquit themselves creditably(example of a prodigy who seems to have been "exiled" from the CM scene-is Sankaran Namboodiri--he was touted energetically by TVG in the mid eighties or early Nineties but today does not seem to be performing anywhere.

Yes--those of us living abroad and wishing to promote new talent are always on the look-out and I can assure rasikas that this forum is closely watched by one of the founders of Sruthilaya in NY(incidentally he contributes as well to the Forum) and he and his cohorts are very receptive to suggestions/feedback from CM enthusiasts. Forumites--keep these reviews flowing!!!

Sorry for the Long Post!!

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 29 Dec 2009, 00:35

MKR, That is a fabulous write-up of what is involved. A lot to ponder there. Very informative. Thanks.

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 29 Dec 2009, 01:01

Many thanks MKR for picking my cue!
With you VKV and a host of our NRI members and with the team of fine reviewers at the Forum like Rajesh we are better placed in promoting talents in CM for the future. Let us be honest and objective.
After Ray Kinsella (Field of Dreams) we all can claim
If we build the park, they will come ..

pganti · Post by **pganti** » 29 Dec 2009, 20:00

Is Vardhani daughter of Smt Indira Kameswara Rao garu? If it is the same Vardhani, I am glad she is able to reach wider audience now. I attended her concerts when I was a kid. Indira Kameswara Rao garu is a very respected vocalist from Visakhapatnam.

prashant · Post by **prashant** » 30 Dec 2009, 10:11

keerthi wrote:
prashant wrote:
keerthi wrote: The saraswati in the first song used some unusual pdpdns phrases, which she consciously used in swarakalpana (I know because I asked)
How is PDNS permissible in saraswati?

i went up, and asked her, after the concert.. And she said,'it figures in this krti, so I sang the phrase'. Her felicity in swarakalpana was proved by vijayasaraswati ,which had an elaborate, faultless swarakalpana.

If PDNS figures in the krithi, it cannot be saraswati [as per my limited understanding of this raga]. I do not doubt the capabilities of the vocalist at all [I have never heard her sing, but I trust Rajesh's and your opinion], but either the krithi has been incorrectly set up, or the vocalist's interpretation of the pATAntara is incorrect. This would be tantamount to, for example, composing a krithi in bilahari, inserting a PDNS phrase in the krithi, and then singing swaras with PDNS prayoga. It may sound great, but it is not bilahari.

Shall we add a 'mishra saraswati' to the ever-growing 'mishra list' [which I am sure, one day, will grow to include 'mishra bhairavi, mishra kAmbhOji etc]?

keerthi · Post by **keerthi** » 30 Dec 2009, 10:33

why don't we look at it this way.. there can be more than one version of a rAga - within living memory, we can see the metamorphosis/co-existence of a srmgpdS/Sndpmgrs and a srgmpds/Sndpmgrs.

Simultaneously, suddha d and catusruti D versions of the two tyAgaraja krti-s in hindola existed - with the naina pillai rescension (through brinda, sOmu? and Chittoor.S.Pillai).

aren't there different roses by the name narayaNi and sarasvatimanohari, with quite different raga lakSana-s..?

prashant · Post by **prashant** » 30 Dec 2009, 12:36

keerthi: I take all your above points [I take it you are referring to kAmbhOji as codified in the pallavi gOpAla ayyar varNA with liberal srmgpds, and kAmbhOji as it is rendered today], but I don't think there is any historical evidence to support this claim for sarasvati. Established Andhra vidvAns like Nedunuri Sir have rendered saraswati elaborately with the correct scale. Given his association with the giant of Andhra music, Sri Pinakapani, and the influence of Pinakapani Garu on the musicians of Andhra, there appears to be very little possible of this 'regional variation' in the case of saraswati, at least in modern times.

Coming to hindOLa itself - as per the SSP the ArOhaNa is SGGMNDNS. The fact that nIrajAkshi kAmAkshi is rendered by many as a straight SGMDNS - SNDMGS without even cursory attention to the well-codified notation in the SSP which follows the above scale perfectly, is wrong. There are many such variations [from your posts on the forum, I am quite confident that you will be able to provide many more examples like this] - in most cases we can trace some history or or fork on the musicological road which led to this variations. I leave it to authorities more competent to enlighten me on when this change took place with regard to sarasvati rAgA.

Even if this is a case of 'deliberate metamorphosis', I respect the creativity and aesthetic thought behind it, but urge that the rAgA then be called something else if this prayoga needs to be used. Saraswati is a well-established rAgA with enough of a corpus of compositions over the years, and does not need any type of creative or stylistic enhancement by the usage of ungrammatical piDis [I realize I leave myself open to the inevitable and well-documented khamAs / Anandabhairavi etc etc arguments here].

keerthi · Post by **keerthi** » 30 Dec 2009, 23:38

1. kambhOji, in the gItam given in the prathamabhyasa pustakamu, in koniyAdina napai of kuppayyar, and even in srIsubrahmanyAya namastE, indicates a propensity for the rmgpdS kind... the advent of fast-phrase laden sangati-s must have spawned the prevalent/easier/ linear scale version..

My point isn't about the claim for any particular rAga. It is about the composer's musician's prerogative to use a certain sancAra/phrase in a certain piece/rAga. i feel this is artistic license of some kind, and while we enjoy the freedom to discuss it, the composer/singer should have the freedom to sing it and call it whatever he/she thinks is suitable.

The andhra version of bindumalini has a very definite gmrs ending in the avarOha phrases, which isn't so rigid in other essays of the same rAga.

The dhanammal school will sing nIlayatAksi,srisukrabhagavantam, celi nenEtlu, emi jeyudu and innalavale all in the garden variety pharas, and then sing smarasundaranguni with the very specific, conscious insertion of m2.

Mysore VasudEvAcharya's composition in bahudhari, like Dr.PinAkapaNi's version of BrOva bhArama, follows the sgmpdns/Sndnpmgs pattern instead of snpmgs.

I am not sure about the fork in the musicological road, but the regional differences in the musical roads have long become near parallel lines, and to trace their point of bifurcation may mean going a long, long way..
why must we go around giving scores of names for the rescensions of prevalent rAga-s../

This generally throws light on our understanding and interpretation of raga architecture, vis-a-vis scales and laksana literature.

prashant · Post by **prashant** » 31 Dec 2009, 07:25

keerthi wrote: My point isn't about the claim for any particular rAga. It is about the composer's musician's prerogative to use a certain sancAra/phrase in a certain piece/rAga. i feel this is artistic license of some kind, and while we enjoy the freedom to discuss it, the composer/singer should have the freedom to sing it and call it whatever he/she thinks is suitable.

Thanks for all the insights. I guess we will agree to disagree since I cannot accept this interpretation into the framework of how I view Carnatic music. If prerogatives and artistic license can be exercised this freely, anything that sounds good can be incorporated into any raga...

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 31 Dec 2009, 09:11

On a different wavelenghth may I ask whether there is any limitation on the 'artiste license' in CM? Apparently anything can be passed off under that category but the acceptance by the general CM community perhaps may be the measuring stick, I suppose. In that context I wonder whether that measuring stick has different calibrations in different regions of SI, similar to the Gharanas in HM, although the underlying CM platform (based on Trinity) is the same.