Videos from Shabda event held on Mar 19th, 2011

[shabda]

Dear Rasikas,
Shabda is a project aimed at creating an online archive of the various aspects pertaining to the Indian Performing Arts. A lot of valuable knowledge content on Indian performing arts is either unavailable or not in the proper form of documentation. Shabda is a humble effort to make it otherwise.

The first event was held on Mar 19th, 2011 in Chennai.

The videos from this event are now available for online viewing on Shabda's website http://shabda.co.in. The videos are free and no registration is required. Please do visit the website to view the videos and pass on this information to others who might be interested.
--
Shabda organizers

[shabda]

Dear Rasikas,
If you would like to be added to Shabda's mailing list and receive notifications about future events, please send an email to [email protected] and we will add you to the mailing list.
--
Shabda organizers

[mohan]

Thanks for this. I've watched one of the videos already and enjoyed it a lot.

[vasanthakokilam]

The presentations are quite informative. VVS's violin demo on the effect of small changes in swara enunciation effecting raga changes is spot on! Smt. Vedavalli is awesome. She is quite humorous as well! And so is Guru Karaikkudi Sri R.Mani. Talking about laya is not easy and Sri. Mani's presentation demystifies trisram in an excellent manner. It probably requires a few listens to fully comprehend the content ( though he intended it at the lay audience ) but the important thing is, even with one listen, when he plays the mridangam at the end, one can easily hear the trisram patterns he talked about during the persentation. Definitely mission accomplished. I will check out the rest later.

Thanks shabda!

[shankarabharanam]

Bang on Vasanthakokilam. My first half of the day was pure bliss... Listening to Vedavalli amma and VVS sir was superb. So were other speakers. Loved the thodi pada varnam that Smt Lakshmi Vishwanathan spoke about. Thanks shabda.

[sreecons]

Thanks - Very informative and well presented. I am sure students will find it very useful for enhancing their learning. Best wishes for your endeavours.

[mahavishnu]

Yes, Smt Vedavalli's aTAnA demo was extraordinary. Too bad it leaves you yearning for more, since all the lec-dems are only 30mins long.

Great effort by the organizers of Shabda!

[sakthi.balan]

Great ones! I really enjoyed Smt Vedavalli's demo. Too good! Thanks very much for the organizers. Please arrange more such things.

[narayan]

Enjoyed what I've seen so far. After seeing Vedavalli's lec-dem, am 'inspired' to write about the aTAnA (is that how it's supposed to be said?) gandharam. Vedavalli's injunction to enjoy the raga was compelling and I must say that I tried to do so as soon as I could. Her open-mindedness and sense of humour and balance were as appealing as the points she made about the raga. I, too, would have liked to hear more about the Diksitar aTAnA and all that, but what she spoke was certainly worth hearing.

[rshankar]

aTAnA (is that how it's supposed to be said?)

Shouldn't it be aThAnA?

[narayan]

aThAna is how I've being saying it. Although I've been known to be wrong!

Coming to Vedavalli's lec dem, I find that the antara gandhara in the raga has been discussed by veterans here in the raga forum. I feel that the first lines of E papamu and even balakanakamaya have the smaller gandharam (rather like how one sings pmg,mp in dhanyasi) in my ears. So I agree that the discussion should be whether the raga is a janya of kharaharapriya or gowrimanohari rather than whether it is one of sankarbharanam or harikambodhi. At least in current usage, the antara gandhara is definitely used in a limited way. One phrase is G,mrs which Vedavalli has pointed out, but more common is nsmGrs, both in the upper octave, as arunk and others have pointed out earlier. The usage is more pronounced and evident in G,mrs of course.

[Rasika911]

I think the point is more about how atana should be sung. If there is a version of atana in the SSP that is very different to what we have today then we need to establish what exactly constitutes atana the way it is sung today and respect both versions of the raga.

The classification under a particular mela is irrelevant for rasikas and performers. At the end of the day it is just a system of codifying ragas and has no purpose beyond that point. SInce our music has rakthi ragas that are pharse based rather than sangathi based, ragas that use more than 1 variety of a note such as the gandharam in atana or nishadam in begada are going to pose problems.

[vasanthakokilam]

Rasika911, that all sounds correct.. What do you mean by 'sangathi based'? You mean 'scale based'?