Hard Core Tavil player

[vallknowme]

Born and raised brahmin. I have constantly made an effort to break out of it. I am a passionate Tamil lover. Please tell me the best Tavil player.

[varsha]

http://www.mediafire.com/view/9rxv4z6tj ... 20aisa.mp3

[harimau]

Born and raised brahmin. I have constantly made an effort to break out of it. I am a passionate Tamil lover. Please tell me the best Tavil player.

Everyone will immediately say (and I am surprised that nobody did) that Sangeetha Kalanidhi Valayapatti Sri Subramaniam is the best Tavil player as evidenced by the recognition given to him by the Music Academy.

Haridwaramangalam A K Palanivel and Tiruvalapputhur T A Kaliamurthy are extraordinary Tavil vidwans.

When one goes to Nagaswaram concerts, the Tavil artists billed as 'special tavil' are always very very good.

One cannot and should not attempt to pick one Tavil vidwan as the very best. There are so many outstanding Tavil players, several of then in obscure villages, who are an absolute delight to listen to. In fact, for several Nagaswaram concerts, even the top bill ones, discerning rasikas look at the names of the Tavil vidwans to ensure their listening experience will be all the richer.

PS. I recall reading about a Nagaswaram concert in a small village where the Tavil vidwan had difficulties in playing the korvai and bringing it to edam. After a couple of attempts, he managed to successfully do it. Another Tavil vidwan in the audience is supposed to have asked him, "Why did you go to all the trouble to get the korvai right? After all, these simple villagers would not have understood if you missed it. Nor would they appreciate that you managed to correct yourself and brought the korvai to a successful conclusion." (இந்த சனங்களுக்காக ஏன் இப்படி சிரமப் பட்டீங்க? இந்தக் கணக்கெல்லாம் அவங்களுக்குப் புரியவா போகுது?) To which, the Tavil player replied, "There would likely be an Iyer bookkeeper in the audience, if my calculations were not correct, he would know and he would have finished my account off. I made the extra effort for him." (கூட்டத்திலே எங்கேயோ ஒரு கணக்குப்பிள்ளை அய்யர் ஒக்காந்திருப்பாரு. கணக்கு சரியா வரலன்னா அவரு என் கணக்கைத் தீத்துருவாரு.)

So, by all means embrace your Brahmin heritage. There are enough persons who respect the mental discipline you bring to whatever you do.

PPS. Contrary to the popular belief that all tavil vidwans are from the Isai Vellalar community, I have seen an Iyengar sporting tiruman on his forehead and body and wearing a yagnopaveetham playing tavil at the Tiruvayyaru Thyagaraja Aradhana.

[rshankar]

Tavil to Tamil - another of the autocorrect bugbears?

[harimau]

Tavil to Tamil - another of the autocorrect bugbears?

Yes. This time by my laptop.

Laboriously corrected them all.

After all, there are Malayali, Kannada and Telugu tavil players too!

[vallknowme]

varsha, sabaash!!! really, sabaash!

who is the artist, may I know, please? both nagaswaram amd tavil?

[vallknowme]

Harimau, examples of korvai and idam? Or please redirect me to a resource sir.

[vallknowme]

one thing is absolutely true. While rasikas.org is an exclusive club ( which i hate) we have absolutely world class people here - engineers, theorists, muscians, musicoligists and serious listeners.

[rajeshnat]

valknowme
There was one link that interested me few years back. It is Guru Karaikudi mani -Tiruvalapputhur T A Kaliamurthy. You hear it for yourself - one can see how involved are tavil strokes and how kaliamurthy callibrates with a reduced volume

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c--5nRg2byc

The you tube uploader has mistakenly uploaded the image of valayapatti instead of kaliamurthy.

On a side note , is there any available recordings of Needamangalam Meenakshisundaram pillai and yazhpanam dakshinamoorthy.

[mahavishnu]

While you are at it, check out Valangaiman Shanmugasundaram Pillai. He sounds like the lord of thunder himself. Here is a sample of him playing with Tanjore Upendran (who was his son-in-law): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmh36QPJNok This gives you an excellent contrast between the styles of execution of the same rhythmic ideas on two different instruments. The sollu development is extraordinary, assuming you can follow along.

As Harimau has already mentioned these names, I will elaborate only slightly. Valayappatti's kanakku and vyavaharam are extraordinary. Haridwaramangalam has an unbelievable gumki (pitch bending effect) with the stick, in addition to having a great sense of accompaniment. These are fairly well recorded artistes so you should even be able to find several recordings on youtube.

Here is a simple kOrvai exchange with Valayappatti: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ql_8OMH43q8
Here is a good introduction to the concept of kOrvai: http://musictraining.in/korvai-in-mrida ... upavadhyam

And here is a good tutorial on some simple and complex kOrvais with very good worked out examples: http://rhythmpatterns.wordpress.com/
Edam is the place or location where these recursive rhythmic sequences terminate (either in and of itself or to the starting location of a composition or pallavi).

The tavil has also had an extraordinary influence on the development of the way mridangam and khanjira are being played today. If you searched for earlier posts in this forum on the evolution of mridangam playing styles, you will find more useful resources.

Hope this helps.

Rajesh, I have an old recording of Needamangalam somewhere. I will see if I can dig it up.

[mahavishnu]

Sorry the Needamangalam recording I have is from a commercial release, so I cannot share it here.
However, you can stream it from here: http://www.allmusic.com/artist/needaman ... 0001469556

[varsha]

is there any available recordings of Needamangalam Meenakshisundaram pillai

who is the artist, may I know, please?

Answer to both is the same mediafire link .

A 4 hour 11 minutes concert with Karaikurchi .
Requires a hundred listenings for me to grasp the full import of what Karaikurchi strives to convey .
How can a human being play like that , .... simply unbelievable

[Nick H]

one thing is absolutely true. While rasikas.org is an exclusive club ( which i hate) we have absolutely world class people here - engineers, theorists, muscians, musicoligists and serious listeners.

Not so exclusive ...they let me in! And yes, the knowledge and experience here is amazing, but then, that tends to be true of rasikas, whether of the dot-org variety or not.

Confession: I still find thavil very difficult to listen to.

[rajeshnat]

varsha
Needamangalam meenakshisundaram pillai lived from 1894 to 1949. I am not sure if karaikurichi and needamangalam meenakshi sundaram pillai paired and that was also recorded .

For karaikurichi one of his main thavil artist was nachiarkovil raghava pillai who was a student of needamangalam . raghava pillai is also son in law of meenakshisundaram pillai. May be the recording is wrongly labelled(please check up) . Also BM sundaram is son of needamangalam meenakshi sundaram pillai.Any way thanks for the link

Mahavishnu
Did not know Tanjore UPendran connection with tavil with his father in law valangiman

[varsha]

May be the recording is wrongly labelled(please check up)

CORRECTED TO ---- .THANKS

[kunthalavarali]

rajeshnat,

I have heard Valangaiman A. Shanmugasundaram Pillai accompanying Karukuruchi. One can never forget the extraordinary music that KPA produced in the concerts at Annamalai mandram and elsewhere. As varsha puts it "simply unbelievable". I particularly remember and feel privileged to have heard the concert were KPA was in the company of Karukuruchi N Arunachalam, Valangaiman Shanmughasundaram and Perumpallam P Venkatesan (a disciple of NRP). Todi RTP (2 hours) and a great magudi apart from other splendid pieces were there. It was a full 5 hours and 10 minutes concert.

Needamangalam Shanmugavadivelu (nee Meenakshisundaram Pillai) was another great thavil artiste who had accompanied KPA, I suppose.

BTW Nachiayarkovil Raghava Pillai (whom we used call PMI of thavil) also accompanied KPA. NRP was a constant companion for TNR though. Just imagine the type of music that TNR with KPA accompanied by NRP and NS would have presented!

[rajeshnat]

Needamangalam Shanmugavadivelu (nee Meenakshisundaram Pillai) was another great thavil artiste who had accompanied KPA, I suppose.

Did you mean Needamangalam Shanmugavadivel is son of needamangalam Meenakshisundaram Pillai, i just googled that is that right?

[varsha]

kuntrhavarali

One can never forget the extraordinary music that KPA produced in the concerts at Annamalai mandram .....

You are blessed too . Folks like me are blessed,only on the rebound.
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/y5230b ... araikurchi

The other thing I like about thavil players is their sense of aesthetics in relation to the main performers stream of thought.
In the 4 hour concert I referred to.... there is a phase when vasanthabhairavi moves on from sedate to roller coaster and onto a shanmukhapriya that is beyond words.
The thavils pace is like what used to be mine , while on long walks with my father.I had to keep running to be in line with him And would always have to be filling the gaps.Either by slowing down or pacing up.
Spotless accompaniment.Always.

[varsha]

And talking of copyrights ....
my friend , who is KA's son in law , gave me a whole bunch of recordings and offered free use to any publisher , to bring them out.That was a phase when I was into influencing music publishers to release some stuff that HAD to be released .Sadly not one thought it fit to accept the offer .
Often , at Mudhras concerts , one can see a large man in spotless white pant / shirt , singing to himself in the last row.
He is the person He has not been put off by the way the playground has turned into a vanity fair.
But his singing =24by 7= ( like Akellaji's , for those who have seen and heard them from close) , is a treat in itself.
The sincerity of purpose is unfathomable.

[advaitin]

Try this one out - not a much heard name, at least for me. But once i heard this, OMG
Thavil Methaigal Palanimalai Thedchanamoorthy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDuzd96aiQo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N81oMTvvX3o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDGKclNZJzg

incredible speed and power.

[rajeshnat]

Try this one out - not a much heard name, at least for me. But once i heard this, OMG
Thavil Methaigal Palanimalai Thedchanamoorthy

Just to clarify what you have posted the first vidwan is palanimalai . The second is yazhpaanam dakshinamoorthy pillai (whose name is written as thedchanamoorthy). Indeed what a play from yazhpaanam dakshinamoorthy pilllai. What precision , since I am hearing it in my own speaker I heard it with much less reduced volume than the usually high volume.

[advaitin]

Rajesh

Thanks for pointing out the goof up at my end. I meant the latter - yazhpanam. does anyone have more recordings or detail about this supremely gifted artiste?

[vallknowme]

Advaitin, adengappa. seme pola. Really man ! Tavil Tavildhaan. This is Tavil Hard Metal.

[vallknowme]

Even for people who understand Tamil, I use the word "pola" in a very colloquial way of another colloquial expression "polandhu katradhu". Its an equivalent of "sabaash", "encore" etc

[vallknowme]

kindly listen to the jai jangh in the videos posted by advaitin. dono undermine the co artists. Jain jagh is awesome .

[srikant1987]

Here's a review of a concert in which Sri Kongampattu A.G. Murugayyan played the tavil. http://srutimag.blogspot.in/2012/04/ove ... yanam.html

It can be heard from sruti magazine website. It was an Oli concert I too got to witness.