Sliding Scale of Authentic Treatment of Carnatic Music Compositions

[Sachi_R]

We should use a Richtig Scale for Carnatic songs. The scale goes from 0 to 10.

0 - No sahitya or kriti
1 - Nobody knows this song, looks made up on the spot.
2 - Song looks vaguely familiar, but mutilated on all counts.
3 - Song words seem to be right for the first line, but rest of the song looks like a mish mash
4 - Song words are more than 70% as I know it from before, but the tune looks faulty
5 - Song and tune sound OK-ish but the rendition is unauthentic in Carnatic terms
6 - Same song as I know it, but raga changed. Or ragamalika-fied
7 - Same song, same raga, but different pathantara
8 - Same song, same raga, as I know it, but some jazzy chitte swara added.
9 - Same song, same raga, but sung with wrong speed
10 - Same song, same raga, correct speed, all in order.

Now if we are in doubt, we will allocate the lowest score as per this scale. For example if something scores between 7 and 8, it will be a 7.

Many Purandaradasa songs will score between 4,5, and 6.

Since we are using a numerical scale, no names are called out as culprit.

[Sachi_R]

Content deleted as golden words should not be repeated.

"Richtig" is a powerful German word.

[SrinathK]

We should use a Richtig Scale for Carnatic songs. The scale goes from 0 to 10.

0 - No sahitya or kriti
1 - Nobody knows this song, looks made up on the spot.
2 - Song looks vaguely familiar, but mutilated on all counts.
3 - Song words seem to be right for the first line, but rest of the song looks like a mish mash
4 - Song words are more than 70% as I know it from before, but the tune looks faulty
5 - Song and tune sound OK-ish but the rendition is unauthentic in Carnatic terms
6 - Same song as I know it, but raga changed. Or ragamalika-fied
7 - Same song, same raga, but different pathantara
8 - Same song, same raga, as I know it, but some jazzy chitte swara added.
9 - Same song, same raga, but sung with wrong speed
10 - Same song, same raga, correct speed, all in order.

Nice idea RSachi. I should warn you, not only Purandaradasa, almost all the songs of older composers in CM would score between 5-7 and sometimes 8.

Actually the scale needs a few modifications. So allow me to present the revised sliding scale of authenticity in CM compositions

0 : Extinct and forgotten for good, known only to God. You don't even know it exists. And you will live and die in ignorant bliss never knowing it even existed....unless someone strikes gold or gets a divine revelation.

+1 : Song extinct. We only know because somewhere its potential existence was mentioned. Maybe you only realized it because you know that a composer has composed far more than what is available today, so there must be more. But we may never find it, however there's always the hand of God...

+2: Archaeological Fossil. Maybe bits and pieces of lyrics survive. Maybe a few pieces of tune even. But mostly lost. Maybe only the first word is known. But the song did exist.

+3: Composition exists and Lyrics are available. Original Raga and original tune extinct. Perhaps it was not even a song, but prose or poetry. The song therefore has not been sung again. Composer may or may not be known. Someone may retune them someday.

+4: Lyrics exist, original tune unknown or might not exist as it was only lyrical. So song retuned completely or revived back from the dead. Original raga or composer may not be known in some cases. But the song must have had a resurrection moment and must now be active on the circuit. Probably sounding nothing like what it originally was, but hey, that's Renaissance.

+5: Songs of known composers, but rendered in radically different versions in different ragas or talas and we don't know which is the original. It may even be rendered in a completely different musical genre. But the song never had a need to be resurrected.

+6: Lyrics and raga exist, original tune might exist somewhere, but still retuned completely, maybe in more than one version. Raga changed. Tala or kalapramanam also changed. Maybe ragamalika-fied too.

+7: Lyrics and raga exist, original tune might still exist, people might still sing it in the same raga or tala on paper, but the raga lakshanam itself changed over time. The kalapramanam also changed, maybe the tala also.

+8: Original tune exists and all, but we either sing part of the song or sing some portions in the wrong order. Overall tune is quite modernized to contemporary tastes.

+9: Original tune exists, the song is sung in toto, in the right order too, but has been modernized with present day gamakas, lots of extra sangatis, chittaswarams and the like. Kalapramanam might still be different. Raga still recognizable despite modernization.

+10: Original tune exists and is sung with original kalapramanam and tala too. Still modernized with some extras.

+11: Living fossil. Either preserved intact or right off the book, as notated by the composer or someone very trustworthy by his side. But one issue - said composer is long gone, along with the music of those days maybe. You may get it right in the authentic style of that period if the details are well notated, but some modernization will be inevitable where they are not. But congratulations, you painstakingly restored a lost treasure this far. In the future, others may drop it down to Level +10 or even +9, so archive meticulously.

+12: Unlike all the above cases, in this level, the composer is still alive and rendering or teaching the composition as they intended. And the composer does not approve unauthorized versions, but might evolve the composition over time. Turn that recorder on asap.

And this scale can also take negative values, because of the dark side of this business:

-0.5 : Suspects. A surprise number that came out of the blue. But no one else knows it, it has never been heard before, and the musician is not giving the details. But as and when they do, it gets allocated on the scale as appropriate. If it's their own composition, it automatically gets Level 12. But if we smell a rat or they come up with an implausible source, it's straight down somewhere below :

-1: Any composition that is blatantly spurious and attributed to a composer who did not compose it. Can quite easily be proven to be a fake.

-2: Any composition of an old composer in a modern raga or raga version which does not stop with that, goes on to claim that said composer invented that raga or was the first to compose in it or even invented a type of composition or sub-genre. The difference here is that people claim to be traditional while supporting what is actually a spurious tradition.

-3: Part of the original composition's lyrics was never actually composed by the original composer, but was added on by others and set to tune even. And they won't admit it or get really defensive when probed. But there may be evidence to show the truth. In the process don't be surprised if the whole song got retuned.

-4: Lyrics of an original composition are actually tampered with significantly, maybe the first 2 words are the only original ones, maybe not even that and the tune might also be totally different, but the cover up job is well done and you won't know until you dig up the original. Perhaps the source materials from where the song was dug up might be spurious. In the worst cases, even the language might have been altered in the name of translation. The thing here is that that the alteration is massive and people can be misled by incorrect data sources.

-5: Any composition that was composed with both lyric and melody and style by a later musician and then attributed to an old composer to gain popularity and systematically popularized as such. The difference here is that there will be no data and a lot of black boxes at work - tracing the song might lead to a dead end. It may be very difficult / virtually impossible to disprove the claims, but your gut instinct will not sleep well. This is a very clever case of forgery where the composition is in a gray area, resembling the original composer's style down to a T, and the populist majority think it's legit and will consider anything to the contrary as blasphemy.

Attempts to investigate may be met with shaming tactics, rationalizations, deflections, vague replies, broken records, inconclusive ramblings, emotional meltdowns and even threats. In the end, you may have to bring your heroes down from their pedestals and risk making yourself very unpopular amongst the outraged hysterical masses. This is easily the most insidious of the lot.

-6: Making up sensational stuff like claiming a composer never really existed, dismissing an entire parampara's worth of compositions, or at the opposite end, creating a composer that never actually existed and then cooking up an entire history, a set of compositions and even a parampara and maybe even a set of legendary tales. This is a step above level 5 and can't be beaten in shock value for the first part. But if you are very clever in the 2nd case, people might not even realize that you made it all up for a long time. By the time they ever do, they might be unable to cope.

-7: Taking up someone else's composition and claiming it as your own for any reason. And then convincing masses of people to believe it. Blatant plagiarism at its finest.

-8: If the original composer is alive, not only did you plagiarize their work, you also shut them up somehow so the truth never comes out - either you paid them a good load of money or used more sinister means like threats or coercion or judicial hell. By the time anyone decides to challenge you, you'd have done such a good job of convincing the public otherwise, that you can claim it's all a conspiracy hatched by your rival.

-9: Death by Negligence. You chose to ignore a composer completely because you didn't like them, and because they didn't know how to popularize their work or document and record it, their compositions and music died with them. Or maybe they were your ancestral heritage even. If so, then your modern cosmopolitan generation chose to forget them because they were old fashioned irrelevant stuff, just like your ancestors. Or maybe you were the repository of those compositions and you chose to act like a miser who'd rather take their gold with them to the grave than to share them with others. Maybe someone trusted you with their parampara's wealth and you let it rot into oblivion. Ungrateful wretches! Someday someone who actually cares might unearth what's left of your heritage, and you will shamelessly want a piece of the pie.

-10: Musical mafia. The worst case scenario. Either because of sheer professional jealousy or some other hate filled malicious agenda of a deranged mind, you stooped so low that you actually destroyed a composer's work or tried to ruin them totally to make sure their music never sees the light of day. You also systematically sabotage any one who tries to unearth anything left from the ashes. Shame on you, you sick asura! May your lot burn in hell, in the fires lit by your own hate!

[Sachi_R]

Wow. The next step would be to create a log gamma curve. X axis being your scale and Y axis being my scale

[SrinathK]

@Sachi_R , I just added Category -8, -9 and -10. It has happened in history, yes. So why not.

[ganesh_mourthy]

Srinath

You are awesome forumsmith

[rajeshnat]

srinath
You have edited 33 times to create a lovely post #8. Give some liberal whitespaces between points ,please make a 34th edit to ensure better readability.

[SrinathK]

You have to mention that stat? But that's what it takes to create a work of art...I have fulfilled your wish, now it's readable.

[ganesh_mourthy]

No Srinath ... it is admiration.

It would take me a week and several pockets of time to write a post like that ... let alone the formating.

[arasi]

Wdll said, Ganes_mourthy--and above all, sarakku master! A virtual bhanDAr, this store house

[SrinathK]

@arasi - If you praise me any more, I might get lost for words....

Fortunately @arasi, your compositions made in this day and age are safe at the top of the scale .

Unfortunately I cannot say the same for most of the composers of CM. Definitely the music of ALL composers before the 20th century has been altered and modernized to various degrees. Many people may think the compositions range between 6-8 on the scale, but I'd say most of the kritis and ragas sung today are below +8, with varnams, swarajathis, geethams and tillAnas at 8 or above (barring suspect cases).

A plot of where our compositions stand today actually peaks massively at +3. @Lakshman makes the biggest case for it, because if you look at his repertoire list, probably only 10% of what's in it is being sung today (and that itself is over 6000). Naturally the function will blow up at 0 because ignorance is after all our greatest dimension

I should rename the negative side of the scale as the "The 10 deadly sins in treatment of CM compositions" Out of them, sin #9 has happened far too much while sins #1, #2 and #5 are more common than what any of us realize. This is not to say that those other compositions aren't beautiful creations in their own right, but their origins are murky

@Sachi_R - many thanks for inspiring the concept. @RSR, if you keep following the rAgAs project, one can get a very good idea as to the authenticity of many CM compositions as we render them now with examples. We can compare some of the old versions with the new ones. Already many ragas have been covered, but they're only a handful - the bulk of them are in fact yet to come.

Anyway, I also feel I went overkill in a moment of inspiration. So I"ll request the mods to put posts #3 to #15 under a new topic if they can. In the meantime, it will be great if you can continue to use this thread to find out who all tuned many of the popular songs that are doing the rounds today as you are already doing.

[RasikasModerator2]

Ok, we managed to successfully split the relevant posts into 2 different threads as requested. I hope the new thread title is appropriate. Please do not mix up these 2 topics from now on.

[ganesh_mourthy]

Content deleted as golden words should not be repeated.

"Richtig" is a powerful German word.

What is so special about richtig? Rightig? I speak German quite fluently.

It just means "right" or "correct" and it is one of the most commonly used words in the day-to-day conversations . I am not undermining the word here.. merely stating that it is just another ordinary word in German.

[Sachi_R]

Sir, in time the Richtig scale may yet become as popular as its more famous cousin the Richter scale

[RSR]

@11
@SrinathK
I do follow closely all your posts in the Ragas section and appreciate your considerable effort in giving links to tube versions. In my last post there, I had suggested a method to ensure that the links will be active for at least two deadens from now.
May I remind you to resume your ragam posts at the earliest ,avoiding attempted sojourns into prose-writing, which actually divert the attention from 'music' to prose? The earlier posts some few years back by senior forumites had exchange of music-links , which are all dead now.
How many ragas should we really try to know ? The more we limit our scope to the TRINITY period, ( Shyama Sastry, Thyagaraja Swami, Muthuswami Dikshitar, Swathi ThirunaaL, Gopalakrishna Barathy)
and base our study on the widely accepted sampoorNa MK scheme ragas, it gives hope for covering all the ragams handled by them.

I found that there are only 70 kritis by Shyama Sastry and he had used only 24 ragams! ... Thyagaraja Swami had used only about 50 well-known ragams and about 140 ragams for his single-krithi songs. These numbers will often overlap. MD also would not have used many ragams not covered by Thyagaraja.
The less the scope of the attempted analysis, better the chance of doing justice to the job and completing it. The forum, if it is to gain new members from student community ( not music students, necessarily) should not overwhelm them but guide them gradually. In this context, I remember some exchanges about introductory lessons in Sanskrit to Tamils.(Language section. Sanskrit)
By the way, is there any reference to Annamacharya kritis ( pre-Purandara Dasa !- 1400 AD - by a century!). Was there at least some oral tradition mentioned by SSP? Had any leading vocalists of 1940-1960 period sung those kritis in concerts?

[Sachi_R]

RSR, what I heard was copper plates with Annamacharya's compositions were discovered in the archives of Tirumala temple. This happened perhaps mid-20th century.

This is reported by a student of SK Sri. Rallapalli Ananta Krishna Sharma of Tirupathi:
My guru had made a name and a very special place in the state of Andhra Pradesh. He had presided over many conferences and delivered speeches and conducted music kutcheris. He never sold his music. After retiring from the college, he was invited by the officials of Tirupathi temple to bring out Annamacharya kritis. These kritis were etched in copper plates, all neatly stacked but were covered with dirt and grime. My guru got them cleaned and notated the swaras for many keertanas and published them in the form of two books. He stayed for many years in Tirupathi for this reason. He used to head the annual Annamacharya festivals. Even I used to be invited to participate in this festival for many years. Usually people from Andhra Pradesh would take part in the festival to sing.
Once, Gopala Reddy a minister from Vijayawada came to the festival. It was one of those times
when my guru had not participated. The minister persisted and made my guru sing “Brahma Kadigina Paadamu” and enjoyed it.

[SrinathK]

About 20000 of Annamacharya kritis, I have heard were found on those copper plates - many of those rAgAs don't exist now. Almost 2 centuries before Kshetrayya, it was Annamacharya who is considered to be the father of the SringAra pada itself. There is also evidence now that Annamacharya's descendants could have been the very first varnam composers, preceding Pacchimiriyam Adiayyappa's (composer of Viriboni bhairavi varnam and Shyama Sastri's guru) by a lot.

[RSR]

The fundamental question is 'who is a composer?. I am now trying to create a website for composers of Carnatic music-.
Not for experts but for lay-rasikas like myself.
https://sites.google.com/site/4carnatic ... -reference
(begun just this month). To avoid controversy, I am leaving out ,all 'composers' after 1930. A composer is a poet, tuner and even a good singer, himself. Such a definition fits perfectly to the Trinity, and their contemporaries, and direct line of disciples of Thyagaraja Swami ( stalwarts like Mysore Sadasiva Rao, Poochi Iengar, Vasudevachar , Muthiah Bagavathar et al) upto Papanasam Sivan. . Maha Vaidyanatha Sivan is an amazing example. . As they are all post-trinity, and comparatively modern, it is possible to get sufficient information. But not so, in the case of pre-trinity composers. ( Ramadasu, Sadasiva Brammendram,Narayana Theerthar, Venkatakavi and even Tamil Moovar. )I am unable to get a painting even of such composers. I submit, that granting that they were all good poets , there is no evidence that the tunes were set by them. Let it not, color our appreciation of the tunes as are sung now. It need not and should not. We are carried away by the THEME. and perhaps by the lyrical beauty(?) . (? even without knowing the language?).
---------------------
I am searching for information on Annamacharya . said to have lived just prior to Purandara Dasa . ( Actually, Vyasa Raya, the Guru of Purandara Dasa is said to have composed the popular song 'lrishna nee begama' in YamunkalyaNi. ( what evidence, except oral tradition?).
I just want to know , if any of the great vocalists of 'Carnatic Summer' had sung any of Annamacharya kriti in their concert. Prior to the Trinity, the usual refrain is that there were thousands of songs but quite a few have been lost.
As for the Annamacharya copper plates, I suppose, they were lyrics without music notation. If so, he can be venerated as a great bakthi-poet sure, but a composer? But if we go by the oral tradition of Bajan Sampradhaya, it is quite possible that the tunes with which some of those songs had been prevailing among the Telugu rural households in Andhra , were genuinely by the composer. Same can be said about Purandara Dasa. / sreenivasaraos blog on the music of bajan sampradhayam in Tanjore area just when Thyagaraja Swami was in his teens, brings out the picture very clearly.
https://sreenivasaraos.com/2015/02/22/s ... t-i-intro/ ( especially, 4.1 onwards)
and in Part-2 ( 12 and 13)
No disrespect meant to anybody. but unearthing thousands of kritis in copper plates in 1950 does tax our credulity.

[RSR]

What exactly is meant by 'swarap padutthuthal'? I am sure that it cannot mean 'setting to tune' but 'giving notation to an existing tune.
This is about Sri.C.R.Srinivasa Iengar.
https://sriramv.wordpress.com/2013/02/2 ... a-iyengar/

[RSR]

Sri.Sachi_R, Sri.SrinathK,
Sirs, May I bring to your notice, two very fine write-ups by V.Sriram?
The first is on Annamacharya.
https://sriramv.wordpress.com/2019/05/1 ... st-george/
----------------
"In 1947, Vetturi Prabhakara Sastry organised for the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam to acquire the plates. They were cleaned and coated in gold, after which research began on them. Each plate had at least three compositions, with the ragas mentioned. The tunes were however lost for good..... Several scholars set them to music, the most well known being Rallapalli Ananthakrishna Sarma, M Balamuralikrishna and Nedunuri Krishnamurthy...... As for singing and propagating them, perhaps it is to MS Subbulakshmi that we need to give the greatest credit. "
(This article appeared in The Hindu dated May 17, 2019 in the Friday Features section. )
==========================================
The second blog post is on C.R.Srinivasa Iengar.
https://sriramv.wordpress.com/2013/02/2 ... sa-iyengar
What exactly is meant by 'swarap padutthuthal?..It certainly cannot be creating the tunes! It can be ascertaining the tradition and creating the notation accordingly.
Clarification is requested and most welcome.
Is it in the same way that Ariyakkudi Ramanuja Iengar 'notated the Arunachalakavi creations?
It may not apply to his notating Thiruppaavai.

[YetAnotherMusicLover]

Nice idea RSachi. I should warn you, not only Purandaradasa, almost all the songs of older composers in CM would score between 5-7 and sometimes 8.

Actually the scale needs a few modifications. So allow me to present the revised sliding scale of authenticity in CM compositions

0 : Extinct and forgotten for good, known only to God. You don't even know it exists. And you will live and die in ignorant bliss never knowing it even existed....unless someone strikes gold or gets a divine revelation.

+1 : Song extinct. We only know because somewhere its potential existence was mentioned. Maybe you only realized it because you know that a composer has composed far more than what is available today, so there must be more. But we may never find it, however there's always the hand of God...

+2: Archaeological Fossil. Maybe bits and pieces of lyrics survive. Maybe a few pieces of tune even. But mostly lost. Maybe only the first word is known. But the song did exist.

....
.....
-10: Musical mafia. The worst case scenario. Either because of sheer professional jealousy or some other hate filled malicious agenda of a deranged mind, you stooped so low that you actually destroyed a composer's work or tried to ruin them totally to make sure their music never sees the light of day. You also systematically sabotage any one who tries to unearth anything left from the ashes. Shame on you, you sick asura! May your lot burn in hell, in the fires lit by your own hate!

Amazing! Loved the posts from both Sachi_R and SrinathK

[RSR]

Granted that SSP is reference for kritis, I was intrigued by total lack of any mention about Annamacharya. in the SSP , section on composers.

PurandaraDasa, Badrachalam Ramadasu, MuthuThandavar, Arunachala kavi, Narayana Theerthar, Sadasiva Brammendram, Shyama Sastry, Thyagaraja Swami, Muthuswami Dheekshitatr, Mysore Sadasiva Rao, Subbaraya Sastry, Patnam Subramanya Iyer have been mentioned.
No reference at all to Ootthukkadu Kavi, Maha Vaidyanatha Sivan ( though he was a contemporary like Patnam Subramanya Iyer and had personally met him) .
There is a reference to Talpakkam Chinnaiah - possibly either son or grandson of Annamacharya.

" a devotee of Ve¯n˙ ka.ta¯calapati. He lived in Tirupati. His was the great soul that composed many k¯ırtanas on Lord Ve¯n˙ ka.taraman. a and formalized the tradition of festivity. Those include to¯d. ayam (morning rituals), man˙ ga.lam (concluding rituals), s´aran. u (surrender), heccarika (intimation), k¯ırtanamulu (praise), dhu¯pad¯ıpa¯lan˙ ka¯ranaive¯dyadu¯pa¯ca¯ramula k¯ırtanamulu (songs that described
serving the lord with incense, light, decoration, offerings and other rituals), pavva.lim˙ pu (songs for lord’s resting), divyan¯ama k¯ırtanamulu (songs with synonyms of lord’s name), vasant¯otsavamula k¯ırtanamulu (songs for the spring time celebrations), sv¯amini m¯elukoluputakai k¯ırtanamulu (song for waking up the
lord) and others. Apart from these, there were other songs too. It was believed by the elders that, because of his extreme devotion, Ve¯n˙ ka.taraman. a frequently appeared in front of him and conversed with him. He was the initiator of the bhajana tradition. It is believed that he belonged to the time before R¯am¯am¯atya

[shankarank]

In the 90th year of the academy hosting conferences , this thread is damning!

Individuals in the oral tradition have fared much better!

It seems the "written", "published" and "official" souvenir did not measure up to standards!

https://youtu.be/N2NLHqfRUOk?t=3583