Fashionable kalpana svarams

[srikant1987]

What are the kind of "special" kalpana svarams have you heard? My two examples will give you an idea what I want to know.

1. "splitting" the kalpana svaram into two parts. For example, put a svaram for "kaa vaa vaa", then say a few more svarams leading to "kandaa vaa vaa" for the well-known Papanasam krti in varALi.

2. ending the kalpana svaram on different points in the line or different lines emphasizing the same point: one svaram for "kA vA", another for "kandA vA" a third for "ennai kA", etc.

3. if your line begins with a S, for example, in mOhanam, saying some DSR PDS GPD RGP and then beginning the line. (The sa should logically follow in the sequence).

[srinivasrgvn]

Fashionable kalpanaswarams?

[narayan]

Don't know if this fits the bill, but one or two that came to mind are: TRS's gamagamagama sancharam in the charanam of Sundaratara delham in Pantuvarali, DKJ's SSS, NNN, DDD, PPP, Matabhe-damane in Vinatasuta in Jayantasena.

[cmrasika]

I have heard some violin artists playing thisra mel kala swarams.......not sure if it w'd fit in the "fasionable swaras" list......Avaneeswaram Vinu played tisra mel kala swarams for saraswathi namosthute (rupakam).

I once heard Sikkil Gurucharan sing swaras in Mahaganapathim(nAttai) for "Prakasham Shantham" which has atheetha eduppu. That one was indeed very novel.....he took everyone by surprise!!

I reckon one gets to hear more of the special/fasionable swaras in Mandolin Srinivas' concerts!

[srikant1987]

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[bilahari]

I have heard an SSI-TNK recording where SSI sings swaras back to each sangathi of vAtApi, which was nicely replicated by TNK. Of course TNK often returns the last set of swaras to the sangathi beginning with tara gandaram, which is a pleasing climax. Not sure if it's fashionable, but I like people singing different sangathis at the eDuppu, instead of just singing the first syllable and passing over to the vocalist/violinist. Gayathri V sang lovely sangathis for nEnenDu in a concert last year that I thoroughly enjoyed.

[mohan]

'innovative' is probably a better term to 'fashionable'. Most artistes these days try to bring innovative elements into swara singing such as 'poruthu' swarams. There is a instructional DVD by TR Subramaniam that has many examples of innovative ways to sing kalpana swaram.

[arasi]

Yes. 'Innovative' is better. After all, fashion rehashes the old and serves it as new. There is no 'retro' in music. Emulation, yes. Inspired? That too. If anything IS retro in music, well, we can as well go to the original and leave the so called 'new' alone!

[vs_manjunath]

MMI USED TO SING this type of swarams. In "Minakshi me mudam"(gamakakriya). Nereval @ madhura puri nilaye..............singing swarams @madhura followed another @ nilaye. couple of avarthanams. It requires a lot of practise and perfection. For MMI, swarams used to bubble out. They used to fit in so nicely. I have heard even Pallvis being sung in this style.

[bilahari]

What are poruthu swarams?

[srikant1987]

^^^

Poruttham. That is, the swarams you sing can be considered as added swaraksharam lyrics, which make sense together with the charanam's words. For example, if there's a line "nambinen", you can add a "sa da" before that (one of the old ploys in the book).

They need good layam to be sung properly: you need to know intuitively at what place to start the porutham series to make them sound reasonable both as lyrics and as swarams, and have them finish at the eduppu?

[bilahari]

Oh, thanks for the clarification, Srikant.

[Sathej]

Innovative would be fine..many of these 'kinds' of Swarams are anyway sung rather often by artistes - both present and past.

Sathej

[vivekt17]

Porutham swaras are very pleasing to the ears.
There seems to be a lot of young involvement in this field of swara exploration.
The Lalgudi school, TRS, TNS etc. use porutham extensively.

One simple example could be : In Vathapi's second sangathi, the first phrase is notated as follows :
G, SRG GRS SNi Pa RSR
Va ,aaa, thaapi Ganapatim

G, SRG is taken up. Now in this phrase, take each swara and replace it with the next one in that raga. i.e. P, RGP. Then do the same to P, RGP : you get N, GPN. One more gives S, PNS.
Now, we get a pleasing effect if we stich these up together.
S, PNS ; N, GPN ; P, RGP; Va aaa thaapi..
This is a simple porutham. There are far more complex poruthams, including laya poruthams.

[Radhika-Rajnarayan]

While we all appreciate poruttam and other innovative ways of swara singing, it must be admitted that these are very often pre-rehearsed. So are the korvais. Therefore, they could probably be classified as partial 'Kalpitha sangeetham'. Nothing wrong with that, and surely pleasant to hear.
The essence of the creative part of Indian music, however, is the extempore rendition. Sangeetha Kala Acharya Sri S Rajam probably sings the most innovative swarams, completely extempore. They are all sarva laghu, and patterns are created impromptu. He creates extraordinarily unusual patterns with the greatest ease, on the spot. He is of the view that swara singing should be spontaneous. Listen to his rendering - every avartham will end with a different phrase. Yet the character of the raga clearly delineated.
That is the real creativity we should strive to achieve, and incorporate more of this into the performances. Today we see (rather, hear) more of the other pre-rehearsed variety.
The surprise and joy that the performer and rasika derive from a spontaneous phrase / raga/ neraval / swaram is completely different from the pleasure derived from listening to a pre-rehearsed rendition.
That is good, too, but the 'aha!' that involuntarily escapes from the rasika is only when the impromptu music is performed!

[VK RAMAN]

"While we all appreciate poruttam and other innovative ways of swara singing, it must be admitted that these are very often pre-rehearsed."

Impromptu comes with experience and experience comes with participation in more concerts. Those who live in music and sleep in music will always be impromptu, although a certain practice may precede the concert, IMHO

[Radhika-Rajnarayan]

My point is, (and this is what Sri Rajam says) - keep practising, of course, rehearse before the concert by all means, get your kritis 100% correct, get the 3-kalam ofthe pallavi bang-on, BUT practise the swarams without pre-rehearsed patterns. Practise so much with varied ending phrases, VARIED random patterns, that it will work out well in the concert.
Meet Sri Rajam and you will know what he means. I have a gem of a lec-dem on video, where he shows all this.

[vasanthakokilam]

Radhika: I have a half-baked theory that anything that sounds new in kalpanaswaram is more about laya than the swaras themselves. The reasoning being, the swaras of the raga are all well-known, the characteristic phrases are well known and have been sung thousand times over. Only thing the musician has control over is how they are combined and grouped in meaningful chunks. That is what gives the impression of 'something different'. Taking a trivial example, if PMGR is the characteristic phrase template, then variations like 'P, M, G, R,', 'P,,MG,,R', 'PPMMGGRR' are all laya related variations.

And this is just a special case of a more fundamental assumption that the major contributor for variations among songs in the same raga and same thala are the laya differences. ( leaving lyrical differences aside for now )

Of course, creativity and improvisational and impromtu singing of swarams requires all the groundwork that you have stated. I have a feeling that in practice the musicians work with some good ideas on the laya framework for their swara section and then let their ideas on raga based swara sequences ride over that. That is tough enough. Improvising on both laya and melody on the fly requires some top-notch skills and probably reserved for the top 5%-10% of artists.

[Radhika-Rajnarayan]

Sure - but we can aspire, can we not? We aspire to imitate and emulate the popular pre-rehearsed patterns. Why not use that time to practise this instead? It will surely yield results. In fact most of the old timers would do that. Let's try!!

[vasanthakokilam]

Radhika: I agree with what you say, people can and should indeed aspire for better things.

Also, what I wrote was not really a counter-point to what you wrote but rather a general statement of my understanding on the nature of kalpanswaras. I am curious if laya changes ( even those that do not involve a lot of complicated kanakku ) can make the kalpanaswaras sound fresh and new.

[cmlover]

We know the grammar of each raga. Also the means of creating legitimate phrases and the mechanics of consonance. Add to that the logic of kaNakku. All these can be nicely incorporated through artificial intelligence in a Computer Program. I hope one of our HiTech wizards familiar with CM produce one software which will produce Random Kalpana Swarams that are new, innoovative and pleasing. It is a quite feasible project. Collaborative effort is ideal. I am willing to be a collaborator as a dispassionate Rasika!

[Radhika-Rajnarayan]

Vasanthakokilam,
do you mean PATTERNS when you mean laya changes - such as (using the same nadai) patterns such as grG-mgM-pmP or gMpdn-mPdns etc using groups 4 or 5 or 6 notes in specific patterns, or do you mean nadai changes?
In either case, these can be incorporated, rather, SHOULD BE and do bring freshness.
And, yes, they should be on the spot, even if it means that you don't always get the matching perfect ending - so, if you have a bunch of sixes, you may have to end with a 5 or a 3 or a 4 - not an issue.
I am ready to play this lecdem of Sri Rajam at the next meeting of rasikas in Bangalore - waiting for the season to be over so people are free.
Actually, those old timers and 'old-fashioned' people like my mother in law Sugandha Raman, and Sakuntala Narasimhan always perform in this manner. So that is how we have been taught and trained, too.
Once, however, for the sake of presenting an attractive duet performance, Raj Narayan and I played pre-rehearsed patterns for one item, and were gently chided by Sri Rajam for that. I still remember and cherish his words to us -'Your swarams should be like 'Rama baanam' - straight from the heart, and reaching the rasika immediately'.
cmlover, indeed computer-generted random swarams would be a good idea as an alternative means of producing random swara patterns - BUT- again, these have to be then delivered by the performer, and that would not make it impromptu any more , would it?
Ah, life is a hard teacher! But the rewards are sweet!

[vasanthakokilam]

Radhika: I meant the specific patterns and grouping and the associated speed changes, but naDai changes would bring in even more freshness. It will be quite interesting to listen to Sr. Rajam's lecdem. Thanks.

[msakella]

Dear brother-member, vasanthakokilam, If you follow the sub-thread ‘Easy Muktayis - their utilisation in svarakalpana’ under the main thread ‘Tala/Laya’ you can produce hundreds of fashionable kalpana-svarams. But, even before entering into them one must stabilise his rhythmical abilities properly. amsharma

( http://rasikas.org/forums/viewtopic.php? ... kella.html )

[Rasika911]

We know the grammar of each raga. Also the means of creating legitimate phrases and the mechanics of consonance. Add to that the logic of kaNakku. All these can be nicely incorporated through artificial intelligence in a Computer Program. I hope one of our HiTech wizards familiar with CM produce one software which will produce Random Kalpana Swarams that are new, innoovative and pleasing. It is a quite feasible project. Collaborative effort is ideal. I am willing to be a collaborator as a dispassionate Rasika!

I can imagine a future in which rasikas attend a concert performed by a computer

[vasanthakokilam]

msakellaji: When I was writing above about rhythmic variations being a predominant aspect of kalpanaswarams I was indeed thinking about the great importance and significance you give for rhythm, for getting a solid footing and stability on those aspects and how your teaching methods are structured to achieve that.

[msakella]

Dear brother-member, vasanthakokilam, To tell the truth, unless the accompanying violinist is far more critical and efficient for 2 to 3 times than the main artistes he cannot become a successful accompanist and, believe it or not, adding fuel to the fire, having no reliable teacher from the beginning and being in the teaching profession right from the beginning I was compelled to work very hard extensively and became a ‘critical-violin-teacher’. Having made umpteen experiments on my students who are handy, only by the grace of the Almighty, I have arrived at the easiest, quickest and most reliable methods in teaching. The rhythmical intricacies obtained from the ‘Great Mullapudi School of Mridangam, Vizianagaram’, which are extremely difficult even to understand and follow even to the stalwarts, are the base for my thumping success. But, in general, the inefficients who cannot follow them but abuse are more in number than the efficients for which we can’t help. amsharma

[mkranthikiran]

With due respect to all the posters and my pranaams to Akella sir, I am not qualified enough to say something about kalpana swarams. But in my opinion, many changes have been made to the Carnatic Music since generations. To retain the conventional and sanathana style of manodharma, one must bring out the essence of ragam even while singing kalpanasvarams. One must practice singing flow of swaras(sarvalaghu) and try to get the raga bhava in the process and then include SOME maths since maths is not the only goal of kalpanaswarams. It must be a uniform mixture of everything(Raga bhava, sarvalaghu flow, maths, etc;). Otherwise, the kalpanaswaram part would become just a maths lecture in a concert.

Kiran Mudigonda

[vasucv]

Actually quite agree with radhika on the AHA part. because the moment some starts the predetermined set of patterns, I will personally start thinking who well has he calculated this, and whether he delivers the pattern correctly or not, it may bring a smile on my face and i may nod my head in appreciation too, but it is different from the time i will feel tranced..the trance part comes only when in a flow and in kalpana..

when somebpdy was asking for fashionable kalpana swarams, then Kalpana should be removed because it is being asked and someone is suggesting, thus, removing the imagination out of the singer or performer.its like singing the citta swarams in a varnam..

great swarakalpana always manipulates the arohanams and avarohanams and any vakra jathees that may be involved. And these manipulations are pure game of ones creativity..

Vasu

[vasucv]

radhika, btw, is there a way that you can share the lec dem of sri rajam ?

[squims]

I've listened to Ranjani-Gayathri do exactly what Srikant states in no.1.
In Swaminatha(nAttai), in the charanam, they sing a set of swarams starting at 'vAmadEva pArvati' after which they shift to just 'pArvati'. Very interesting eduppu that results in. I think it's in their album called 'Kurinji Malar'.

[Radhika-Rajnarayan]

radhika, btw, is there a way that you can share the lec dem of sri rajam ?

If we can gather the Bangalore rasikas on a mutually convenient date, why not?

[Radhika-Rajnarayan]

In Swaminatha(nAttai), in the charanam, they sing a set of swarams starting at 'vAmadEva pArvati' after which they shift to just 'pArvati'. Very interesting eduppu that results in

This was done many years ago by GNB, have that recording too!

[msakella]

To retain the conventional and sanathana style of manodharma, one must bring out the essence of ragam even while singing kalpanasvarams.
Kiran Mudigonda

Dear brother-member, mkranthikiran,

Today only I have accidentally seen your post which is written in February, 10.

I fully agree with you in this respect. But, most unfortunately, everybody harps on practicing and singing ‘sarvalaghu’ to bring out Raga-bhava but sings only the fake ‘sarvalaghu’. Sarvalaghu actually means singing all shorter-notes only, that too even without a single janta-svara. How many are truly singing this kind of ‘sarvalaghu’ and for how much time in a concert? Singing intricate rhythmical patterns of Kalpana-svara is far easier than ‘sarvalaghu’. Moreover, in the so called ‘sanathana method of teaching music’ every teacher runs away from teaching Manodharma easily thrusting it upon the head of the aspirant. That is why many of the aspirants are not at all becoming able to sing even the easy rhythmical patterns of Svara-kalpana even after many years of practice in this traditional method. Moreover many of the great-teachers proudly declare that ‘so and so’ had learnt music under him for more than 20 or 30 years like a patient undergoing treatment under a doctor for more than 20 or 30 years. Even after learning 20 or 30 years from this teacher there is no guarantee that he becomes proficient in singing Svarakalpana or Ragalapana.

But, by following the new method of teaching music, within a period of only one-year, that too even while learning Varnas, the aspirant-kid certainly becomes able to sing even very intricate hair-raising rhythmical patterns of Svarakalpana which within a very short time makes him able to sing any kind of Svarakalpana and then Ragalapana also. Bing a professional teacher in music, I always strive hard to bring out easy methods in making our kids proficients in this Manodharma-sangita very fast. Technicalities of music could be taught but not Bhava at all. But, most unfortunately, the music-teachers are always bothered in giving the aspirants quantitative-music only carrying a number of items but not qualitative-music filled with all the needed technicalities. amsharma