Shashank@Mudhra on Dec 23rd,2014

[rajeshnat]

Shashank@Mudhra on Dec 23rd,2014
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FLute : Shashank
Violin : BU GaneshPrasad
Mrudangam : Neyveli Venkatesh
Kanjira : GuruPrasanna

Concert Type : Nirvana - No concert to follow
Day/Duration : Tuesday/ 2 hours and 40 minutes +
Concert Type/Crowd : Ticketed concert - ~ 80
Sabha / Hall : Mudhra/Infosys Hall

01. valaci-varnam-kedaram and ragamAliga - patnam
02. shree pathE (RS,S) - nagaswarAvali - T
brief alapana sketch and 11 mins swaras

03. nAdaLoludai (R N S) - kalyana vasantham - T
13 mins alapana and 6 mins violin return
14 mins neraval and swaras

04.sadA madin - gambeeravAni - T

05A. etA unarA(R S T) - kalyani - T
20 mins alapana with an intermediate 5 mins violin alapana
swaras for 11 mins
05B. tani for 14 mins

06. RTP-nattaikurinji for 31 mins
7 mins alapana and
7 mins taanam
pallavi line was dAsharathE karunA payOnidhE inakula thilaga
swaras in nattaikurinji + bindhumalini + brindavanasaranga
then nadai change and a series of short swaras in many ragas , could identify saveri, abheri , abhogi...

07. eppo varuvAro- jonpuri-GKB
08. jagadOdhArana - kapi - PD

Carnatic Instrumental music needs atleast two prerequisites . One is godly support and other is Patantara Star support. Among the instruments , veena is associated with Goddess saraswati and there are many who think that sound of veena equates to divine saraswati play. Violin has no godly support but the shear sangathi continuity of instrument nadham and the violinist generally gets associated with vocalist too , hence they get mileage out of it too, not that I am saying violinist cannot stand on their own legs . NAgaswaram has no godly support but has its own characteristic no breathtaking pidis but indeed it is struggling to find acceptance as of today. Flute is always associated with Lord Krishna , but his playfulness and butter stealing street smartness never really gets into serious branding for flute artist . I have never seen any one ever going to a flute concert equating krishna divinty to hear a flautist vidwan/vidushi when compared to godess saraswathi equivalent to hear a veena concert. May be if some one had painted Flute along with couch in a tirupati ventachalapathy painting , flute would have been a mega hit , even vocalist would struggle to get crowd .Who wants to take a chance of not praying before Tirupathi Venkateswara .

The other pre requisite is patantara star support. There is unanimous opinion about Flute Mali but he is gone , i think perhaps still even those who are born after mali's demise still are not willing to give a try to any flautist after mali. In the last 15 years that I am hearing I am noticing atleast one star Flute Ramani who fills to some extent Mali shoes. I was thinking atleast for 10 years say from period of 2000 concert to say 2010 why is that Ramani is featured generally and all other flautist are ignored . My personal favourite KS Gopalakrishnan could have filled up that great star status with his extraordinary sowkhyam , but reasons unknown he is never seen . I have heard few of them like KV Ramanujan (especially), shashank and shruthi sagar filling up well . But without patantara star support which was not built in the last two decades there is branding problem for present generation flautists.

Shashank started with a navaragamaliga varnam in kedaram of patnam ,the volume of his flute was considerably low and most of us only heard violin and percussion more . He was sweet to ask the audience ,the first 10 rows said it is okay, in the last 10 rows people felt volume of flute should be more . The feed back was not expressed well and shashank continued with his flute swirl in naga swarali , the problem continued for the whole alapana and the krithi. Shashank volume was adjusted right from the beginnning of nagaswarali swaras , he played very well with nice kanakku towards the end .

THe submain kalyana vasantham was excellent and to me was the pick . HE used two flutes and few blows in thicker and longer flute (is it called bansuri) was so meditative . After continuing with sadguru nadaloludai his muse remained the same for atleast first half of swaras . HE changed distinctly the nadai and the second half of swaras were exceptionally creative . I enjoyed kalyanavasantham.

THE gambeeravani filler was just ok , nothing registered that impactfully to me. Kalyani was the main. His alapana was very carnatic and I liked it immensely. He played in two parts and I could aurally hear few sangathis of pracheena kalyani. THe violin alapana sounded intense and I liked his leisurely eta unara .kalyani contours changed well and he gave a great show quite far. In swaras for the first half I liked it and in the last 7 or 8 mins all hell broke loose in kalyani . He perhaps moved his hand very distinctively like a bouncer in a club and did lot of fingering , more than that he played very longish fusion type - cinematic kalyani that kind of showcased his techique .The raga devata kalyani went out of the mudhra hall merging with the nearby suburban train sound.

His RTP in nattaikurinji was again great in the significant first half . While alapana was not that distilled with nattaikurinji essence, I think he made up well with Taanam . The pallavi was well done and I like he taking a pracheena pallavi . The swaras were lovely for the first three in parent nattaikurinji, bindhumalini??? and brindavana saranga and I liked his aesthetics very much there. Then he came up with too much of ragamaliga changes in short burst ,it robbed the aesthetics that he built so far , i could identify few ragas and did not identify few . I felt he could have stopped till the first half of swaras.

In the tukkadas the jagadodharana in hindustani kapi was far more better than eppa varuvArO.His speed in jonpuri did not come up that sharp where as hindustani kapi leisurely play was lovely.i had to leave then .

THe accompanist BU ganesh prasad played exceptionally well, his alapana returns were very clean and he gave right support to modify return length to suit the flautist lung space . The percussionist Neyveli venkatesh has the fastest singers , his intensity to lift the concert is always there, he never loses kalapramanam and I liked his play. Gururprasanna gave great support but few occassion when both played, I found a bit of drowning effect for the flute nadham. Their tani was too much aggression without showing any subtlety in the beginning

Shashank was impressive with lot of swaras and raga alapana manodharmam. He appeared very sincere with an ultra sincere highly performing team. The kalyani fusionish second half and too much of swarakalpana fast changes in pallavi that can go well with vocal (I doubt in flute) did not register that well. It was a ticketed concert the crowd turnout was a challenge as it is ticketed .

Overall a very good to excellent concert for 2 hours and 40 minutes

[mahavishnu]

Rajesh, Nice to see a review of a master instrumentalist like Shashank from you. I can just imagine how amazing his treatment of nAgaswarAvali would have been. It is one of those ragams where an instrument (in the hands of someone like Shashank) can do things that can't even be attempted with the voice.

I have been meaning to ask Uday about how the chitravenu (which is amazing for gamakas) would handle a ragam with more staccato qualities like nAgaswarAvaLi.

[kartik]

Is Pracheena Kalyani a different raga? If so, how different was it from the Kalyani we hear today, that made it stand out as Pracheena kalyani? What were the sangathis that reminded one of Pracheena Kalyani, if pracheena how pracheena- pre-trinity? It doesn't add much value to make a statement such as 'I could hear a few sangathis of pracheena kalyani,....

Is there a nava-kalyani too?

[munirao2001]

Rajesh Sir

Patantara? When Great Maestro Mali heard him, he must have been hardly 7/8 years young, Mali advised Sri Subhramanyam, his Father and Guru that Shashank is having very high potential to become a great Vidwan, if moves to Madras ( they were at Bangalore) and learns vocal music also from SSRao and KVN. Master Shashank has very good patantara from Great Maestros KVN, SSRao, RKS besides his own Father. He is also one of the child prodigies to have become a Maestro putting in very great saadhana. All the great maestros, including SSI were immensely pleased with his deep sense of classicism, a rare and uncommon for his age, when he started performing in Madras. His original contribution, if I am not wrong, is the new technique of playing two octaves simultaneously, a very tough task, standing testimony to his saadhana. He is extremely busy in the International Music Circuit.
My association with this Maestro is when he visited us at our Besantnagar residence, as a young boy with his father and with his mesmerizing playing and wining the hearts of my Father SSRao and other members of our family, instantaneously. He has learnt about 60 compositions from SSRao.

munirao2001

[CRama]

Rajesh- “In swaras for the first half I liked it and in the last 7 or 8 mins all hell broke loose in kalyani . He perhaps moved his hand very distinctively like a bouncer in a club and did lot of fingering , more than that he played very longish fusion type - cinematic kalyani that kind of showcased his techique .The raga devata kalyani went out of the mudhra hall merging with the nearby suburban train sound. “

This was a wonderful concert from a prodigy vidwan. Rajesh’s crib (quoted above) is the special fingering technique perfected by Shashank which has been explained by Munirao. It was not an aberration in any manner. There are certain unique playing techniques adopted for each instrument.eg, special fingering style adopted by Emani Sankara Sastri. We should appreciate that.

Regarding Rajesh’s another comment that there had been no Flute vidwan for the last twenty years, he has forgotten Sikkil sisters who had been awarded Sangita Kalanidhi also and the legacy is carried over by Mala Chandrasekar. Sikkil sisters had been very consistent players and their playing is full of vidwath, sowkhyam, manodharmam and sometimes vyavaharam also. I remember two concerts I heard in early 80s in which their vyavaharam rode high. Sikkil Neela, her playing will be full of energy and verve as a contrast to the more sobre Kunjumani. Their commercial CDs are widely available which will vouch for my comments. There was another pair Raghu and Ravi who faded away quicky. Balasai is another vidwan who plays well.

I agree with Rajesh’s remarks reg KSG. We the rasikas are at loss. In fact, we sat together and enjoyed this concert.

[uday_shankar]

Shashank is certainly a awesome artist perhaps the first one after Mali to advance Carnatic flute playing techniques in a significant way.

Some points need clarification:

His original contribution, if I am not wrong, is the new technique of playing two octaves simultaneously, a very tough task, standing testimony to his saadhana.

It is quite possible that Shashank independently discovered this; he is certainly the one to showcase extensively in Carnatic music. However, concurrent dual-register blowing is widely used in some other genres. In western "funk style" blowing, not just concurrent octaves, but also concurrent fifths is a well known technique. To take a random example, in the following video, right around 1:07, there's a very good demonstration of the well-known "funk style" blowing in two octaves concurrently:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7owW7M02f14

As for concurrent fifths, Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull made a living out of simultaneously blowing in fifths.

The key to effectively blowing in concurrently in two octaves is usually the right choice of flute. Typically, it is easier in a lower shruti flute but with some practice it can be accomplished to some extent even in a higher shruti south Indian style flute.

Ramesh
staccato at the speeds of a fingered flute seems obviously impossible on chitravenu...perhaps some future artist will break that barrier! However, trombone style techniques for staccato are possible with single and double tonguing coupled with precise slide movement...perhaps in my next visit .

[munirao2001]

uday shankar Sir,
Thanks for the very valuable information. It is quite possible that Shashank must have intelligently observed the 'funk' style and adopted for the tough KM composition, taanam and svara prastara playing. As an evolving artist, maestro also observed and adopted 'bansuri' blowing and fingering techniques of HM, very effectively in KM. But, maestro was not the first one to adopt this technique for KM, as many of us know.

To be frank, my disappointment with Shashank is he has moved away from deep classicism to the easy temptation of 'clap trap' instrumentation techniques and its over indulgence to remain 'popular' artist in demand. I was expecting that he would follow Great Maestro Chitraveena Ravikiran's uncompromisingly classicism adherence and cultivating the discerning listeners and pandita. He can still easily go back to his originality, with attitudinal change, support of sponsors, event managers and the rasikas. I fondly hope, it happens very soon.

munirao2001