Carnatic Musician's Voice

[newid]

I see a lot of young female singers being compared to MS Subbulakshmi on YouTube comments, and even in more refined reviews and commentaries in magazines... I don't know if I am the only one who feels this way - I am unable to listen to Mrs. MSS for more than 30 minutes at a stretch, because I find her voice pretty shrill, and, frankly, pretty boring. When people associate her voice with 'purity', is it the timber that is being referred to? (very lean on harmonics?).

[arasi]

Mmm...there is MSS's voice and MS-like voices--perhaps you are referring to one such, or may be not. Whatever, that voice charmed thousands, and as time went by, the sheen and the bhakthi glow in it made it unique.

[sureshvv]

I am unable to listen to Mrs. MSS for more than 30 minutes at a stretch, because I find her voice pretty shrill, and, frankly, pretty boring.

What are u listening to? Any samples so we can diagnose where the problem lies?

[HarishankarK]

This is surprising!
MSS had a beautiful voice, sang with pure devotion and with true bhakthi.
However we can say that later on her repertoire became repetetive, predictable- but that was again for the sake of the rasikas.
Whatever one may think about her choice of songs, or vidwath, there is no doubt that her voice was truly mesmerising and captivating. Her voice was her biggest asset and blessing.

MLV had an equally beautiful voice too - but her concerts, style and raga choices were more interesting than MSS and therefore more engaging- no one sings Kalyani ragam like MLV for me.

[vasanthakokilam]

I don't know if I am the only one who feels this way

I don't know if you are the only one but based on what I know about collective impression, your tribe may be quite small. Nothing innately right or wrong with that, enjoy what you like best.

[newid]

Yes, just have to chalk it up to tastes. There is definitely a unique quality to her voice (I'd call it 'strident'... I don't have an appreciation for different languages or lyrics to make a judgement on bhakti. Instinctively, I associate TMKs style as being more prayerful, but I'd much rather MSSs Suprabatham ring in the day than anything TMK. Of female musicians, to me, Akkarai Subhalakshmi's singing and violin playing sound transcendental).

My tribe might indeed be very small, but happy that a large majority has such deep affection for MSSs singing.

[RSR]

This is not a devotional song. It is Barathy song on Thamizh language. The record was given sometime in 1946. Smt.MS was 30 then. .
யாமறிந்த மொழிகளிலே தமிழ்மொழிபோல்.. இனிதாவது எங்கும் காணோம்;
(yaamarintha mozhikalile thamizh mozhi pol).. Ragam (begins wirth Shanmugapriya..I think.. ) . Orchestration like to be of S.V.VENKATARAMAN
https://youtu.be/0NvkU_HzndM
Full lyrics in tamil script at
https://sites.google.com/site/homage2ms ... ozhikallae
If you find this voice shrill, may I know, which singer meets your taste and which song?

[MadhavRayaprolu]

I like MSS voice, so I can’t answer the original poster’s question. But more interesting question to me is what are the qualities of a voice that CM rasikas typically like and respond to. In order to separate “voice” from other elements of music (I know it’s hard), we should probably compare musicians when they are singing something very simplistic like a single note or a simple sangathi.

To me personally, I like the following attributes in no particular order:
1) Authenticity. Eg; MMI. One can tell his lack of self-consciousness in each note/phrase and it feels he’s being himself.

2) Being in the moment. Some sound as if they are feeling every single note, others might sing the same exact notes/phrases to just to get through them and only feel the favorite parts of their singing. TMK gets a lot of points here for being in the moment.

3) Sruthi Shuddham. This may be a bit controversial. I do believe that not all top rated artists are at the same level of sruthi shuddham. Since an artist’s rendering of a note is always a range of frequencies around the “right frequency”, some are closer to the bull’s eye while others have a broader range. Even if we cannot point out exactly where an artist is going off, I think we can feel the general noisiness in an artist’s voice when they are farther from the bull’s eye. In this respect, many HM singers in general and a few film singers get closer to the center IMO. In CM, I believe MSS is one of those that hits the bull’s eye. I believe this aspect contributes a lot to what people perceive her as having a divine voice - besides various other factors of course.

I don’t have any evidence to any of this, but would love to compare sound graphs from different artists and observe differences especially when they sing simple phrases.

What are your favorite attributes of a “good voice”?

[vasanthakokilam]

What are your favorite attributes of a “good voice”?

I think this is worth discussing. I changed the title to make it general.

The OP newid referred to the timbre of voice as a possible reason. Timbre, an effect of the harmonics ( 1x, 2x, 3x, 4x ) definitely plays a role in aesthetic perception of music. That is worth a study ( may be it is all done already ). One of the early tools we played with for charting out the sound spectrum of music did display the full spectrum ( all the harmonics ) and the relative energy at each level. There has to be other easy to use tools as well. Audacity has that feature as well though they don't make it a prominent feature

[MadhavRayaprolu]

Interesting. If anyone has played with the harmonics tool and correlated with higher level attributes that we can easily perceive please post. Perhaps worthwhile to look at extremes. Like MDR’s voice and someone else that sounds the opposite of his, and see if there is anything that jumps out in the harmonics.

Another attribute of voice that my HM teacher Mahesh Kale talks about is the attack on a note. In other words, whenever we sing a note, the initial part of the note is always noisy and it takes some milliseconds to stabilize and latch on to the right frequency. The noise is amplified when there is a consonant and it smooths out as the vowel comes out. Different singers take different approaches on how to deal with this noise. Some easing into the note starting softly and others going at it boldly.

A huge part of voice is also vowels. I’m not sure how an aa, ae, ee differ harmonically. But aesthetically it makes a big difference on who prefers which mix of vowels in alapanas.