Carnatic Raga Discussion: Hamsanadham

[Mohan Ayyar]

There hasn't been much activity on this newsgroup this month perhaps
due to the US summer. Anyway, I thought I'll start off a discussion
of Hamsanadham.

hamsanAdham

There is some conjecture whether Shatsruthi Dha occurs in this
ragam or not. It is a janya ragam of mele 60, Nithimati.
It is one of those janya ragams that is more popular than its
parent.

I have seen the arohana/avarohana as
S R2 M2 P D3 N3 S / S N3 D3 N3 P M2 R2 S
This makes it a vivadi raga.

The Net raga list
(http://www-bsac.eecs.berkeley.edu/~ksanthan/ragalist.txt)
lists it as:
|60| S R2 M2 P N3 S | S N3 P M2 R2 S

This raga has become popular because of Thyagaraja's
Bantureethi Kolu in this ragam. I am not sure if the
Dha occurs in this piece. Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavathar's
recording of this krithi was probably one of the first.
Chitti Babu's recording of this was probably one of the first
Carnatic music pieces I was exposed to!
I don't think there are compositions by Dikshitar or Shyama
Sastri in this ragam.

I am also aware of two GNB compositions:

1. Dasashatadala
2. Bharama Ee baluni brova

I have been taught the latter without the Dha but the notation
in the GNB book shows that it does occur.

The Dha occurs at the end of the chitta swaram for Dasashatadala and
creates a very nice effect. (NS'NDN)

Madhyamakala kalpana swaras also sound good in this ragam.
_______________________________________________________________________
Mohan Ayyar
Sydney, Australia
may...@extro.ucc.su.oz.au
WWW URL http://www.usyd.edu.au/~mayyar/music.html

[V. Chandramouli]

|>------------------------

So this thread is not dead yet, afterall!! Comatose, maybe, with some
signs of coming back.

I was told that it is a janya of Simhendramadhyamam
and therefore does not use D3. One school of thought gives the following
algorithm for identifying the janaka raga:

All missing swarams default to the first available position ("non-vivadi"
I presume, else Malahari will become a janya of Kanakangi !! :-).

Therefore Simhendramadhyamam would be the janaka raga for Hamsanadham. However, I don't subscribe to this view. I think characteristic sancharas, emotions etc. should be used as indicators of parenthood. The versions of this raga that I have heard do not seem to use D3.

That this ragam has questionable parentage does not bother me :-). It is one
of my favorites.

--Chandramouli

[Ramesh Balasubramaniam]

Is there more than a structural similarity between hamsanAdham,
brindhAvani and brindhAvana sArangA ?
AlApanAs in hamsanAdham are a lot more common (even if it those 3 min
ones before bandureeti) than in brindhAvani and b.sArangA, which are
usually lighter ragams that get featured in the tail end pieces.

Are there historic reasons for that? Or is the effect just primed by the
nature of the songs that are composed in those rAgams like
rangapuraviharE which are kinda poppish tunes. But then again these songs
could be on the "lighter" side because of the nature of the rAgama.

There are those quirky ones that do rAgam thAnam pallavis in these weird
rAgama like Seshagopalan, which I somehow fing unconventional(which is
not necessarily bad..but in this case it is) and flashy.

What are your opinions on making a ragam like say nalinakAnthi or mAnd
the centerpieces of a concert? I would like to know a little more about
how the modern karnAtic concert structure evolved.

thanks

Ramesh Balasubramaniam.

[Srinivasan Gopalaswamy]

V. Chandramouli <vcha...@dip.eecs.umich.edu> wrote:
:>In article may...@extro.ucc.su.oz.au (Mohan Ayyar) writes:
#>> hamsanAdham
#>>
#>> There is some conjecture whether Shatsruthi Dha occurs in this
#>> ragam or not. It is a janya ragam of mele 60, Nithimati.
#>> It is one of those janya ragams that is more popular than its
#>> parent.
#>>
#>> I have seen the arohana/avarohana as
#>> S R2 M2 P D3 N3 S / S N3 D3 N3 P M2 R2 S
#>> This makes it a vivadi raga.
#>>
#>> The Net raga list
#>> (http://www-bsac.eecs.berkeley.edu/~ksanthan/ragalist.txt)
#>> lists it as:
#>> |60| S R2 M2 P N3 S | S N3 P M2 R2 S
#>>
#>> This raga has become popular because of Thyagaraja's
#>> Bantureethi Kolu in this ragam. I am not sure if the
#>> Dha occurs in this piece. Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavathar's

#>I was told that it is a janya of Simhendramadhyamam
#>and therefore does not use D3. One school of thought gives the following
#>algorithm for identifying the janaka raga:
#>

In versions I have heard D3 definitely is used in Hamsanadam, but as an alpa
prayogam. It is very difficult to say if Thyagaraja intended Hamsanadam to
have D3 - but I have heard several versions where the D3 appears in Charanam in
a sangati modification of "Romanchamane Ganakanchukamu" (being a Telugu
illiterate, excuse me if the word splitting was wrong). This might have been
introduced over the years by someone.

Limited judicious use of D3 appeals to my taste. I believe the amount of its
usage is similar to that of D2 in Shri.

Srini

--
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URL: http://www.ece.cmu.edu/afs/ece/usr/srini/.home-page.html

[Srini Pichumani]

In article <417i31$g...@fs7.ece.cmu.edu>, Srinivasan Gopalaswamy

<sr...@caravan.ece.cmu.edu> wrote:
>
>In versions I have heard D3 definitely is used in Hamsanadam, but as an alpa
>prayogam. It is very difficult to say if Thyagaraja intended Hamsanadam to
>have D3 - but I have heard several versions where the D3 appears in Charanam in
>a sangati modification of "Romanchamane Ganakanchukamu" (being a Telugu
>illiterate, excuse me if the word splitting was wrong). This might have been
>introduced over the years by someone.

Actually, the converse, i.e. dropping D3 thereby making the
rAga pentatonic, seems to have true in this case... according
to Sangita Kalanidhi T.V.Subba Rao, most traditional renditons
of this kriti did include the use of the ShaTs'ruti dhaivatam
in a delicate manner... he says that it is nervousness in the
use of that note that resulted in its omission.

-Srini Pichumani.