History of Hindustani perforng with Carnatic?
David Badagnani
Hello,
I'm a music student at Kent State University (Ohio, USA). I hope
someone can answer my question. It's a difficult one to research.
Today, it's not uncommon for North Indian and South Indian musicians
to play together. L. Shankar says that his group was the
first--Shakti, in which Vikku Vinayakram, Shankar, and Zakir Hussain
performed together--that nobody had ever thought of doing that before.
Zakir Hussain has accompanied Shankar and other Carnatic musicians, as
well as performed duets with mridangam.
I've heard about jugalbandi performed between Northern and Southern
classical musicians, but they're somewhat hard to find on record; the
only one I know of is the CD entitled _Shringar_, on the Realworld
label.
Question: were the 1960s-'70s the first decades in which Hindustani
and Carnatic musicians performed together? Or is there a longer
history of this? If not, what are the reasons? Is it because both
traditions thought themselves superior (why should they mix with the
other), or simply because of geographic distance?
--
David Badagnani (dbad...@kent.edu)
webpage at http://kent.edu/~dbadagna
quote: "Pure monotheism is very inconvenient for people."
Yaakov McDaniel
Amit Chatterjee
David Badagnani wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> I'm a music student at Kent State University (Ohio, USA). I hope
> someone can answer my question. It's a difficult one to research.
>
> Today, it's not uncommon for North Indian and South Indian musicians
> to play together. L. Shankar says that his group was the
> first--Shakti, in which Vikku Vinayakram, Shankar, and Zakir Hussain
> performed together--that nobody had ever thought of doing that before.
>
> Zakir Hussain has accompanied Shankar and other Carnatic musicians, as
> well as performed duets with mridangam.
>
> I've heard about jugalbandi performed between Northern and Southern
> classical musicians, but they're somewhat hard to find on record; the
> only one I know of is the CD entitled _Shringar_, on the Realworld
> label.
>
There are a couple of CDs (sorry I dont remember the name of the
recording company) entitled Jugalbandi Series where you will find
recordingd Hindustani and Karnatic musicians performing together. There
are a number of CDs by Bhimsen-Balmurali Krishna, Lalgudi-Amjad Ali
Khan, Lalgudi-Kishori Amonkar and L Subramanium-V G Jog. I dont own any
and have listened to some of them not more than a few times and was not
very impressed.
> Question: were the 1960s-'70s the first decades in which Hindustani
> and Carnatic musicians performed together? Or is there a longer
> history of this? If not, what are the reasons? Is it because both
> traditions thought themselves superior (why should they mix with the
> other), or simply because of geographic distance?
I dont remember any Hindustani-Karnatic duets in the 1970s. I have been
to concerts where they would have the musicians playing on the same
day/night, typically after an interval, but dont remember one where they
played together. I think it is more of an 80s thing. Some enterprizing
marketting folks from some recording company probably came up this idea
to boost sales of Classical LPs/casettes. I think it did not work out
very well. Most of the above recordings I heard sounded more Hindustani
than Karnatic, basically the Karnatic musician almost always ended up
singing/playing in Hindustani style for some reason.
--
/***************************************************************************
Amit Chatterjee
E-mail me at as...@ix.netcom.com
All opinions are mine, not NORTEL's.
****************************************************************************/
R.Subramanian
Amit Chatterjee wrote:
>
> David Badagnani wrote:
> > ...
> >
> I dont remember any Hindustani-Karnatic duets in the 1970s. I have been
On the other hand, in Madras, during late sixties and early seventies,
there used to be a sabha in Madras called Balasubramania Sangeetha Sabha
which had organized quite a few jugalbandhi concerts; I can only
remember
Shri. N. Ramani and Shri. Hariprasad Chaurasia played together in one of
them.
So, is this a South Indian phenomenon only? (I am assuming that you did
not
live in Madras).
subramanian
C. M. Venkatachalam
Sometime during the 1950s, there was a National Programme aired by All
India Radio of a Jugalbandi between Sri Voleti Venkateswarulu and A.
Kanan ( I think) singing Karnatik and Hindustani styles of some ragas.
Their voices matched extremely well. We had recorded that broadcast.
(Somebody borrowed that cassette from us and we have now lost it.)
--
C. M. Venkatachalam
San Diego
Srikanth Mangalam
this is with references to jugalbandhies in the 60's and 70's. there
exists a recording of a national programme where amir khan and ramnad
krishnan were involved. actually they both sang hamsadhwani but it was not
done together. rather each gave his own version for about 30minutes and
the intention i think was to show the difference between the two systems
towards elaborating a raga. i do not have the recording though i have
heard ramnad krishnan's version only at his son's house on a tape. if
anyone knows more about this please clarify.
thanks
sanjay subrahmanyan
ka...@giasmd01.vsnl.net.in
Jim Montgomery
> David Badagnani wrote:
> >
> > Hello,
> >
> > I'm a music student at Kent State University (Ohio, USA). I hope
> > someone can answer my question. It's a difficult one to research.
> >
> > Today, it's not uncommon for North Indian and South Indian musicians
> > to play together. L. Shankar says that his group was the
> > first--Shakti, in which Vikku Vinayakram, Shankar, and Zakir Hussain
> > performed together--that nobody had ever thought of doing that before.
> >
> > Zakir Hussain has accompanied Shankar and other Carnatic musicians, as
> > well as performed duets with mridangam.
> >
> > I've heard about jugalbandi performed between Northern and Southern
> > classical musicians, but they're somewhat hard to find on record; the
> > only one I know of is the CD entitled _Shringar_, on the Realworld
> > label.
> >
>
In the late 60's (around 1968, I believe) Ali Akbar Khan played a concert
in NYC accompanied by T. Ranganathan on mridangam. At the time, it was
considered something of a special event, and was certainly an interesting
performance--with both of these great musicians going out of their way to
accommodate the other's tradition.
--
_________________________
Jim Montgomery
Hopkinton, MA
e-mail: jm...@shore.net
oddo...@aol.com
sou...@hotmail.com
In article <32ECCC...@nortel.ca>,
Amit Chatterjee <chat...@nortel.ca> wrote:
> I dont remember any Hindustani-Karnatic duets in the 1970s. I have been
> day/night, typically after an interval, but dont remember one where they
> played together. I think it is more of an 80s thing. Some enterprizing
> marketting folks from some recording company probably came up this idea
> to boost sales of Classical LPs/casettes. I think it did not work out
> very well. Most of the above recordings I heard sounded more Hindustani
> than Karnatic, basically the Karnatic musician almost always ended up
> singing/playing in Hindustani style for some reason.
Does this have something to do with the type of music. There is this similar
phenomenon that I have read that happens in fusion concerts. The western
musicians are overwhelmed by their Indian accompanists. My hunch is that the
more powerful form of music overpowers the lesser one. What I am trying to hint
in all these posts is that may be the hindustaani classical is most close to
some absolute standard of music, if that exists. May be we should search that.
-Jeebu
P.S. Please see that another newbie (probably a westerner) has confessed that he
likes the hindustaani variety more than the Karnaatic.
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
Dakshin
> I dont remember any Hindustani-Karnatic duets in the 1970s. I have been
> to concerts where they would have the musicians playing on the same
> day/night, typically after an interval, but dont remember one where they
> played together. I think it is more of an 80s thing. Some enterprizing
> marketting folks from some recording company probably came up this idea
> to boost sales of Classical LPs/casettes. I think it did not work out
> very well. Most of the above recordings I heard sounded more Hindustani
> than Karnatic, basically the Karnatic musician almost always ended up
> singing/playing in Hindustani style for some reason.
Could it be a self fulfilling prophecy? Also, if the recording company
wanted
to target the Hindustani audience, any performer would be obligated to
cater to their specific tastes. In other words, if I am typing this
message in
English it doesn't mean my mother tongue is overpowered somehow. All it
shows is my intent to communicate (i.e. conversely, if I really typed this
message in my mother tongue, then it shows how insular I want to be).
>Does this have something to do with the type of music. There is this
similar
>phenomenon that I have read that happens in fusion concerts. The western
>musicians are overwhelmed by their Indian accompanists. My hunch is that
the
>more powerful form of music overpowers the lesser one. What I am trying
to hint
>in all these posts is that may be the hindustaani classical is most close
to
>some absolute standard of music, if that exists. May be we should search
that.
Yes, it is called "Rock 'N Roll." The pioneer of this absolute standard is
Little Richard who as a young child listened to lots of Hindustani music
:-).
Best wishes people,
Dakshin
SESHAN RAMASWAMI
> > to boost sales of Classical LPs/casettes. I think it did not work out
> > very well. Most of the above recordings I heard sounded more Hindustani
> > than Karnatic, basically the Karnatic musician almost always ended up
> > singing/playing in Hindustani style for some reason.
A large part of this I think is due to the very different methods of
"badhat" or building a raga elaboration in an aalaap/aalapanai .... the
Hindustani style calls for a very slow build-up in sequence of small
sections of the octaves, whereas the Carnatic style relies on quickly
establishing the "pakad" or "pidi" or defnitive phrases and then slowly
showing other facets of the raga, not necessarily in order of octaves.
Thus, the aalaaps in the two styles are not compatible ... and it is
easier for the Carnatic musician to modify the elaboration of the raga
along Hindustani lines than vice versa .... unfortunately, the ragas
usually chosen for jugalbandis ... Malkauns/Hindolam ... Yaman/Kalyani ...
Bhoop/Mohanam if elaborated this way sound much closer to the Hindustani
style .... the aalaps establish the mode of the concert and the "battle"
is lost for the Carnatic musician right there :)
I've heard quite a few jugalbandis Amjad/Lalgudi .... Rajam/Krishnan ...
Bhimsen/Balamurali .... Subramaniam/Ali Akbar .... Ramani/Chaurasia ...
the one jugalbandi in which this problem was handled really effectively is
in a recording by Nagamani Srinath and Shyamala Bhave ... in the recording
Puriya Dhanashri/Pantuvarali ... they each sing for long stretches in
tandem rather than just short phrases ... they also sing two different
compositions with similar sthayis/pallavis. I've also heard Sakuntala
Narasimhan (probably the only AIR A grade vocalist in both styles) sing at
several lec-dems in which she would alternate between both styles very
effectively.
Rama
SESHAN RAMASWAMI
On Sun, 2 Feb 1997, SESHAN RAMASWAMI wrote:
> Puriya Dhanashri/Pantuvarali ... they each sing for long stretches in
> tandem rather than just short phrases ... they also sing two different
oops ... not in tandem .. they sing for long stretches alternately! R
WARVIJ
>There is this similar
>phenomenon that I have read that happens in fusion
>concerts. The western musicians are overwhelmed by
>their Indian accompanists.
I've heard plenty of mediocre fusion music in which
Indian influences were overwhelmed by crummy
western orchestrations. In some cases Western
players are intimidated by Indian musicians whom
they believe are preternaturally gifted. In other
cases Indian musicians treat Western music with
contempt and play sonnambulistically atop
preset accompaniments.
Good "fusion" music is incredibly difficult to do; it
should satisfy listeners from all the various
source points. All too often it is a tasteless
masala that vitiates the original musical forces
involved. Hindustani tradition, of course, is one
of the world's great "fusion" musics -- only since
it's *old* the ethnomusicologists call it "syncretic"
and the theorists write learned papers on it, and
it's become an autonomous idiom. (BTW the
etymology of "syncretic" is *very interesting*)
>My hunch is that the
>more powerful form of music overpowers the lesser one.
This no doubt explains why the influence of Hindustani
classical music is so much more prevalent in
today's film songs than it was decades ago, na?
All those cheesy Western tunes they used to use... ;-)
>What I am trying to hint
>in all these posts is that may be the hindustaani
>classical is most close to
>some absolute standard of music, if that exists.
>May be we should search that.
If you define quality in music as a function of the
prevalence of elements like melodic ornament,
additive rhythmic complexity, drone-based modality,
improvisation, etc., etc. then sure. But isn't that
a circular definition? If your definition of quality
in music is "complete directness of emotional
communication and simplicity of rhythm" then I
think country-western would be closer to the
"absolute," right?
Music is a human behavior that reflects the cultures
from which it comes. The only musical "absolutes"
are the behavior of vibrating bodies in the earth's
atmosphere. All else is a function of culture.
Warren Senders
WARVIJ
>Little Richard who as a young child listened to
>lots of Hindustani music
A-Wop-Bopaloobop-a-Lop-Bam-Boom,
dir dir taa ni taa ni toom,
tutti-frutti, alla-rooti,
yallali yallali yalla loom!
Warren
sou...@hotmail.com
In article <19970201202...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
dak...@aol.com (Dakshin) wrote:
> Yes, it is called "Rock 'N Roll." The pioneer of this absolute standard is
>
> Little Richard who as a young child listened to lots of Hindustani music
> :-).
>
> Best wishes people,
>
> Dakshin
I guess you tried to describe me. But I did not listen to lots of Hindustaani
music as a little child. Sorry if my ambitions hurt you or if what I am looking
for seems a bit unsophisticated in this distinguished gallery. My idea is not
to hurt anybody but just to discuss an hypothesis.
-Jeebu
sou...@hotmail.com
> > to concerts where they would have the musicians playing on the same
> > day/night, typically after an interval, but dont remember one where they
> > played together. I think it is more of an 80s thing. Some enterprizing
> > marketting folks from some recording company probably came up this idea
> > very well. Most of the above recordings I heard sounded more Hindustani
> > than Karnatic, basically the Karnatic musician almost always ended up
> > singing/playing in Hindustani style for some reason.
>
> wanted
> to target the Hindustani audience, any performer would be obligated to
> cater to their specific tastes. In other words, if I am typing this
> message in
> English it doesn't mean my mother tongue is overpowered somehow. All it
> shows is my intent to communicate (i.e. conversely, if I really typed this
> message in my mother tongue, then it shows how insular I want to be).
1) Why do then the recording companies cater to the Hindustaani audience ?
2) In music, what is intended to be communicated (IMHO) is melody. If I
sacrifice that, what am I left with? Lyrics -- I guess even heavy metal can do
that! There must be some boundary where Karnaatic ends ?
sou...@hotmail.com
In article <19970202174...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
war...@aol.com (WARVIJ) wrote:
> I've heard plenty of mediocre fusion music in which
> Indian influences were overwhelmed by crummy
> western orchestrations. In some cases Western
> players are intimidated by Indian musicians whom
> they believe are preternaturally gifted. In other
> cases Indian musicians treat Western music with
> contempt and play sonnambulistically atop
> preset accompaniments.
Thank you about the info. I did not know that it was the other way round also.
> Good "fusion" music is incredibly difficult to do; it
> should satisfy listeners from all the various
> source points. All too often it is a tasteless
> masala that vitiates the original musical forces
If the only musical absolutes are the vibrating bodies in earth's atmosphere,
then I guess the "tasteless masala" is actually a well orchestrated symphony for
another?
> involved. Hindustani tradition, of course, is one
> of the world's great "fusion" musics -- only since
> it's *old* the ethnomusicologists call it "syncretic"
> and the theorists write learned papers on it, and
> it's become an autonomous idiom. (BTW the
> etymology of "syncretic" is *very interesting*)
Your English is a bit difficult to comprehend. But if you have read any papers
hypothesising about hindustaani being fusion (of karnaatic and persian I guess)
then please can you direct me to the same.
> >My hunch is that the
> >more powerful form of music overpowers the lesser one.
>
> This no doubt explains why the influence of Hindustani
> classical music is so much more prevalent in
> today's film songs than it was decades ago, na?
> All those cheesy Western tunes they used to use... ;-)
It was R.D. Burman who deliberately wanted to bring in disco. What I was aiming
at was -- when respective maestro's play their own genre in a fusion without
each one consciously trying to get over the other, in which direction does the
whole thing end? There is no need for a pompous sarcastic attitude in
discussions.
> >What I am trying to hint
> >in all these posts is that may be the hindustaani
> >classical is most close to
> >some absolute standard of music, if that exists.
> >May be we should search that.
>
> If you define quality in music as a function of the
> prevalence of elements like melodic ornament,
> additive rhythmic complexity, drone-based modality,
> improvisation, etc., etc. then sure. But isn't that
> a circular definition? If your definition of quality
> in music is "complete directness of emotional
> communication and simplicity of rhythm" then I
> think country-western would be closer to the
> "absolute," right?
Now I guess that I cannot do with making the long story short. Now I used to
regular SRV and SRH (which I have left for several reasons). There is this
notion of objective absolutes for some qualities which otherwise seem to be a
matter of taste. The usual reference is the veda, which is rationally justified
to be faultless (I still don't understand how?) Now many sorts of arts are said
to have their source in this veda. One such is dance and dramatics. There is
this shaastra called "rasa shaastra" on mellows. Now one could just say that
what about emotions -- why make something higher and something lower and on what
basis can one say whether one mixture of emotions is better and other poor. But
such elaborations are detailed there. Like "Shringaara" and "Shaanta" are
incompatible and will produce "rasa aabhaasa" -- sembelance of the actual thing,
not the actual one and thus is to be shunned. There are other mixtures which are
encouraged. Some rasas are said to be higher like "Shringaara" is higher than
"Vaatsalya" something like that. This rasa shaastra, I suppose, is used in
selecting what to display during drama and dance. It cannot be said that
pleasure is the guiding principle, then whose pleasure? Some find their end in
"vaatsalya" which the "rasa shaastra" describes as good for them, but not good
enough in its absolute scale.
So I was just asking if somebody knew if some such standard on music was
existing. As the great advaitin, Vidyashankar Sundareshan, pointed out that it
is called "gAndharva veda", is there some such absolute standard referred in
this upaveda?
> Music is a human behavior that reflects the cultures
> from which it comes. The only musical "absolutes"
> are the behavior of vibrating bodies in the earth's
> atmosphere. All else is a function of culture.
What is culture function of ? But even if that is answered, it would be a real
wonder to find a culture which finds the odour of Hydrogen Sulphide more
pleasing than lavender. Joking! I was only trying to say that if indeed humans
universally have the capacity to give gradations to qualities which are not
mathematically quantifiable, when the gap between such levels is judged to be
enormous, can it not be possible that such gradations are existing when the gap
is not quite as large?
There is danger however in making things just a matter of taste! One could say
that qualities like honesty and compassion have no intrinsic value. If the
utilitarian argument is proposed ,it could well be argued that in an universe of
six men if its the preference of five men were to see the sixth one dead, then
the preference of the sixth one does not matter, he has to die.If the kantian
argument is applied then one could well say that if I believe that old people
should be shot and if I am also willing to be shot when I am old, then my
argument passes through. Now if one does believe that the concept of compassion
and like qualities have intrinsic worth irrespective of cultural differences,
then on what basis has such a conclusion been reached. If Hitler is willing to
bear all the consequences, then what rational justification could one give for
his showing compassion towards the jews? This is somethng I learned when I was
studying Ghandhi's "Hind Swaraj" -- that there may be universal truths which
cannot be justified rationally and empirically. One has to have some
realization.
On this basis I was asking if some such work has been published regarding
realisation on music. I guess, I should tone down my wordings to say that I am
looking for works and papers in this direction rather than making an outright
claim that one kind of music _IS_ higher than the other -- which undoubtly will
bring in more flames.
> Warren Senders
ramaprasad_k_v
In article <Pine.SUN.3.95L.97020...@uststf4.ust.hk>, SESHAN says...
>
>I've heard quite a few jugalbandis Amjad/Lalgudi .... Rajam/Krishnan ...
>Bhimsen/Balamurali .... Subramaniam/Ali Akbar .... Ramani/Chaurasia ...
>the one jugalbandi in which this problem was handled really effectively is
>in a recording by Nagamani Srinath and Shyamala Bhave ... in the recording
>Puriya Dhanashri/Pantuvarali ... they each sing for long stretches in
>tandem rather than just short phrases ... they also sing two different
>compositions with similar sthayis/pallavis. I've also heard Sakuntala
>Narasimhan (probably the only AIR A grade vocalist in both styles) sing at
>several lec-dems in which she would alternate between both styles very
>effectively.
>
>Rama
>
Yes, Nagamani & Shyamala's jugalbandi's are very good. They choose
other rAgAs than the much repeated hindOLa/mAlkaouns , mOHana/bhUp
types in the concert. Some of the ombinations I have heard are
chArukEshi - chAukEshi,bhairavi - Sindhubhairavi etc.
Ramaprasad K V
Srikanth Mangalam
just wanted to share an interesting piece of info. a couple of years back
i heard a jugalbandhi by Bangalore S.Shankar and Pandit (i hope i can call
him one!!) Vinayak Torvi. from the performance i could see that it was a
well thought out exercise. the artistes chose saveri and jog (i think, i'm
not very sure) as the ragas for expansion in their respective styles. it
is very difficult to sing a raga like saveri in a hindustani style and i
should say that Shankar did an excellent job of retaining the Karnatic
identity of the raga during his expansion. another interesting feature was
that shankar elaborated kalpana swaras with a " koraippu and korvai" and
vinayak torvi sang the faster taans after that. these last mentioned two
exercises were carried out independently and the effect of the concert was
quite superb.
maybe if more such thought went into planning a jugalbandhi the final
output would definitely do equal justice to both systems of music rather
than "sounding more hindustani".
thanks
sanjay subrahmanyan
ka...@giasmd01.vsnl.net.in
tst...@natsys.fr
In article <8549220...@dejanews.com>,
sou...@hotmail.com wrote:
> 2) In music, what is intended to be communicated (IMHO) is melody. If I
> sacrifice that, what am I left with? Lyrics -- I guess even heavy metal can do
> that!
Why do you boil all music down to melody alone? In African music, complex
rhythms are more important than melody. In Western classical music,
harmony is at least as important as melody and sometimes more so. There
is no need to "sacrifice" melody to accord importance to other aspects of
music...
Shashidhar N S
>just wanted to share an interesting piece of info. a couple of years back
>i heard a jugalbandhi by Bangalore S.Shankar and Pandit (i hope i can call
>him one!!) Vinayak Torvi. from the performance i could see that it was a
>well thought out exercise. the artistes chose saveri and jog (i think, i'm
>not very sure) as the ragas for expansion in their respective styles. it
Could it have been Saveri and Jogia ?
ramaprasad_k_v
In article <Pine.HPP.3.95.970202...@buzzard.csrv.uidaho.edu>, Srikanth says...
>
>just wanted to share an interesting piece of info. a couple of years back
>i heard a jugalbandhi by Bangalore S.Shankar and Pandit (i hope i can call
>him one!!) Vinayak Torvi.
Sure !!
> from the performance i could see that it was a
>well thought out exercise. the artistes chose saveri and jog (i think, i'm
>not very sure) as the ragas for expansion in their respective styles.
It is Jogiya . There is a casette titled "Raag Milan" where Shankar
and Torvi have sung this combination among others.
>it
>is very difficult to sing a raga like saveri in a hindustani style and i
>should say that Shankar did an excellent job of retaining the Karnatic
>identity of the raga during his expansion. another interesting feature was
>that shankar elaborated kalpana swaras with a " koraippu and korvai" and
>vinayak torvi sang the faster taans after that. these last mentioned two
>exercises were carried out independently and the effect of the concert was
>quite superb.
Yes, this way one can appreciate both the streams better than the
regular kalyANi sounding like Yaman and mOhana becoming bhUp.
>maybe if more such thought went into planning a jugalbandhi the final
>output would definitely do equal justice to both systems of music rather
>than "sounding more hindustani".
True.
One more thought came to my mind. Many rAgAs have been taken
into Hindustani from Karnataka in the recent times and they have
developed into having distinct identities. I can name kIrawANi,
sarasvati , hEmavati. Has anybody heard a Jugalbandi with these
rAgAs ?
Ramaprasad K V
A.Pavan
What label is this recording of Shyamala Bhave and Nagamani Srinath released
in ? Is it available on CD ?
Pavan
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Chidambaram N.
In article <8547588...@dejanews.com>, sou...@hotmail.com writes:
|> In article <32ECCC...@nortel.ca>,
|> Amit Chatterjee <chat...@nortel.ca> wrote:
|>
|> > I dont remember any Hindustani-Karnatic duets in the 1970s. I have been
|> > to concerts where they would have the musicians playing on the same
|> > day/night, typically after an interval, but dont remember one where they
|> > played together. I think it is more of an 80s thing. Some enterprizing
|> > marketting folks from some recording company probably came up this idea
|> > to boost sales of Classical LPs/casettes. I think it did not work out
|> > very well. Most of the above recordings I heard sounded more Hindustani
|> > than Karnatic, basically the Karnatic musician almost always ended up
|> > singing/playing in Hindustani style for some reason.
|>
|> Does this have something to do with the type of music. There is this similar
|> phenomenon that I have read that happens in fusion concerts. The western
|> musicians are overwhelmed by their Indian accompanists. My hunch is that the
|> more powerful form of music overpowers the lesser one. What I am trying to hint
|> in all these posts is that may be the hindustaani classical is most close to
|> some absolute standard of music, if that exists. May be we should search that.
|>
|> -Jeebu
|>
|> P.S. Please see that another newbie (probably a westerner) has confessed that he
|> likes the hindustaani variety more than the Karnaatic.
This looks like its going to end up in lot of mud slinging..
From my experience whenever there is a percussion jugalbandi between a
mridangist and tabaliya it always ends up that the format of the presentation
is always the carnatic tani avartanam style and not the way tabla artists
present the taal.
This is both from my personal experiance in playing jugalbandi's with quite
a few table artists and also in cassettes..
As far as the musical foundations go, i think both the systems have the same
depth and completeness that any musical system can have. I have friends who just
cannot seem to appreciate carnatic music and i just consider such people to be
unlucky!!
Another aspect is the devotional context of carnatic music. (There are no
kritis which dont sing praise of the divine) whereas hindustani themes are more
general and therefore the moods created by it are more broad.
- chidu
Keith Erskine
sou...@hotmail.com wrote:
: There is this similar
: phenomenon that I have read that happens in fusion concerts. The western
: musicians are overwhelmed by their Indian accompanists. My hunch is that the
: more powerful form of music overpowers the lesser one. What I am trying to hint
: in all these posts is that may be the hindustaani classical is most close to
: some absolute standard of music, if that exists. May be we should search that.
To deny the absolute, transcendent genius of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy,
et al., contemptuously labelling it "a lesser form of music" is only limiting
your own personal enrichment through appreciation of the treasures they left behind.
Western music has pioneered and greatly refined the use of orchestration, harmony,
and counterpoint, while Indian music has not even begun to explore these concepts!
I mean no disrespect to Indian music, which has refined improvisation to a degree
most classical western musicians have not even begun to explore.
These two forms of music are so radically different as to defy qualitative comparison.
Determining the "absolute best" genre of music is merely an exercise in bigotry.
Respectfully,
Keith Erskine
sou...@hotmail.com
In article <8549679...@dejanews.com>,
tst...@natsys.fr wrote:
> Why do you boil all music down to melody alone? In African music, complex
> rhythms are more important than melody. In Western classical music,
> harmony is at least as important as melody and sometimes more so. There
> is no need to "sacrifice" melody to accord importance to other aspects of
> music...
Sorry, but I am not an expert in music vocabulary. By melody, I meant all
those things also that you have said. I mean if by music you wish to say:
f(melody,rhythm,harmony,.....)
then that is O.K.
What I meant was that each genre has its own value for the whole set of
parameters that go to define music. A Karnaatic piece is to display its
own values for the parameters, perhaps some compromise can be done in a
fusion variety. But if the values are so drastically changed that it
resembles hindustaani music, then I think that the argument of being more
malleable is more appropriate to be applied to the singer, not to the
genre itself. Then there can be Hindustaani singers who are as
maalleable! But if one would want to imply that Karnaatic is more
malleable than Hindustaani then it is only my question in different
wordings i.e. does lack of malleability signify superiority in any
manner?
Now is there any standard? (This is all speculation) I have heard some
singers (hindustaani variety) say this "naad brahma". (I suppose), --
Sound is God. It also seems that there is this concept of sound creating
the universe. Now a combination of notes which creates the universe would
(in one standard) be far superior than another combination which cannot
even make another cry. There is this story (real or not, I don't know)
that Taansen used to sing raag Deepak and create fire on water. On
singing this raag, he would get very thirsty. There was a washer woman
who had a soft corner for Taansen. On seeing him thus thirsty, she would
sing raag Malhaar and would bring down torrential showers. Again some
singers could make flowers bloom or close with the strength of their
music. I doubt very much that heavy metal can do that (I used to be a
heavy metal listener, but I left at about the time when Metallica was to
release their album following ...And Justice For All). Now there could be
a pointer to the chanting of the vedic hymns which (supposedly) create
effects not otherwise (scientifically) explainable.
Now one might say what about Christian carols. Some singers, I suppose,
have manifested some (again unconfirmed) miracles. So let us just make
the language of our discussion a bit more formal -- let's just grade
"combination of notes", better still, all the parameters that you can
think of that are important in music, they could form a tuple
(n1,n2,n3,....) and then we need a distance function. Now in this scheme
of things there could be many varieties of music which could have equal
strength but different vectors (the n tuple). Origin is obviously the 0
vector. I mean this is all an overview and poses many questions than
answering them (like many definitions etc.). What I was asking for was
the distance function. There could be more than one such distance
function, but let us just try to bring some up. (Discussion). The
distance function that I had in mind was some sort of physical
manifestation (possible ?). Since nature is impersonal and
non-subjective, it shall (IMHO) not discriminate.
N.B. I am not, I repeat, NOT a math student. So please don't try to flood
me with esoteric things as I would not understand. The above was
something I took from an elementary math course that every engineer has
to do.
Comments welcome!
-Jeebu
P.S. 1) I have been hearing M.S. Subbalakshmi. I must say, her voice is
supremely melodious, unparalled perhaps. She was singing some "Venkata
cala(?) pate tava suprabhaatam." The tune was familiar. I heard this in
Bangalore ISKCON mandir where they sing the "Govindam aadi purusham tam
aham bhajaami." I now try to hear some Karnaatic bhakti sangeet that
comes in AIR at 5 a.m.
2) By subjective standard, I mean species universal -- A standard that
can be applied over the human species. If you have read the paper by
Thomas Nigel --"What it is like to be a bat." in (I suppose) The
Philosophical Quarterly (somewhere in the 70s) then you could get what I
mean.
3) My apologies to Rajan Parrikar (and the karnaatic family) if I have
been too audacious and narrow minded. I did not know that Mr. Rajan
Parrikar was a harmonium maestro. I saw his name on an album I bought
today named "Legacy" featuring Asha Bhonsle and Ali Akbar Khan.
4) My intentions in finding a standard were fuelled by my (erstwhile)
religious affiliations where such grading of non quantifiable qualities
are nauseatingly popular. I suppose my arrogance was some kind of a
hangover, but on second thoughts, I don't mind discussing the question of
grading on a milder tone because I find some logic in their arguments.
But as Mr. Rajan mused "If you want to keep the faith, keep away from the
priest.", I too, like him, would prefer to keep the faith. Nobody else
might have realised the saying more than me. Each time I chose the
priest, and each time my faith was blown to smithereens. I have seen many
around me suffer acute nervous breakdown. I was lucky that I survived,
but still I am not fully recovered from the multiple shocks. I intend not
to commit the same mistake here -- I would add, "Keep away from the
assistant of the priest, the high baron and the scholar too."
sou...@hotmail.com
I completely forgot Mr. Warren Sander's advice about begging the
question. How do we quantify the parameters themselves?
I suppose we need some statistical sample. One proposal could be few
persons from every culture who have had familiarity with many other
cultures spanning worldwide. Perhaps the intelligence quotent could also
be a criterion to include them in the sample. Now they could be used to
quantify on a scale of 10 perhaps. Then perhaps the average point or the
majority point could be used. (Any other quantity ?) I have seen
elections happening like that where candidates are given preference
gradings.
Comments (statistics and opinion poll gurus !)
-Jeebu
ramaprasad_k_v
In article <5d6f5e$f...@epx.cis.umn.edu>, pa...@cs.umn.edu says...
>>>
>> Yes, Nagamani & Shyamala's jugalbandi's are very good. They choose
>> other rAgAs than the much repeated hindOLa/mAlkaouns , mOHana/bhUp
>> types in the concert. Some of the ombinations I have heard are
>> chArukEshi - chAukEshi,bhairavi - Sindhubhairavi etc.
>>
>> Ramaprasad K V
>
>
>What label is this recording of Shyamala Bhave and Nagamani Srinath released
>in ? Is it available on CD ?
>
>Pavan
>--
I was refering to the concerts which I've attended here in Bangalore.
I do not think there are any casettes /CDs of the duo apart from the
release by Sangeetha where the rAgAs are kAmavardhani - pUriyA dhanAshri
and hindOLa - mAlkouns
Ramaprasad K V
e.mail : r...@genius.tisl.soft.net ; kv...@vnet.ibm.com
WARVIJ
Jeebu -- a good post. Healthy, humorous skepticism
about anybody's claims is a good fundamental attitude
toward anything (music especially!).
Remember that in a given culture's music there may
be many associated myths and legends; those outside
the culture don't always hear them. There are stories
of African musicians who could call the spirits of long-dead
ancestors with their playing, who could put whole groups
of listeners in trance and heal the sick. Similar tales are
found the world over -- not just in the Indian milieu.
Best wishes,
Warren Senders
tst...@natsys.fr
In article <8550970...@dejanews.com>,
sou...@hotmail.com wrote:
> [SNIP]So let us just make
> the language of our discussion a bit more formal -- let's just grade
> "combination of notes", better still, all the parameters that you can
> think of that are important in music, they could form a tuple
> (n1,n2,n3,....) and then we need a distance function. Now in this scheme
> of things there could be many varieties of music which could have equal
> strength but different vectors (the n tuple). Origin is obviously the 0
> vector. I mean this is all an overview and poses many questions than
> answering them (like many definitions etc.). What I was asking for was
> the distance function. There could be more than one such distance
> function, but let us just try to bring some up. (Discussion). The
> distance function that I had in mind was some sort of physical
> manifestation (possible ?). Since nature is impersonal and
> non-subjective, it shall (IMHO) not discriminate.
>
> N.B. I am not, I repeat, NOT a math student. So please don't try to flood
> me with esoteric things as I would not understand. The above was
> something I took from an elementary math course that every engineer has
> to do.
I am having trouble figuring out to what extent the above is serious! <g>
I am neither a math student nor an engineer and will spare us both the
trouble of wrestling with the distance function you propose. But more
seriously, I cannot imagine any way to find an impersonal, non-subjective
basis for quality in music. At the very least, we do not have enough
data.
Let us imagine that scientists could gather enough information about the
physical, vibratory "essence" of both music and human response to declare
one style the winner. Since this would be entirely objective, there is no
reason to believe it would have anything to do with commonly held biases
and human tastes. Heavy metal might win. Why not? I suspect you would
then wish you had never funded the project! ;-)
- Tom Storer
tst...@natsys.fr
In article <8551036...@dejanews.com>,
sou...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
> I completely forgot Mr. Warren Sander's advice about begging the
> question. How do we quantify the parameters themselves?
>
> I suppose we need some statistical sample. One proposal could be few
> persons from every culture who have had familiarity with many other
> cultures spanning worldwide. Perhaps the intelligence quotent could also
IQ as a criterion? On what basis? Aren't the stupid also moved by music?!
I've known many brilliant people who have no clue about music, as well as
dummies with fine taste.
WARVIJ
Jeebu -- as we read your postings on the subject,
the question that many of us are asking,
I imagine, is "why do we *need* objective standards
for evaluation of a purely subjective art?" Music
is a manifestation of culture and as such its
standards of excellence are determined by its
source cultures. Its only absolutes are the physical
laws of vibration in Earth's atmosphere.
That doesn't mean that it's a bad thing to speculate
about musical values, but only that, like most
questions of aesthetics, it is both unanswerable
and totally subjective. I would recommend reading
Lewis Rowell's excellent book "Thinking About Music"
for a good set of speculations on the philosophy
of musical aesthetics (including those of Indian
music).
Warren Senders
Srini Pichumani
In article <5ch9dt$f...@tombstone.kent.edu>, David Badagnani
<dbad...@kent.kent.edu> wrote:
>
>Question: were the 1960s-'70s the first decades in which
>Hindustani and Carnatic musicians performed together?
Pretty much... from what I have heard/read, although
there has been a good amount of interaction between
Hindustani and Carnatic musicians in this century,
this jugalbandhi thingy started only recently.
An interesting tamAshA (buffoonery), this beast has
been so far.
Apart from some musicians' own interest in such fusion,
there were a few influential cultural personalities
like Dr.Keskar who was Information and Broadcasting
minister in the Nehru Cabinet who suggested such a
coming together of the traditions... he was probably
echoing the views of other reasonable-to-pathological
eclectics ;-)
It seems that such hints have been heeded by at least
a few musicians for various reasons of their own...
and it is not surprising that you see more instrumentalists
doing this.
>Or is there a longer history of this?
You have to search hard for any evidence.
Prof.P.Sambamurti's books may have some details.
There is also a definite possibility that official
records from courts like Tanjore/Travancore/Mysore/
Bobbili/Baroda etc may turn up something.
>If not, what are the reasons?
How about the basic fact that the two musical idioms
are indeed quite different in practice.
I recently read a 1966 paper by Prof.Harold Powers of
Princeton Univ where he has written very perceptively
on the situation then prevailing... while arguing for
a serious comparative approach to the study of H & C
music, he hits the nail on the head -
(B.Subba Rao had then published only the first
volume of the RagaNidhi - Powers characterizes it as
excellent but necessarily sketchy beginning... which
is quite true)
"The relationships between H and C music are of great
interest, not only for the history and ultimate nature
of the present styles of Indian music, but also because
this is the best documented and most easily accessible
surviving case of sister languages of art music, clearly
and intimately related, yet in the strictest sense mututally
unintelligible".
He goes onto explain in the footnote: "The term unintelligible
as applied to music is used, like other terms borrowed from
language such as "phrase" by analogy. The ability to understand
a musical language might best be expressed as the ability both
to follow and to respond to the music on its own terms. North
Indians as a rule neither respond to nor follow South Indian
classical music; South Indians respond to North Indian
classical music up to a point - they find it attractive,
if not so "serious" as their own classical music - but they
have to learn to follow it, should they wish to do so. The
reality of the different musical languages - however closely
related - is shown most directly by the fact that there is
borrowing in both directions, at different levels: South
Indian musicians use Hindustani ragas for "light" music,
while North Indian musicians adopt and adapt unusual South
Indian scale-patterns, such as those of Hamsadhvani or
Simhendramadhyamam".
There are some problems, in the detail, with the above
characterization. But the gist of his argument is accurate.
_____________________________
However, there has been a few changes for the better
in the last 30 years... at least at the level of
understanding each other's idioms... a fulfilling
jugalbandhi still remains a dream.
__________________________
The hype machine nevertheless runs at high hear... Balamurali/
Bhimsen, TNS/Ajay Chakrabarti, LSubs/Bismillah and what not.
C music gets a solid bum rap and H music gets as soppy as
possible out of such exercises.
Probably a good 25% of the time is spent on unnecessary
wah-wahs, sabhAshs, and other mutual approbations by the
concerned artistes themselves, and claps, standing ovations
by the audience. Another 25% is probably spent on haggling
over decibel-age ;-) Discount my own hype... and you still
get the drift !
After a Balamurali/Bhimsen jugalbandhi at Philadelphia a
few years ago, a H music fan hilariously recounted that
Bhimsen gave a look of "I'll throttle you if you do one
more of those octave jumps" at Balamurali.
And relating with dismay what happened at one of the
rhythm jugalbandhis, the mrdangist said that the tabaliya
had no clue as to what he were trying to engage him in -
he was trying to initiate a kuRaippu or a set of progressively
smaller rhythmic phrases... the tabaliya instead played hard ;-)
for numerous rhythmic cycles everytime the mrdangist stopped
after playing only a short fraction of the tALa cycle... the
audience lustily cheered the tabaliyA for playing longer...
eventually the mrdangist gave up and beat the crap out of
his mrdangam, continuously till the very end of the program,
to get his pie of the mandatory standing ovation.
____________________
>Is it because both traditions thought themselves superior
>(why should they mix with the other), or simply because of
>geographic distance?
Probably there is some truth to both.
However, it is clear that since late last century there
has been quite a bit of interaction at least between various
performers of both traditions... here are some early examples.
Abdul Karim Khan (and his descendants ? like Manji Khan)
and Veena Dhanammal moved very closely... Abdul Karim Khan
is said to have even recorded 2 kritis on 78 rpms, one
of which was kAlaharaNamElarA in s'uddha sAverI. Veena
Dhanammal also interacted with Gauhar Jan, who was known
as the cuckoo of Calcutta.
It is said that he was the first to introduce svara singing
to Hindustani music... in any case, regardless of whoever
introduced it first to H music, a few others are supposed
to have asked "why play harmonium with the mouth ?".
Parur Sundaram Iyer and Pt.Omkarnath Thakur were disciples
of Pt.Vishnu Digambar Paluskar in the early decades of this
century... M.S.Gopalakrishnan is the former's son... his
proficiency in both the styles is legendary now (although
his tendency to to mix the H idiom into the C in a blatant
manner, earlier on in his career, was quite disconcerting
to both his C colleagues and to C rasikas).
_______________________________________
Earlier still, there were a lot of Maharashtrians and
others who travelled to and fro from Tanjore/Mysore/
Travancore/Baroda... naturally, these folks brought with
them Hindustani traditions and took back Carnatic traditions...
Gopalakrishna Bharati who lived entirely during the 19th
century and composed wonderful kritis and an opera (nandanAr
carittiram) in Tamil set to Carnatic music, had himself
learnt Hindustani music from a Maharashtrian.
The connections of the Carnatic composers MuttusvAmi Dikshitar
(1775-1835) and Svati Tirunal (1813-1847) with Hindustani music/
rAgas are too well known.
______________________
-Srini.
Srini Pichumani
In article <8547588...@dejanews.com>, <sou...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>more powerful form of music overpowers the lesser one. What I am trying
>to hint in all these posts is that may be the hindustaani classical is
>most close to some absolute standard of music, if that exists. May be we
>should search that.
Indeed Jeebu dear, it is indeed ! Yes, yes, we should search that...
better still, let us research that... I hear that all humans and beasts
are about to cut the cheese in majestic Darbaari.
-Srini.