NagaswaravaLi ragam
Sridhar Desikan
of NagaswaravaLi? I was listening to a soulful rendition
of this ragam by Sri. K.V.N (SreepatE - TyAgarAjA).
Does this ragam have a close relationship with Thilang?
Sridhar Desikan
des...@iastate.edu
ZEPP2
Kharaharapriya.The notes taken by the raga are shadja,Sadharana Ga,Sudha
Ma, Pa, and Chathusruthi Dha. An Upanga raga in which Ni and Ri are
varjya. Ga and Dha are raga chaya swaras and are rendered with gamakhas.Ma
when taken as shadja gives Hamsadvani. A minor raga that admits sancharas
in all the three sthayis.The raga came to popularity through the
compositions of Thyagaraja.
MIFAF
Santhanam
>Nagasvaravali is an Audava Janya raga derived from the 22nd Melakartha
>Kharaharapriya.The notes taken by the raga are shadja,Sadharana Ga,Sudha
>Ma, Pa, and Chathusruthi Dha. An Upanga raga in which Ni and Ri are
>varjya. Ga and Dha are raga chaya swaras and are rendered with gamakhas.Ma
>when taken as shadja gives Hamsadvani. A minor raga that admits sancharas
Hm. I believe Nagasvaravlhi is derived from Harikamboji (mela 28).
It has an Anthara Ga as opposed to the Saadharana that you have
mentioned. I may be wrong but I did confer with my brother's raga
list. Also I have heard Lalgudi's rendition of the raga many times.
Gopal
Lakshminarayana
: Gopal
> Nagaswaravali is indeed Harikamboji's janyam. There is no saadharana
gaandara prayogam in it. I've heard two keerthanais in it 1) Sree Sankara
2) Garuda Jooda manavala. I don't know whose keerthanai they are. I might've
mis-spelled the words.
-Srirangam.
Lvenkat
..Nagasvaravali is an Audava Janya raga derived from the 22nd Melakartha
..Kharaharapriya.The notes taken by the raga are shadja,Sadharana Ga,Sudha
..Ma, Pa, and Chathusruthi Dha. An Upanga raga in which Ni and Ri are
..varjya. Ga and Dha are raga chaya swaras and are rendered with
gamakhas.Ma
..when taken as shadja gives Hamsadvani. A minor raga that admits
sancharas
..in all the three sthayis.The raga came to popularity through the
..compositions of Thyagaraja.
.. MIFAF
As pointed out by ksan...@violet.berkeley.edu (Santhanam) and
rlak...@menudo.uh.edu ( Lakshminarayana), nAgasvarAvaLi is a janyam of
harikAmbhOji and uses antara gAndhAram. The composition by tyAgarAja,
"s'rIpatE nIpada cintanE jIvanamu" represents this rAga, in my opinion. I
suggest KVN's rendering of this with an inspired neraval on the caraNam
line "rAjAdhirAja ravikOTi tEja".
I am curious about the sentences by ze...@aol.com (ZEPP2) because these
are almost exactly the statements I see printed in the book "Ragas in
Carnatic Music" by Dr S. Bhagyalekshmy (page 257, first edition). In case
one is relying on this book, I must mention that there are mistakes
(possibly typos) in this book, even though overall it is a useful book.
Sometimes the typo is obvious, in other cases not so obvious. Here are
some of the things I have run into in this book:
1. Gopriya - identified as a janyam of Rishabhapriya. Okay. But it is also
referred to as a vivadi raga in page 157! Why vivadi? I cannot understand
since mela 62 is not vivadi. (pratimadhyamam of cArukEs'i)
2. The composer of 'venkaTas'aila' in hamIrkalyANi is given as s'yAmA
s'Astri! Should be subbarAya s'Astri. (See kRti maNi mAlai.)
3. The composition, "sadguru svAmiki" in rItigauLa is attributed to
tyAgarAja. In fact this kRti is in praise of tyAgarAja by rAmnAD
s'rInivAsa ayyangAr.
4. In page 229, it states that the rAga madhuvanti (janyam of
dharmavati(60)) uses sudha dhaivatam, whereas it should be catus'ruti
dhaivatam.
Of course, if I am mistaken, please feel free to post corrections to my
remarks and I will be grateful. If you agree with me, we perhaps should
consider posting an errata for this book!
C. M. Venkatachalam
Lvenkat
.. Nagaswaravali is indeed Harikamboji's janyam. There is no saadharana
.. gaandara prayogam in it. I've heard two keerthanais in it 1) Sree
Sankara
.. 2) Garuda Jooda manavala. I don't know whose keerthanai they are.
.. I might'vemis-spelled the words.
.. -Srirangam.
The composition "s'rI s'ankara guru varam is by mahA vaidyanAtha ayyar.
But I have not heard this. Can someone point me to a recording of this? I
cannot recognize "Garuda Jooda manavala" at all. But there is a lovely
"garuDa gamana samayamidE" in this rAga by paTTaNam subrrahmaNya ayyar.
See Sri T. Viswanathan's recording this composition.
C. M. Venkatachalam
R. Subramanian
>The composition "s'rI s'ankara guru varam is by mahA vaidyanAtha ayyar.
>But I have not heard this. Can someone point me to a recording of this? I
>
There is a LP of Lalgudi Jayaraman performing this song in Bombay at
Sri Shanmukhananda Hall. I vaguely remember the date to be late 70's.
The recording and the rendering are excellent.
Subramanian
Rajagopalan Srinivasan
> rlak...@menudo.uh.edu ( Lakshminarayana) writes:
> ... Nagaswaravali is indeed Harikamboji's janyam. There is no saadharana
> ... gaandara prayogam in it. I've heard two keerthanais in it 1) Sree
> Sankara
> ... 2) Garuda Jooda manavala. I don't know whose keerthanai they are.
> ... I might'vemis-spelled the words.
>
> ... -Srirangam.
>
> The composition "s'rI s'ankara guru varam is by mahA vaidyanAtha ayyar.
> But I have not heard this. Can someone point me to a recording of this? I
> "garuDa gamana samayamidE" in this rAga by paTTaNam subrrahmaNya ayyar.
> See Sri T. Viswanathan's recording this composition.
>
>
There is an excellent rendition of "s'rI s'ankara guru varam" by Lalgudi
G. Jayaraman and his son Krishnan performed at Shankara Matam, Matunga.
It is available in casette from HMV.
Regards
-Gopal
---
***** /\ *************************************************************
* \\ \ Rajagopalan Srinivasan *
* \ \\ / *
* / \/ / / sgo...@vishnu1.eng.sun.com *
* / / \//\ *
* \//\ / / SUN Microsystems 2550, Garcia Avenue *
* / / /\ / Corporate CAD MS: MPK 12-104 *
* / \\ \ Menlo Park, CA 94025 Mountain View, CA 94043 *
* \ \\ Phone: (415)-786-7437 Fax: (415)-786-6442 *
***** \/ *************************************************************
Raghunath K. Rao
Rajagopalan Srinivasan <sgo...@Eng.Sun.COM> wrote:
>In article h...@newsbf02.news.aol.com, lve...@aol.com (Lvenkat) writes:
>> rlak...@menudo.uh.edu ( Lakshminarayana) writes:
>> ... Nagaswaravali is indeed Harikamboji's janyam. There is no saadharana
Yup, there is only anthara gaandhara. Two more songs that come to mind are:
Shreepathe that I have often heard from K.V. Narayanswamy. Another one
I was taught was "Seethapathe paripaye", don't remember the composer
off-hand. I'll check it out.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_____ ___ _______
K. RAGHUNATH RAO /____/ \ /__/\ /______/\
email : rr...@chitra.ece.iit.edu | __ \ /| / _ \ \ / ___ \ |
sleepy (res) : (312)791-9428 | |__) |/ / /_\ \ \ | / | \ | |
sleepier (off) : (312)567-3407 | __ /\ | ___ | | | | | | | |
| | \ \ \ | / | \ | | | | |_| | |
It is the intonation and not | | |\ \ \ | | | | | | | \/__/ |/
the intention that matters!! |_|/ \_\/ |_|/ |_|/ \______/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vidyasankar Sundaresan
writes:
> ze...@aol.com (ZEPP2) writes
--- xxxx ---
>
> I am curious about the sentences by ze...@aol.com (ZEPP2) because these
> are almost exactly the statements I see printed in the book "Ragas in
> Carnatic Music" by Dr S. Bhagyalekshmy (page 257, first edition). In
case
> one is relying on this book, I must mention that there are mistakes
> (possibly typos) in this book, even though overall it is a useful book.
I agree. The book is full of mistakes, many of them typos, but quite a few
of them of more serious character too.
> Sometimes the typo is obvious, in other cases not so obvious. Here are
> some of the things I have run into in this book:
> 1. Gopriya - identified as a janyam of Rishabhapriya. Okay. But it is
also
> referred to as a vivadi raga in page 157! Why vivadi? I cannot
understand
> since mela 62 is not vivadi. (pratimadhyamam of cArukEs'i)
Here, I agree with Bhagyalakshmey's book. I think Gopriya has a
substantial vivAdi character. Ever since the wide use of the 72 melakarta
system, there is a general notion in the Carnatic music world that only
ragas which have the so-called Suddha gAndhAra / nishAda, or the ShatSruti
rishabha / nishAda "suffer from vivAdi dosham".
In my opinion, this is a somewhat limited view of what the terms vAdi,
samvAdi and vivAdi mean. The origin and correct musicological usage of
these terms goes back to the concept of consonant intervals, characterized
by a ratio or 3:2 (sa-pa) or 4:3 (sa-ma). Given a scale, we can pair the
swaras in it, depending on whether there exist such consonance
relationships between these notes. Thus Kharaharapriya, mela 22, with a
number of such consonances, (sa-pa, sa-ma, ri-dha, ga-ni and ma-ni) is
full of such relationships. Rishabhapriya, mela 62, on the other hand, has
no consonant intervals except the sa-pa interval, which anyway is present
in every melakarta. Otherwise, the pUrvAnga and the uttarAnga of this
scale are completely asymmetric. There is no dominant note that can be
pointed out as a vAdi, with a corresponding samvAdi note in this scale,
unless one were to call the sa as vAdi and pa as samvAdi. The Suddha
madhyama counterpart, Charukesi, has the advantage of having the ma-ni
consonance in addition to sa-pa. Any wonder why Charukesi is at least sung
once in a while, whereas nobody sings Rishabhapriya?
Now, in Gopriya, there being no pa, there exist absolutely no consonance
relationships in the raga. I don't know if that is the reason why Dr.
Bhagyalakshmey calls it a vivAdi raga, but in any case, I think it is
correct to classify it as a vivAdi rAga. This raga is also known in the
popular imagination as yielding itself on performing graha-bheda using any
note in it. This is actually not possible unless one were to use an
equally tempered tuning.
In general, there is no reason why a janya cannot be vivAdi, even if the
parent is not so. At least if by vivAdi ragas, we mean only the "weird"
ragas that use Suddha gandhara and such. Take Ramapriya, mela 52. This is
not a "vivAdi raga". Now try this audava-audava janya: s r m p d s - s d p
m r s. How does it sound?
(Pet peeve mode on -
The field of Indian music and musicology is in a somewhat queer position
where 1. the terms are from classical Sanskrit, which no one understands,
and, 2. current musical concepts are from almost everywhere in the world,
which the good musicians grasp and use intuitively, but almost no
musicologist understands properly. This situation leads to hair-splitting
debates on highly descriptive terms like varNa or the "colour" of a raga,
but no attention is being paid to more basic and relevant terms like
samvAda, anuvAda, Sruti, gamaka etc. It is fashionable to talk of vivAdi,
but I doubt if many can point out the vAdi, samvAdi swaras of even popular
ragas. Gamaka is another such word, which almost everyone abuses. Modern
practice calls for a major reinterpretation of such terms, but I see no
initiative in that regard. Meanwhile, there is a similarly bad situation
in performing music. We take great pride in our Lalgudis, TNKs and U.
Srinivases, but we pay no attention to the details of making the
instruments they play. After a century and half of widespread use of the
violin, there is still no Indian maker of violins worth talking about.
Meanwhile, the art of making Tamburas and Veenas and Sarods is fast
disappearing. Have we, as a nation, just lost it?
Strictly speaking, there are no samvAdi ragas or vivAdi ragas; there are
only samvAdi and vivAdi relationships between swaras in a raga. There are
ragas with samvAda relationships or without samvAda relationships. For
want of a better term, people use the term "vivAdi raga" to mean a raga in
which samvAda relationships are absent. One never hears the term "samvAdi
raga" for one in which they are present. Another challenge to Indian
musicology that no one really cares to think about.
- Pet peeve mode off.)
> 4. In page 229, it states that the rAga madhuvanti (janyam of
> dharmavati(60)) uses sudha dhaivatam, whereas it should be catus'ruti
> dhaivatam.
This is probably because Madhuvanti has been taken over from Hindustani
music, and Dr. Bhagyalakshmey has taken over the Hindustani nomenclature
without correlating it to the Carnatic nomenclature. This is another
source of confusion in this book, where the author doesn't clarify what
she means by a term.
S. Vidyasankar
Vidyasankar Sundaresan
be Maha Vaidyanatha Iyer's are in fact compositions of his elder brother,
Ramaswamy Sivan. These include Sri Sankara, Pahi mam (Janaranjani) etc.
The two brothers belonged to a village called Vaiyacheri, close to
Brhadeeswaran Koil. Ramaswamy Sivan's wife was an aunt of Tanjavur
Vaidyanatha Iyer, the mridangam maestro, guru of Palghat Mani Iyer.
S. Vidyasankar
kalyanaraman shivkumar
Hi netters,
I'd like to start a few threads on discussing how technical terms
(like samvadi, vivadi etc) can be applied practically. Ideas invited
...
SamvAdi, vAdi and VivAdi :
-------------------------
I don't know the formal definition, but here is an approximation :
Swaras pairs like sa - ma, ri - pa , ga - dha etc are said to be
samvAdi.
On the same lined, vAdi examples : sa - pa, ri - dha, ga - ni
I dont know whether the varieties of notes (eg. chatusruti dha vs
shuddha dha etc) affect this vAdi or samvAdi relationship.
VivAdi notes are very close in terms of frequency. In fact sounding
vivAdi notes together results in what are known as beats (the two
frequencies interfere with each other so often that we can hear
neither frequency). But, in carnatic, we rarely have two notes in
unison. VivAdi, apparently has a negative impact even when sounded in
a sequence, except when carefully used.
VivAdi examples : Shuddha madyamam and Prati madyamam
Some arbitrary conjectures ... Correct me on these :
Use in alaapana :
----------------
Alaapana consists of a string of phrases ("sangati"). Every sangati starts at a
note and stops at a note. The latter is called a "nyAsa swara"; I
don't know what the former is called. Apparently, the distance between
the starting and stopping notes have some structural impact. Let me
call this the breadth of a sangati.
Eg: Bhairavi, opening sangati :
r G ; - m p d P ;
{ I use the hyphen to indicate a pause (though the sangati has not
ended) }
The starting note is 'r' and the ending 'p'. Observe that these are
samvAdi notes. The impact is pleasant.
--
A vAdi sangati : (Bhairavi again, opening)
s G r G ; - m p d P ;
{ starts at 's', ends at 'p' : unless executed carefully, it seems to ramble}
--
A vivAdi sangati : (Take Panthuvarali, near Pa)
P ; dndpm
-----
{starts at 'p' and ends at 'm', prati 'm' }
{ the underlined part is sung/played at twice the speed : for impact ;
and to hide the fact that you are finishing at 'm', a vivadi note wrt 'p'}
--
I think, in theory,
Vadi would define an ideal distance (or breadth) of a sangati. SamvAdi
would be the next choice. VivAdi would be avoidable, or used carefully
and sparingly. Distances greater than the VAdi distances are more used
for "a-kAra" (lengthy, fast note sequences). I feel a sangati set to
such a distance would be more rambling, than conveying information.
VAdi distances are difficult to use often, since it places a greater
constraint on the conception of a sangati. SamvAdi distances seem to
be the most popular. Vivadi distances also seem to be often used -
which is disturbing ! { like the panthuvarali usage, or the varali
usage of s, g, r which netters have commented upon }
Note, that I had to go to Panthuvarali to find a vivadi sangati,
commonly used. This is because, Bhairavi as a ragam (in popular usage)
almost has no vivAdi sangatis. That's one reason why it has more "scope" as a
raga.
The handling of vivadi distances is important because of the following:
Consider the vivAdi idea in a finer granularity : { That of a "gamaka"
between two swaras, rather than a "sangati" between two swaras }
Many ragas have notes like Pa and Shuddha dha. Under the light of the
definition above, I would call it a vivAdi distance. Hence, even
though I might not play a sangati starting and ending at these two
notes, I certainly play a "gamaka" to connect the two notes.
The gamaka between any two vivadi notes *must* be sung/played with
great care. Even a little harshness will be amplified by the mere fact
that the two notes are very close together !
What does this mean ? Be careful in playing the N gamaka for kalyani,
panthuvarali and varali ; dha or ri gamakam in mayamalavagowla etc !
Dikshitar krithis are difficult, because of the use of more vAdi
prayogas, as well as pairs of samvAdi prayogas, the "center of gravity"
of which, are spaced at samvAdi/vAdi distances from the other.
Syamasastry's Bhairavi swarajati is a wonderful composition to ponder
upon the use of vAdi, samvAdi; the care in applying a gamakam,
enumerating all possible gamakas between two notes, and the contexts
in which these gamakas appear -- a true instructional masterpiece !
One more reason why such a swarajati is more useful than a krithi is
that there are no two ways to interpret the swarajati while there are
hundreds of krithi singing style (pAdantaras) - and you don't know
which to choose ...
In this context, varnam is an useful composition too, because it is
less changeable, but the movement from one area to another is too
rapid to allow very effective analysis of gamaka details.
Finally,
one practice I would recommend, would be to choose an ascent/descent
of a set of samvAdi's and try to confine your alaapana between each
samvAdi distance for a brief period before proceeding to the next
samvAdi. This will improve your "zoning" capabilities in alaapana.
-Shivkumar
--
Shivkumar Kalyanaraman (shiv...@cis.ohio-state.edu)
Office phone : (614)-292-8578 Home phone : (614)-299-8634
Office : 2015, Neil Ave., DL 474-57, Columbus OH 43210
Home : 77, W. Northwood, # D, Columbus, OH 43201
--
Shivkumar Kalyanaraman (shiv...@cis.ohio-state.edu)
Office phone : (614)-292-8578 Home phone : (614)-299-8634
Office : 2015, Neil Ave., DL 474-57, Columbus OH 43210
Home : 77, W. Northwood, # D, Columbus, OH 43201
rashmi.a...@gmail.com
Wonderful!
Anand