Sankarabaranam in Cinema
Lakshminarayana
any cinema song as carnatic raga based.If they were asked to
announce a song in the radio they probably would say "Ragam :
Madyamavati; Thaalam: aadhi; vaali keerthanai; Nethu rathiri yamma
thookkam poachudi yamma "!
Iam particularly pained to note the plight of great ragas like
sankarabaranam at the hands of these people who don't seem to
understand the damage they are causing to the concerned raga and the
carnatic music world by doing so.I wouldn't blame the cine-music
composers for this present day trend of branding all cinema songs
as carnatic based.To them it just an another song reaching the
mass audience and possibly becoming a hit and ofcourse bringing them
money.They don't proclaim that they have used this raga or that raga
in their songs. To be blamed are these neo-rasikas with jaundiced
eyes seeing light music songs as carnatic music based.
One of my friend firmly believes that many of A.R.Rahman's songs
are sankarabaranam based.He pointed out to me that songs like
chinna chinna aasai, july maatham vantha, and netru illatha maatram
are good examples of sankarabaranam.
Considering the greatness,grandness, elegance and beauty of sankara-
baranam, where do these songs stand ?Just because a composer used
all the white keys in the keyboard would that songs become a
piece of sankarabaranam?The answer is no.
Sankarabaranam occupies a unique position in carnatic music.
It is not just traversing up and down the sankarabaranam notes
( Sa Ri2 Ga3 Ma1 Pa Da2 Ni3 Sa ).It has specific nuances that give it
its colour.It has specific prayogas that add flavour to it and
distinctly identify it (like Ri Ga Ma Pa Ga Ri
The Ri Ga Ma Da Ni have to be handled with gamakas and these gamakas
beautifies this raga.
Without these identifying features can we call a cinema song as
sankarabaranam ? That is the question.Are there cinema songs having
these distinct qualities ?
The one song that immediately comes to my mind when I think of
sankarabaranam is "sankarabaranamo".K.V.Mahadevan did a real fantastic
job in this song.
Illayaraja has tried many songs that come very close to classical
sankarabaranam."poove illaya poove " ( kozhi koovudhu ), and "pudhu
cheri katcheri " ( singaravelan ) are two good examples of this kind.
Look at the way he has handle the notes with gamakam in these
songs!
In many of his other songs he has very strictly confined to
sankarabaranam notes alone without mix.Example would be : "malayala
karai orum " ( rajathi raja ), "mamavukku kuduma kuduma"(punnagai mannan),
"pachai malai poovu" ( kizhakku vaasal ),"pottu vaitha vanna nila"
(idhayam), "paadha kolusu paadi varum" ( ? ),"poomaalaye thol serava"
(pagal nilavu),"penmane sangeetham paadiva"(naan sigappu manithan) etc.
Can we call these multitude of songs as sankarabaranams ? It is
debatable.Personally I feel that we could call them as semi-classical
tunes with good amount of sankarabaranam like movement in the tune.
Sundar
rlak...@menudo.uh.edu ( Lakshminarayana) correctly observes:
"Can we call these multitude of [recent, movie] songs as
sankarabaranams [or any classical raga] ? It is
them as semi-classical tunes with good amount of
sankarabaranam like movement in the tune."
"I wouldn't blame the cine-music composers for this
present day trend of branding all cinema songs
as carnatic based."
For many "neo-rasikas", who have not had the good fortune of
getting any formal training, movie songs are a very convenient
starting point to get into classical music. Knowledgeable
`rasikas' could help their poor neo-rasika friends by suggesting
authentic renditions of a raga, correct any misconceptions,
point out the specific nuances of a raga (as the poster has
attempted for Shankarabaranam) etc. By doing so, they would be
preventing any damage to the concerned raga and the carnatic
music world :) However, this takes a lot of patience and
not all expert rasikas can do it.
--sundar
V. Chandramouli
a raga from a scale. It would be more appropriate to call some song as based
on the scale of Shankarabharnam etc. as opposed to ragam Shankarabharnam.
At least I always try to make this distinction when decoding the notes
of cine music.
--Chandramouli
V. Chandramouli
song "papa kahte hain..." in QSQT on the guitar. I was wondering if this song
is based on the Harikamboji scale ? Of course, it depends on where you pin
your S. At least the way, I have decoded it, it seems like the HK scale and
it does sound like the actual song :-). (Rajan, any comments ?)
--Chandramouli
Rajan P. Parrikar
It has all shuddha swaras in it and hence cannot be based on
Harikambhoji (=Khamaj) scale. The S is unambiguous too - the
following sargam is proposed:
G G R S R P' D' S M G R
pa pa keh te haiN ba da nam ka re ga
I like the interludes in this song (I found out later via a
friend (Nachiketa Sharma) that they have been adapted from
Beethoven's "Fur Elise").
Regards,
Rajan Parrikar
==============
email: parr...@mimicad.colorado.edu
Ramasubramanian Ramakrishnan
|> There is an incrreasing population of neo-rasikas who tend to see
|> any cinema song as carnatic raga based.If they were asked to
|> announce a song in the radio they probably would say "Ragam :
|> Madyamavati; Thaalam: aadhi; vaali keerthanai; Nethu rathiri yamma
|> thookkam poachudi yamma "!
If it really gets to the extent of being announced this way in the radio,
we can talk about it. To my knowledge no one claims that these film songs
are set in some rAgA. If they claim anything more than "this is based on
the scale of", they are wrong. Please make sure you tell them so.
|>
|> Can we call these multitude of songs as sankarabaranams ? It is
|> debatable.Personally I feel that we could call them as semi-classical
|> tunes with good amount of sankarabaranam like movement in the tune.
|>
Yes. I have come across folks like your friend. People start believing that
rAgA shankarabharanam is in these songs. If you do not think of A R Rahman's
attempts as shankarabharanam, I think he has done a wonderful job. I fully
disagree with you if you say that Ilayaraja has done a better job of tunes
that are based on shankarabharanam.
Subu
V. Chandramouli
Actually, I had D or G as two possible choices. If you choose G it becomes
Shankarabharnam scale. I couldn't decide between the two. I wish somebody
could clarify why or how S can be unambiguously pinned down. When I begin with
D, it still sounds very much like the song. After all, one singer's S
may correspond to another's G and so on, right ? That is why we have this
notion of "kattais"in Carnatic music. This issue has always bothered me.
I know we had a discussion on this sometime back, but it never clarified
anything.
For eg, I decoded this song as :
D D P M P S R M N2 D P.....
i.e. my S = your P'. Can't we say that I am singing at a higher kattai ?
If you hum the way I decoded, it will still sound like the song. I am looking
forward to some discussion on this.
Btw, I always have had this half an octave shift problem.
--Chandramouli
ps: for eg, when someone sings some krithi, he/she sets the tanpura or
sruti peti to a comfortable S and sings. Now, the composer may have had his
own position for a S. The notes have to be right relative to the S but the S
can be anything.
pps: Ami making sense at all ? :-)
Rajan P. Parrikar
vcha...@dip.eecs.umich.edu (V. Chandramouli) writes:
>In article <parrikar....@spot.Colorado.EDU>, parr...@spot.Colorado.EDU (Rajan P. Parrikar) writes:
>|> It has all shuddha swaras in it and hence cannot be based on
>|> Harikambhoji (=Khamaj) scale. The S is unambiguous too - the
>|> following sargam is proposed:
>|>
>|> G G R S R P' D' S M G R
>|> pa pa keh te haiN ba da nam ka re ga
>|>
>Actually, I had D or G as two possible choices. If you choose G it becomes
>Shankarabharnam scale. I couldn't decide between the two. I wish somebody
>could clarify why or how S can be unambiguously pinned down. When I begin with
>D, it still sounds very much like the song. After all, one singer's S
>may correspond to another's G and so on, right ? That is why we have this
>notion of "kattais"in Carnatic music. This issue has always bothered me.
>I know we had a discussion on this sometime back, but it never clarified
>anything.
>For eg, I decoded this song as :
>D D P M P S R M N2 D P.....
> i.e. my S = your P'. Can't we say that I am singing at a higher kattai ?
>If you hum the way I decoded, it will still sound like the song. I am looking
>forward to some discussion on this.
>Btw, I always have had this half an octave shift problem.
I knew exactly why you had suggested Harikhambhoji as the alternative
since an appropriate graha-bheda on Shankarabharanam yields that set. There
is no rigourous proof possible to argue for the rightness of "my" Sa.
Unlike in classical music where the Sa is established a priori via the
drone, we have to rely on our past experience with melodic-based music
to smoke it out in other situations. We have had this discussion last
December and I had even suggested a procedure (by the process of
elimination) by which a 'layman` could put his finger on the Sa. Usually
the main contenders will be either the "actual Sa" or its pancham/madhyam.
For this specific composition though, there are certain clues available
that seem to strengthen my case. There is a lot of base guitar movement
in the background and you can, if you listen carefully, hear the dominant
major chord <G' P' S> with a conspicuous 'ping` on S. The overall background
work is quite biased towards "my" Sa. I will submit, however, that we
can consider the P as the "vadi" of this composition:-).
Now, where do you think is the Sa in the beautiful Tamil song "Azhagu"
(from Puddigam?) scored by Rahman and nicely rendered by P. Susheela
(I don't like the sissyish male version)? I ask this because if you
keep fiddling around with the Shankarabharanam notes you are more likely
to arrive at these tunes than you would if you let the H'Khambhoji
notes swim in your head.
>pps: Ami making sense at all ? :-)
Never let these considerations come in the way of you and your happy,
healthy life.
Rajan Parrikar
==============
email: parr...@mimicad.colorado.edu
ps: The following is a priceless vignette from India Currents (Bay
Area's desi magazine) in their write-up of Bombay Sisters. My comments
are within square brackets:
"My sister and I have been requested by many people to perform for movies,
but we turned all these offers down as our father had made us vow not
to sing anything else besides classical Karnatak when on his deathbed,"
Lalitha told The Sun. [Reminds me of Mollini Ammal who had a similar
promise extracted out of her by her teacher, Begum Kabutar, of Piya ka
Gharana, in one of Mahadevan Ramesh's spoofs]
"Our husbands, too, do not allow us to perform any other form of music
to preserve the sanctity of Karnatik and classical music." [feminazis,
please take note and sue the dhotis off these monster husbands - bwahahahaha].
"...I like to listen to songs by Michael Jackson. I find his songs
fascinating because of the up-tempo beats."
Rajan P. Parrikar
Prince Kohli
I am posting this for Rajan Parrikar. Please respond to him directly
or post your responses on the newsgrroup.
-Prince
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