Status of Violin in North Indian Classical Music
Haddukhan
professionally arranged by Shri Balwant Dixit of U. of Pittsburgh. This
was truly a delightful experience in terms of quality of performances,
DK’s dedication to gayaki aang and utmost professionalism he exhibited to
make each concert memorable. I sincerely hope that Mr. Dixit will again
be motivated to invite DK to USA in 1996 or 1997.
This writer was fortunate enough to attend couple of his concerts in the
NJ area. But more than that, he had the fortune of spending a significant
time discussing music with him. DK was more than willing to show and teach
some of the very techniques he is so wellknown for. It was an eye-opener
for several reasons:
1) Let’s start with the basics such as method of tuning. This may sound
downright elementary to carnatic violinists but it is an “issue” in
Hindustani classical music. DK tunes his violin the correct way, namely: “
S-P-S-P”. This is how all the Carnatic violinists tune it. This allows
playing in all the three saptaks and may be some more on E-string.
Unfortunately many of the North Indian classical violinists tune it :
“P-S-P-S”. (Here I exclude N.Rajam, her daughter and niece, Faiyyaz
Hussain and SriRam Parasuram). This is far easier to play on the E-string.
But it allows only half of the Mandra-saptak, Madhya and Tar-saptak making
the range of two and half saptaks.
This difference of half of the Mandra-saptak is extremely significant.
Both Hindustani and carnatic styles require the deep base sound and the
“S”-”Aas”from the mandra-saptak. The G-string tuned only upto “P” will not
allow this “Aas”. To some extent, the problem can be alleviated by tuning
the “G” string at mandra-saptak Madhyam which can help such ragas as
Malkauns and Bageshree. But this is a band-aid solution. Tuning S-P-S-P
solves this problem. However, it is lot more difficult to master this
tuning. The biggest challenge is to play the “E” string which is tuned at
madhya saptak “P”. The attainment of tar-saptak “S” and thereafter have to
be reached with proper placement of fingers. One other band-aid solution
has been the addition of a 5th string which then crowds the finger-board.
The most hilarious solution that tops all others is using two violins !!
The writer saw this nonsense on Jan16th, 1994 in Pune. The occasion was a
jugalbandi between violin and sitar with two tabaljees gunning at each
other. When Alapi started, both the players went into the depths of
Mandra-saptak for quite some time. This was the use of Violin no. ONE,
tuned in S-P-S-P. After doing madhya-saptak, the tar-saptak “S” was
reached. Then the funny thing happened. The violinist quietly started
using the second violin which was set to P-S-P-S !!!
2) I was most interested in finding out how DK was able to acquire the
fingering techniques and attain an amazing tonal quality not seen in his
contemporaries ( I am excluding N.Rajam here) and players senior to him in
age (but not in technique and tonal quality). He smiled and said: “I was
one of the most fortunate persons to have guru like Vighneshwar Shastri
Pandit who in turn had learned these skills from the “South”, meaning
probably from Carnatic music. I was actually shocked to know that the
popular violinist Mr. Vishnu G. Jog had been DK’s “Gurubandhu” at least
for some time !! As for tonal quality, he partially owed that to his
association with some Western violinists who were with him during his
tenure with Film Division of India.
And last but not least, his gayaki specialty has its roots with his
training and association with his elder brother and late Bapu (DV)
Paluskar. The combination of all of this and his rigorous riyaz has made
DK a truly outstanding violinist among us.
3) DK talked about his difficulties in late 50’s and even in early 60’s
about getting an acceptance of his style which is truly based on gayaki
aang. This was probably so because the so-called “Instrument-style” had
been popularized by his one-time “Gurubandhu”. It is only in the last 25
years or so, that people have slowly come to terms with DK’s techniques.
Actually there is no such thing as “Instrument-style” as far as violin is
concerned. The main theme is Gayaki. And for that, one needs to acquire
skills in producing meend, cut-meend, gamak, behelav, combination of
various types of bowing and fingering and so on. These skills have been
mastered to a great measure by many eminent carnatic violinists such as
MSG, Lalgudi, TNK etc and in Hindustani: N.Rajam, her daughter, Sangeeta,
niece, Kala Ramnath, and Faiyyaz Hussain of Pune.
Ofcourse, there are things that one can do on violin to show his/her
skills such as reaching “Ati-Ati tar-saptak” by way of taans, gamaks on
the E-string or exhibiting jump-bowing, split-bowing etc. But this should
NOT be branded as “Instrument style” for it is only a small part of the
overall concert theme. Those who cannot do gamaks, meend and the like
which are integral to gayaki then tend to claim that they play with
“Instrument style”. Worse still, there are others who make a fantastic
claim of playing in gayaki as well as instrument style !!!
4) Unlike the pathetic state of Sarangi, I actually feel pretty good
about the changes that are taking place in the violin world. DK has
produced couple of good disciples (Milind Raikar, Ratnakar Gokhale).
People like Sriram Parasuram, Kala and Sangeeta learned carnatic skills
and have begun using the techniques in North Indian Style classical music.
These youngsters may, to some extent, lack the overall “Samaz” to render a
complete performance for now. But they have the basic ingradients and
their efforts will slowly elevate the art of violin playing in the
Hindustani classical music.
5) As for violin accompaniment, there seems to be an effort slowly taking
place to involve violinists. For instance, Neela Bhagwat-Dhaneshwar,
disciple of Pt. S. Arolkarbua (Gwalior gharana) has started using violin
accompaniment in her performances. Hopefully this effort will grow and
make violin an important element of vocal performance and may be achieve
a place similar to carnatic music.
6) A comparison between sarangi and violin for accompaniment, I feel is
really a matter of taste. Both these instruments are remarkable in terms
capability to reproduce gayaki aang. Sarangi’s tone is probably superior
and it is haunting. Violin to a little less extent. It is possible to
cover 2+ saptaks on one string on sarangi. Violin may however be more
versatile in terms of tonal variations, forceful application of meend and
bowing (“Mardani” style like Gwalior/Agra gharana) combinations. One
needs to listen to N.Rajam’s outstanding violin skills. Dr. Rajam’s has
been a great asset to the Hindustani classical violin world. (By the way,
it’s been 14-15 years since she visited USA. Can’t any organization
sponsor her tour ?? If no USA sponsor could be found, may be S.R.A. should
think of such a sponsorship!!).
7) As for learning the skills, are there any good teachers ?? Can one
learn violin on his/her own ??. Frankly NO !! That is if one wants to
dream like playing violin like DK, Rajam, MSG etc. One possible exception
may be : great Gwalior gharana singer, Late Pt. Gajananbua Joshi who
taught himself violin and then went on to train late Shridhar Parsekar
among others. But this is an isolated example made possible simply because
Gajananbua was a very accomplished vocal singer.
In Hindustani classical music circles, I can’t even think of anybody
coming close to DK or Rajam. However, there are many many dedicated
carnatic violinists who are trying to master the art and in the process
trying to reach the levels of MSG, Lalgudi etc. Therefore one should
seriously think of learning from carnatic violinists. There are lots and
lots commercial (and private) recordings of M.S.Gopalakrishnan, Lalgudi
Jayaraman, T.N.Krishnan, Mysore Nagraj and Manjunath etc. What this will
do is to: 1) open one’s eyes and get a very tiny idea as to how these
eminent violinists have adapted violin to our style of music and taken it
to such great heights and 2) Initiate the Hindustani violin student to
some great carnatic music, both vocal as well instrumental.
Ashwin Batish
When playing solo, one has the luxury to tune it to in any specific
range. But during accompaniment there is the issue of complying with
the lead artist. A female singer will have a different range than a male
voice. So either of the S-P-S-P or the P-S-P-S tunings might be
necessary. For ragas in the Sa/Ma tuning like Bageshwari, Rageswari,
Malkauns, etc the violing gets tuned to S-M-S-M and M-S-M-S. On the other
hand, the intervals of S-M (4th) and S-P (5th) are reversible. So this knowledge
can be used to your advantage.
My father, Pt. Shiv Dayal, is a vocalist, but he also excells in many
instruments.
He uses all these tunings but he also practices on the Western G-D-A-E tuning. In
areas where he plays with other artists in a Jugalbandi situation, he actually
prefers the Western tuning as it affords a flexibility of playing from a variety
of Tonal centers.
It is true that certain tuning combinations will limit the range of
the instrument, but what you loose in range in one region, you do gain
in the other. The other issue is one of timbre. The richness of tone is
addicting. especially if you get used to listening to a certain instrument in
a key where its tone is best. That is one of the primary reasons why in the West
we have a variation of this instrument eg. viola, cello, bass.
For anyone interested, I'm writing an article on the violin in the next issue
of RagaNet. There will be some audio examples of my father playing.
Best regards,
Ashwin Batish
--
=========================================================
Batish Institute of Indian Music and Fine Arts
1310 Mission Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95060. U.S.A.
Voice: (408) 423-1699 / Fax: (408) 423-5172 / email: bat...@cruzio.com
Home Page: http://hypatia.ucsc.edu:70/0h/RELATED/Batish/topopen.html