REPOST... PadaccEdam/Lyricicide/Pronunciation (Very Long!)
Srini Pichumani
my looo...ng article, originally posted on Friday. A few
people mentioned via e-mail that their newsserver doesn't
have it yet or the article has been deleted...
Please hit 'q' now, to skip this article...
-Srini.
In article <3q2cn1$4...@nntp4.u.washington.edu>, Pramod Mahadev
<pra...@stein1.u.washington.edu> wrote:
>
> If the artist does not want to pronounce/cannot pronounce
> words correctly, why dont we consider him/her also as a
> mediocre musician... (Music is full of melody and lyrics)
Let us take this farther ! If we pronunciation freaks
have our way, such artistes would be mercilessly flogged, or
would be made to hold lighted camphor for every mistake a la
the movie... until then, we will just wait in the wings fuming
away and doing our piss/moan/groan routine (periodically that is,
as all nature calls tend to be)
---------------------------------
Phew ! Now that I have got the bile out of my system, let me
try to calmly disabuse people of, what I consider as highly
simplistic, notions they entertain about language, sangItam,
sAhityam, pronunciation, etc... - sorry for the patronizing
tone of this sentence.
Since, in such debates, it appears as if it is a given that
Tamilians, and Tamilians alone, can't pronounce Sanskrit/Telugu/
Kannada/Swahili right, I will point out a few general observations
restricting my examples to speakers/musicians from other regions.
1. In general, Sanskrit pronunciation of most speakers shows a
marked influence of their regional languages and mother-tongues.
This is a very well-established fact in scholarly circles. One
can read up on this in the varied writings of Sanskrit/Vedic
scholars like Prof.Frits Staal, Prof.Deshpande, etc...
In my own limited observation, I have found that most Telugu speakers
pronounce the syllable "tya" with a sound close to "ccya" (ergo, no
Telugu can sing a Tyagaraja kriti right by definition ;-) ) - I have
observed this in normal speech, and in C.music, of varied people such
as my classmate Kambhampati Subbarao, our local music teacher Bhanumati
auntie, Balamuralikrishna, Nedanuri, Hyderabad brothers, and so on...
Most Telugu speakers also mix up the fricative s (as in sAgaram)
and the sibilant sh (as in shAnti or peace), and use the retroflex
L unnecessarily (as in kalA vs kaLA) - this includes the great
infallible Balamurali, and lesser mortals like Hyd brothers...
Some Telugu speakers may wax eloquent about shAstra (or shAstramu)
but most of them cannot pronounce the open vowel ending of the
first syllable "shA" correctly... they tend to pronounce it
somewhat similar to the first syllable in the name Shannon.
The influence of Malayalam on the Sanskrit pronunciation of
Keralites has been very well remarked upon by Frits Staal in
his small monograph "Nambudiri Veda Recitation". This point
is all the more noteworthy since the Nambudiris have retained
quite possibly THE MOST archaic, "authentic", Vedic traditions
and have been held in great respect on that account. And, it
is well known that the emphasis on proper pronunciation and
enunciation cannot get any more anal than in the Vedic tradition.
Recently, there was a note on the Indology list, by a graduate
student at Harvard working on the Paippalada rescension of the
Atharva Veda, relating to the typical peculiarities of Kashmiri
Sanskrit pronunciation and the problems it creates in reconstructing
the text.
Bengali pronunciation is a classic of its own :-)
2. Sanskrit words when borrowed into regional languages undergo
various phonetic changes. This again is a thoroughly established
fact e.g. "rUpa" becomes "rUpamu" in Telugu, rUp in Hind (I find
this rear end chop feature of Hindi particularly unaesthetic; of
course, the standard Mehmood parody of S.Indians reflects precisely
the opposite opinion i.e. that S.Indians use a lot of "open-ended"
words), and "uruvam" in Tamil. There is no big deal or "objective"
wrong that arises on this count - at least there shouldn't be,
speaking from a humanist viewpoint.
Thus, while Shanmukhapriya may be pronounced as such in normal
Sanskritic discourse, when it occurs in a Tamil kriti like
"saravaNa bhava" the third syllable sounds closer to the voiced "g".
When "artha" gets borrowed into Telugu, it definitely sounds like
"arda", as in "ardamu"... in Malayalam "nt" always gets changed to
"nd" even in Vedic recitation ...such "corruptions" don't seem to
bring the house down however... it is always the the Tamil case that
gets pointed out...
3. When it comes to native language pronunciation, there is no
pervasive unanimity either, due to regional, dialectual, variations
and such. In the limited context of kritis, I have asked enough
native Telugu speakers about which is right "telusukoNTi" or
"delusukoNTi", "daramA" or "taramA", "cUDa" or "jUDa", etc...
The answers in most such cases have always seemed more HUMANISTIC
than the hawkish opinions presented on the net. For example, our
neighbor in Madras, Kandaswami Naidu gAru, originally from SulurpETA,
just shrugged his shoulder, and said both are correct.
4. Another important point to consider in this whole affair - specifically
when it comes to evaluating the pronunciation of Tyagaraja kritis -
- would be the particular dialect of Telugu found in and around the
Tanjavur/Trichy districts. Prof.Sambamoorthy and others have remarked
very briefly on this topic - about its relations to Rayalaseema language
etc... We need to know more about this, hence one cannot accept
corrections, emendations, and such, of the lyric and the pronunciation
based on some woolly notions of "pure telugu", or Krishna/West Godavari Dt
lingo.
5. The use of language in musical compositions, particularly
of the highly melismatic variety like varNams, pallavis, krtis,
padams, as opposed to the simpler gItams, kIrtanas, etc, is
essentially a "meta-linguistic" use, from various viewpoints...
This is no figment of my imagination or an ad-hoc rationalization;
apart from what I have gathered by my own observations, my own
very feeble and humble attempts at singing, I have heard/read
equivalent statements to this effect from serious musical scholars
like Sangita Kalanidhi T.V.Subba Rao, Sandhyavandanam Srinivasa Rao,
Prof.P.Sambamoorthy, Sripada Pinakapani, Prof.V.V.Sadagopan etc...
For example, when you look at compositions from a combined musical
and prosodical viewpoint, there are various rhetorical devices
employed that result in AUTOMATIC padaccEdam, different points of
stress in words than what one would encounter in regular speech or
pronunciation, different and conflicting elongation values regardless
of syllable length, and other such issues that tend to throw off the
pronunciation of even a careful musician or a native speaker.
Prof.Sambamurti writes under the title PadaccEda (South Indian Music,
pg.301, Book IV, 3rd edition):
"There are many instances of songs wherein words and even proper
names have been literally dissected in order to conform to the rules
of prosody. The word or name is so split up, that the second part
is sung at the commencement of one pAda or Avarta and the first part,
at the end of the prior pAda or Avarta. This is a license that has
been enjoyed by composers from ancient times. Such splitting up,
in order to suit the exigencies of music, is found in the sAma gAna
also, wherein words are permitted to be detached and grouped to suit
the music. This splitting up of words constitutes another link
between poetry and the sAhitya of musical compositions.
The padaccEda in musical compositions, is necessitated not only by
the requirements of prosody but also by the rule that there should
be an equitable distribution of words in the sections of an Avarta"
And the Professor gives numerous instances of kritis where these
occur.
Now, Prof.V.V.Sadagopan, in an interesting article in the Journal
of the Music Academy, draws attention to the fact that Tyagaraja
kritis seem to be the most difficult to sing in this context. He
says that of the 400 kritis he looked into, of which 280 were in
Adi tAla, either in 1 kaLai or 2 kaLai, with 1/2, 3/4, and 1.5
eDuppu - more than 50% have padaccEdam because of the aRuDi i.e.
the midpoint of the tALa, or because of the Avartana end. And
there are various kritis of his in other tALas too where this is
a common feature.
What is more fascinating is that the frequency of this increases
in his later kritis. And the kriti "giripai nelakonna", which is
famous as one the last kritis of the saint, is replete with this.
So, was Tyagaraja LOSING it ???
Hardly. The fusion of word and sound, brimming with the phonoaesthetic
qualities of yati and prAsa, that the Saint wrought in his kritis
is sublime. In some sense, he seems to have intentionally broken
the tyranny of unduly tight coupling between the musical "meter" i.e.
tALa and the word flow... giving a boost to the vast rhythmic
potentials in Carnatic music. (In fact, Rangaramanuja Iyengar
faults Dikshitar on this very count by saying that entire sections
of Dikshitar kritis fall on the tALa counts, giving rise to a
certain monotony. And in a converse sort of way, a very astute
friend of mine, K.N.Raghavan, used to assert that learning Dikshitar
kritis came much much easier to him because of the even flow of
word and rhythm - of course his observation flies directly in the
face of most others' who find the melodic details of Tyagaraja
kritis much easier to learn, speaking in a general sense.)
Leaving aside padaccEdam, we have "unnatural" stresses like
"va" in dEvaki
"gE" in rangEshuDu
"dra","la" in indra nIla maNi
"ga" in ninnu vinAga mari (of Syama Sastri)
and breaks in between words due to "distance" between svaras as in
om - kAra - panjaragI - ra
bhavakeshavA - dirUpavA - savaripu
paramabhA - gavata
In fact, the flow in "jagadAnanda kAraka" is so rocky and
turbulent that it can humble most people's attempts at
understanding the lyrics on the fly, even if they hear a
perfect rendition and have an adequate vocabulary of their
own. The phrase "a nurA garA garA jita kathA sA rahita" is
enough to cause an upset stomach :-)
So what does one make of this (tyAgarAjarukku konjam pOralayO -
SRJ muses thus, rhetorically, when discussing certain petty
suggestions regarding Tyagaraja kritis... literally, it means
"was Tyagaraja not upto it ?")
The only sense I can make out of this is that you can carry
notions of "literality" only so far, and can't keep harping
on it... or else you have to settle for the EXTRA-POETIC
renditions of people wherein they dislodge the makeup of
the kriti to enhance the literality - for instance, Prof.V.V.
Sadagopan points out how unaesthetic the rendition of
raghuvara nannu maravatagunA
sounds if you change it from its setting of
raghuvara nannu ma - ravatagunA
in order to join the two parts of the last word...
or from
enduku peddala va...
to
enduku peddalavala ...
for exigencies of literality. Similar instances have been
very clearly demonstrated by Sandhyavandanam Srinivasa Rao.
Balamurali, in particular does this blatantly on occasion in
the name of preserving sAhityam and it sounds abominable - maybe
the language freaks gloat over this ... Yet, on other occasions,
he enhances the literality in a lot more subtle and thoughtful manner
which makes it very appealing.
----------------------------------------------------------------
So where does all of this leave us ? First off, one has to approach
this issue humanistically, see what needs correction, what is possible
to correct and can be done, and what will always remain somewhat iffy.
Needless to say, without getting monomaniacal on any one aspect alone,
everyone should strive to sing with all the literal, prosodical, and
phonoaeshtetic beauties intact, with a good understanding of the meaning
and bhAvam, and good pronunciation. Breath control is absolutely important
and sometimes it seems to me that it is a lack of this that makes people
remark idly that musicians don't care for sAhityam - Prof.Sadagopan
too mentions this.
For example, the kriti "OrajUpu jUcedi nyAyamA" naturally has padaccEdam
as it is set like
OrajUpu jU - cedi la
If one takes a very slight and imperceptible amount of gap between the
syllable pu and the following jU, maybe the gap that could occur in the
kArvai between jU and cedi can be avoided... while still keeping the
unduly long jU in jUcedi intact. These are however easier said than done,
naturally.
-Srini.
Ranjani Saigal
Sangeetamu Sahitya vina??While I do agree that the music should be
important and that correct pronunciation is always not easily determined,I
have to say that I would really be very happy if Indian
musicians (particularly Carnatic musicians) would take the time to learn
at least some of the language of the compositions. I think in the west,
Opera
singers put a great deal of effort into getting the pronounciation
right. While I will not put down the efforts of a Madurai Mani Iyer in
singing a wonderful composition, I do think it is a deficiency which will be
worth rectifying. Given two musicians of equal calibre I would prefer the
one whose pronunciations are better. I do not agree that lyrics are
totally unimportant for if this is case you may as well just do Raga
Alapanai . Bad pronunciation and lyrics does cause a jarring effect on the
ear like abaswarams and hence if they can be avoided they should be.
I think the reason people get very defensive is that many compositions
are in Telugu and yet many of the greats of Carnatic music come from
Tamilnadu and immediately many of our defenses go up for we feel it
somehow underestimates the contributions of these doyens of Tamilnadu. I do
not think it underestimates their contribution at all. To me
Hyderabad Bros rendition of Tamil songs had the same problem. I do feel
that it is not extremely difficult to learn another language and the
effort is certainly worth it. This will not stop me from listening to Madurai
mani Iyer and others whose name will for ever be etched on the wall of
Carnatic music greats.
I think Bombay Jayashree did a very good job on her Hindi Songs. It
did add to the aesthetics of the song.Just like Shruthi, Laya and Tala Shuddi
Sahitya Shuddi certainly adds to the beauty of any rendition. When
dear Thyagaraga or Papanasam Sivam put so much effort into coming up such
lovely lyrics, why kill it?
Ranjani Saigal
Vidhyanath Rao
accent. I have never found that accents intefered with understanding. The
problems came only when I was bored/uninterested in the speaker.
I am sure that this holds some moral for the topic on hand :-^
--
Vidhyanath Rao It is the man, not the method, that solves
nath...@osu.edu the problem. - Henri Poincare
(614)-366-9341 [as paraphrased by E. T. Bell]