Carnatic Music Enthusiasts

by **Pavan** » Tue Dec 02, 2003 5:54 pm

hi friends...i want this board to discuss abt carnatic music. It would be great if people who have heard an artist sing(or the artists song in a CD) could tell us if they liked it. People can also talk abt their favourite artists,composers songs etc on this forum...
 i myself being a diehard fan of carnatic music despite the fact that i have not had a formal carnatic music course, i had always wanted a forum where people can talk abt this. so lets set the music to tune.....

by **JustaLittleUnwell** » Tue Dec 02, 2003 9:45 pm

Pavan, i\'m not an addict, but i\'ve admired the talent of artistes like L Shankar, L Subramanian, U Srinivas, Unnikrishnan, Bombay Jayshree etc. during a different period in my life ;-)

Ofcourse, good times can always be revived......
 
 Do they conduct kutcheris (as in, concerts) in Hyderabad? Haven\'t really come across.

by **dEsAkshi** » Fri Dec 05, 2003 11:19 pm

Hi Pavan.
 
 Great Topic!!!
 
 I am a Carnatic Music Enthusiast, too and would love to see this board flourish.
 
 I admire Dr. Mangalampalli Balamurali Krisha (MBMK) and enjoy his renditions any time.
 
 - dEsAkshi

by **Pavan** » Mon Dec 08, 2003 8:41 pm

Nice to see ur posts Justalill and Desakshi...
 Justalil..nice to know u used to enjoy hearing to some of the most illustrious names in carnatic music. About concerts in hyderabad..they r very less but there definitely are quite a few for us...there are some Carnatic music associations which conduct these programs...i will soon look around and list them here.keep posting...
 and Desakshi...nice name..so u like Mangalampally...have u heard his rendering of Pancharatna keertanas...they are the most authentic i think..real good. i have the CD with me.keep posting....
 and i would like to tell abt a few of the songs iv heard..
 Sadachaleswaram..bhavayeham..Muthuswamy Deekshitar Kriti rendered by Nityasri Mahadevan...i liked it very much...typical wordiness and depth of Guruguha...and i liked Devi..brova samayamide also in the same CD. Has all the love of Syama Sastri for the mother and his usual impatience to find her....
 Has anyone heard songs rendered by Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer...u must hear him once...hes basically a raga singer and has sung very few kirtanas but u must hear him....hes the master...just bought this CD of his having...Vallabha Nayakasya Varado Bhavami and Sri Satya Narayanam(both Guruguha) .Really good pieces and his alapana and gamakas are breath taking.
 and songs ud like to speak about.....

by **Mayavi Morpheus** » Tue Dec 09, 2003 4:16 am

Hi dEsAkshi, did u deliberately use capital and small letters to write ur name? I was wondering if you know why people use caps and small letters when using English alphabets to write telugu (names or text). Capital to stress the letters? Dunno if I am making sense.

by **Pavan** » Tue Dec 09, 2003 5:13 pm

Whether or not the style desakshi wrote her name( i presume its a lady!!) has any pattern to it its definitely impressive!!

by **dEsAkshi** » Tue Dec 09, 2003 10:21 pm

Hi All.
 
 Good to have so many music enthusiasts around!!! And thank you all for the welcome.
 
 Pavan. Yes I have listened to Dr BMK\'s pancaratna kritis.
 His bringing out the meaning of the words through his renditions is unmatched by anyone else I have heard.
 
 The best example I can think of is the kriti \'manavi aalakinca raadaTe\' - listen to the rendition of any one it sounds like \'manavyaala kinca ra daTe\' [note the seperation of words] - except in Dr BMK\'s rendition - I believe that the true words add strength to a song - after all we give so much importance to uccAraNa, lest we have no mantra!!!
 
 more on bhAva prakaTana in renditions later. Any thoughts from you guys?
 
 Some of my favourite renditions of his are from his raga series (HMV??). One that comes to mind is \'nanu pAliMpaga naDaci vaccitivO\' in mohana. His use of swarAksharAlu always brings a smile on my face.
 
 One song I would like you to listen from Dr BMK is \'OMkArAkARiNi\' in lavangi ... with just 4 swaras he really brings out the beauty of music through his mastery - sailing through the octaves with such an ease, making it as complete as a saMpUrNa rAgaM.
 
 Does anyone remember the old candamAma serial \'tOka cukka\'?
 The villians\' name is EkAkshi and he is no way a female :-)

Love
 -dEsAkshi
 
 PS: Coming to spelling of my name --- I use what is called \'RIT\' transliteration scheme. I use this scheme to trans(liter)ate text typed in roman script into Telugu script using a couple of programs I have written. The capitalisation of letters usually denotes either a long vowel (dIrGAlu)or the second consonant(vottu kha, vottu gha etc). I am so used to typing this way, it almost comes naturally when I type in telugu. I will post the url for RIT later (I have to look for it). Let me not make this a board for transliterations.....
 hmm... may be this is the making of a new board

by **Mayavi Morpheus** » Tue Dec 09, 2003 10:30 pm

I figured it out after posting my question. Reading few posts on \'Telusa\' (forum on Bhaavaana.net) helped.

by **Pavan** » Fri Dec 12, 2003 1:42 pm

Hi all..just wanted to get the board on the top...Justalill, desakshi where r u? keep the board alive!!

by **JustaLittleUnwell** » Fri Dec 12, 2003 2:19 pm

Pavan, after reading your and dEsAkshi\'s (hope i spelt it right) post, my head starting turning

I just like to experience music, and am not good at describing it using appropriate terminology.
 
 My love affair started when I was growing up from Rock to Jazz - and came across the output of Mahavishnu John McLaughlin (a Jazz guitarist) who was majorly into Indian music, and who collaborated with artistes like L Shankar, Zakir Hussain, Vikku Vinayakram etc and formed a fusion band called Shakti in the mid-70s. They produced 3 Jazz-Carnatic fusion albums and then disbanded due to differences. L Shankar as well as his brother L Subbramaniam explored further in this direction and produced masterpieces.
 
 Having got exposed to this genre, I selectively tried out artistes like Unnikrishnan, U Srinivas and so on, and dont regret doing so

That\'s my story, in a nutshell.

by **dEsAkshi** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 1:24 am

Hi guys...
 
 Talking of fusion ...
 some interseting fusion music comes from Philip Glass and Ravi Shankers\' alubum \'Passages\'.
 
 This is perhaps my first encounter with fusion of pure Western and Indian Classical Schools.(Shakti was more a Carnatic/Jazz fusion - and I love them - especially in a live performance)
 
 Glass with his minimalistic approach and Pt. Ravi Shankar with his mastery provide us with a good study in this album. tracks that I like are \'Ragas in Minor Scale\' a true joint venture, and the last number \'Prasanti\' where a chaotic world giving rise to hope and serenity through a voice chantig vedic mantras.
 
 It is very interesting to hear the same song(chant) coming from the voices of Pt. Ravi Shankar and our very own SPB. The contrast and similarities in both the renditions is a study in itself.
 
 Over all I would say it is a good listening. You need a bit of patience to go listen to it all (atleast the first time), though :-)

That being a fail warning - I am sure most of us have that much of patience - acquired from watching a lot of erstwhile Hyd-DD Programs :-)

Come to think of it, one of the first three tracks on that album (i donot remember which) reminds me of a later composition by Yanni (acropolis album) - go figure.
 
 As I said, this was the first east-west classical fusion album I listened to - and that is the reason for mentioning it here.
 
 hope to come back with *interesting* stuff :-)

Love
 dEsAkshi

by **dEsAkshi** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 1:28 am

BTW... while we are talking about fusion -
 
 anyone remember a fusion artist - I believe the name was - Anand Sharma ???
 
 He is from mid/late 70\'s - I used to have this unlabeled cassette tape with his album
 
 That music still lingers in my ears but forgot the name!!!
 
 Does the name \'anand shrama\' ring any bells???
 
 dEsAkhsi

by **JustaLittleUnwell** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 10:26 am

dESAkshi, thanks for the review of the Grass - Ravi Shanker collaboration. I\'ll check it out if I come across. And yes, Anand Sharma does ring a bell - not because I\'ve listened to him, but I always find his records in the \'World Music\' section of the local record store, when i\'m searching for my favorite artistes\' outputs

Just a question to you and Pavan - how do you Telugu buffs feel when non-Telugu singers like Unnikrishnan make a mess of the language?

I have one number by him which goes \"Ora choopu choosedhi nyayamaa.....\" etc. and though his vocal skills are amazing, I can\'t help getting amused by his delivery of the words

by **dESAkshi** » Tue Dec 23, 2003 3:25 am

JustaLittleUnwell,
 
 yo uhi trigh tont hetar get.
 
 No, that is not a strange language. I just said \'you hit right on the target\'.
 
 The uccaraNa of the song and attention to the meaning of the song seems to be at the bottom of the priorities for most of the gayakaas. It is but unfortunate.
 
 One of my all time frustrations is the way the words of a song are split when sung. This is what I was talking about in my earlier post.
 
 \'raamuni tOka pivarundu itlaniye\'
 
 To begin with Lord Rama does not have a tail (tOka) ever!!! that sentence was supposed to be \'rAmunito kapivarundu itlaniye\' (Lord Hanuma said to Lord Rama) - if you donot say the words properly the meaning changes completely. There are many vidhvan in the field - but one thing people tend to miss on is the uccaaraNa. The same holds true for any other language, be it sanskrit or kannada or tamil.
 
 Let us take, for example, a geetam \'aanalekara\' in Sudda sAvEri. This geetam is set to Triputa taalam (3/4 -beat)
 meaning you have 3-2-2 set as
 | x x x | x x | x x ||
 
 It is easy to see why we have so much of split words when attention is not paid to the language.
 
 One of the lines of the geetam is :
 D..D..S..|.D....,.|.D.....P..||.P..M..R..|.D...D.|.D...P.||
 sa.ka.la.|.sha..a.|.sthra.pu.||.ra.-..na.|.dee.-.|.nam.-.||
 
 
 When you are learning this geetam - you will learn it as:
 \"sakala saastrapu - raanadeenam \"
 The justification being that you are learning the tala gati and you are splitting it into two logical units, but once you are well advanced into the learning, you would drop this third wheel and sing it as \'sakala saastra puraana dheenam\'( [without] awareness of all saastras and puranas) !!!
 
 Accent I can understand... but not respecting the respective language in which the work is done, IMHO, is simply arrogance; ignorance being somewhat forgiven - you are ignorant meaning you are not the master! so let us not talk of them.
 
 Well...
 
 so much for now.
 
 Happy Holidays guys (even if you are just getting days off :-)

)
 
 dESAkshi

by **Anu** » Tue Dec 23, 2003 5:20 pm

hi,
 ofcourse i dunno anything abt music but i listen to indian carnatic music even though i dunno the raagas or thalas.
 If u guys r interested to listen this cassette from HMV by title \"SARASWATI\" ITS ONE OF MY FAVOURITES...the slokas r sung by yung children . i think its must listen cassette.
 that\'s all folks thank u for letting me partiipate in this board...bye

by b. » Tue Dec 23, 2003 8:06 pm

desakshi
 
 you sound so full of fun, where were you all this time ? you just came out for carnatic it seems.......
 by the way, i am an admirer of subulakshmi.
 cheers.!!

by b. » Tue Dec 23, 2003 8:15 pm

sorry i forgot to say Hi,
 
 Hi Desakshi. !!

by **dEsAkshi** » Thu Jan 01, 2004 10:03 pm

Hi All.

Let me first Wish you all a very happy prosperous and grandly successful new year!!! Hurrah! to one and all.

Hey B!!! Thanks. Hope your nickname is not a hint to the thought behind your comments :-)

More Later.

dEsAkhsi

by **dEsAkshi** » Sat Jan 10, 2004 2:47 am

Awfully quite in here!!! Looks like all are on vacations :lol:

-dEsAkhsi

by **Ramya** » Mon Jan 12, 2004 6:24 pm

Hi.You guys are having a great discussion going,have any of you heard this tape (HMV) which has Semmangudi and Subbalakshmi together?It's terrific.

And could any one suggest any website based on carnatic music.I've already checked out carnatic.com.

Ramya.

by **dEsAkshi** » Tue Jan 13, 2004 1:14 am

Hi Ramya.

http://www.carnaticcorner.com/ has some good info and links.

dEsAkshi

by **Mayavi Morpheus** » Tue Jan 13, 2004 1:48 am

Ramya wrote:Hi.You guys are having a great discussion going,have any of you heard this tape (HMV) which has Semmangudi and Subbalakshmi together?It's terrific.
And could any one suggest any website based on carnatic music.I've already checked out carnatic.com.

Ramya.

Is that Ramya Krishna? DSNR tsk tsk....

by **dEsAkshi** » Tue Jan 13, 2004 4:53 am

Hey Ramya.

What album is it that you were talking about?

dEsAkshi

by **Ramya** » Tue Jan 13, 2004 11:46 pm

Thanks a lot.

I must tell you desakshi,you are amazing.

The album I was talking about-it's called Divine Unison.I actually got to discover it just recently.The first volume has got compositions of Muthu swami Dikshitar,Shyama Sastri and Tyagaraja.

Hope you'll like this one.

bye,

Ramya

by **Ramya** » Tue Jan 13, 2004 11:53 pm

No way,this is not Ramya Krishna,this is actually Aishwarya Rai hiding her identity!!!

Carnatic Music Enthusiasts