The Traditional Tunes of Subramania Bharati songs

The National Poet’s great-grandson Rajkumar Bharati made a presentation on this subject on the last day of the Music Academy’s annual conference for 2010. He was assisted by his daughter and in the audience was his mother Lalitha, grand-daughter of the great poet and nationalist.

Rajkumar Bharati said that these were tunes in which the poet had sung his works to his wife and daughters and these had come down by way of family tradition. Some were substantiated by tunes indicated by the poet during publication in the papers of his times. Subramania Bharati knew music well and he made no bones about his opinion on how Carnatic music ought to be performed. Rajkumar read out a few extracts from Bharati’s commentaries in support of this. Bharati (sr) used simple tunes and catchy beats (tisra gati) so that everyone could sing these pieces and awaken nationalist fervour.

The pieces presented today were

vandE mAtaram enbOm
pArukuLLE nalla nADu (Hindustani Bhairavi as indicated by the poet)
vandE mAtaram jaya jaya
EngaL tAi (set as per the poet in the same tune as a kAvaDi chindu – Arumuga vaDivElanE – in a naTabhairavi based tune).
Enru taNiyum inda
vAzhga tilakar nAmam
murugA murugA (nATakuranji)
vENDum aDi eppOdum viDudalai (gambIra nATTa)

Bharati apparently spent some years in Kasi and later wrote that the Hindustani musicians had bell-like voices if men and golden voices if women. He was very fond of the Nandan Charittiram of Gopalakrishna Bharati. He was also very partial to yadukula kAmbOji and several of his songs were set in this raga.

Being an advaitin, his compositions brim with the concept of equality among all living beings and his ability to see the divine in anything and everything.

Rajkumar recited some of the poems before singing and the entire presentation was marked by a fervour that brought Subramania Bharati alive. There were repeated rounds of applause, the loudest being with Rajkumar’s mother, at the request of Dr N Ramanathan, sang a few lines in a clarion-like voice. How else could Subramania Bharati’s granddaughter sing?

Rajkumar mentioned that at the instance of Dr S Seetha, then the HOD of the Music Department, Madras University, his mother had in 1986 recorded a tape comprising the traditional tunes of Subramania Bharati. Dr N Ramanathan was also present then and had assisted in notating the pieces.

In the interactive session, Dr Ramanathan complimented the speaker and his daughter, in whose music he said he found traces of the fervour with which Lalitha Bharati had sung in 1986. He asked Rajkumar to comment on the differences found in his rendition and the way in which Dr S Ramanathan had notated the traditional tunes. Rajkumar said that both were based on the same, but Dr Ramanathan, like all classical musicians had attempted to give a more strong Carnatic flavour to the songs.

Sangita Kalanidhi-designate C Lalitha had an interesting anecdote to share. In the final years of his life, Bharati, while working for the Swadesamitran, lived in a one-room tenement on TP Koil Street and another room in the same building was occupied by Lalitha’s father-in-law, then a young man and a few of his friends. One evening Bharati came home in a rickshaw with his month’s pay-packet. On alighting he paid the rickshaw-puller the fare whereupon the latter, hoping for a little more said that he had many mouths to feed. Bharati immediately made over his entire pay!

Bharat’s wife was naturally upset over this and the young men in the next portion on coming to know, traced the rickshaw puller and managed to retrieve a substantial part of the money and returned it to Bharati so that his home-fires could burn. In later years, Lalitha’s father-in-law would often recall this and chuckle and say that even he had been of service to Bharati and therefore the nation!

I could not stay for the second lecture by Dr R Satyanarayana. The December malady (and not melody) postponed its descent on me till the end of the season. And so, as Pepys would have said, to bed. Tomorrow is Open House 

Sopana Sangitam

The second lecture on 27th December 2010 was by Sadanam Harikumar. He is a well-known Kathakali artiste. He began by stating a conjecture that Sopana Sangitam could have been akin to Tevaram music of the Tamil-speaking regions of South India. Both are bhakti-oriented and relate to shrines. Sopana later became a part of Kathakali music and today, Ashtapadis are also classified as Sopana. In this art form, tunes (akin to the paNNs) such as puranIr, pADi, innisai and indaLam are used. Improvisation on these tunes are rarely permitted. Today, Sopana is used in Kathakali to bring out the character of the person being portrayed. He demonstrated the song of Draupadi before Krishna leaves for the court of Dhrtarashtra to try and avoid a battle. Draupadi suggests that Krishna takes a look at her untied locks before going. The importance here is to bring out the sorrow of Draupadi and the piece sung was a piece of speech, beautified with music. There are thus no fixed and strict Carnatic rules of grammar in the rendition of the songs. Similarly, he demonstrated a piece of free-rhythm called Ganapathikai. This is a set of beats from a maddalam with a jati pattern to it. But it does not fit into the tALa paddhati of Carnatic music.

He then went on to demonstrate some musical pieces:

The puranIr paNN is used for rajasic characters and for the entry of such beings as Ravana or other Asuras. In sharp contrast it is also used for the song of the golden swan as it begs for mercy at the hands of Nala.

pantuvarALi is used to show anger as in a dialogue between Shiva and Arjuna in the Kiratarjuniyam.

suruTTi (that mangaLa raga) used in a battle sequence between Kusa/Lava and Shatrughna from the Uttara rama charitam.

dvijAvanti to depict the lament of Nala when after his being bitten by Karkotaka he is deformed and gets to know that Damayanti is contemplating a second marriage.

bEgaDa sung with madhyama sruti, as a companion to chenjuruTTi in the dialogue between Duryodhana and Krishna with the former’s lines being in bEgaDa and the latter’s in chenjuruTTi.

nIlAmbari which is used for lullabies, sorrowful/shrngAra padams can also be used to depict anger- This was demonstrated from the Saugandhikam episode in the Mahabharata when Bhima is unable to get Hanuman to move.

madhyamAvati used for depicting anger (I could not help thinking that Semmangudi was probably influenced by this while setting the last verse of bhAvayAmi to this raga. After all it is yuddha kANDam. But then again, he may have thought of it as a mangaLa raga also).

The speaker said that there is a feeling among a section of people that songs sung without sruti or swara perfection is Sopana. But this was not true. Definitely Harikumar’s singing was superb and had he trained to become a full-fledged Carnatic musician, many of our stars may have found the going tough. He has a great voice too.

There was however a lacuna in the presentation. While the demo was great, it was never made very clear as to what exactly is Sopana or what classifies a piece of music as Sopana. The word means steps and the music is supposed to lead us in steps to the divine. But the same definition can also hold good for any piece of Carnatic/bhajana/devotional music.

Music in the Divyaprabandams

This was the subject of the presentation by Uma Maheshwari on 27th December 2010. Presented in beautiful Tamil, it was a pleasure to hear. Her topic dealt with the fact that though we do not know as to what music the Azhwars had set their compositions to, it cannot be doubted that these were intended as musical pieces and were sung by the composers themselves.

It is accepted that the Azhwars lived between the 5th and 10th centuries AD and that their works were rescued from oblivion by Nathamuni who arranged them musically at around the 10th century. 11 of the 12 Azhwars sang of Vishnu while Madurakavi sang of Nammazhwar.

Both Nammazhwar and Tirumangai Azhwar sing of the Lord in musical terms. The 1000 verses of Nammazhwar are known as paNNAr pADal inkavigal and Tirumangai speaks of innisaiyil sonna sengonmAlaigaL. There are similar phrases in the works of Kulashekhara Azhwar and Periyazhwar. There are references to musical terms in 161 places in the divyaprabandams.

The names of paNNs occur in nine places. Those included are kurinji, kAmaram, pAlai and pancamam. The speaker sang verses in kAmaram (which she said was the same as sIkAmaram) and said that these were essentially lullabies. (Several heads in the Experts Committee were nodding in sleep for good measure). She also sang verses in kurinji (same as the raga we know today) and pancamam (similar to Ahiri). The presence of these names has enabled latter day musicians to set the verses to music in the same paNNs.

The 1st publication of the divyaprabandam was in 1865 by Appavu Mudaliar and this gives paNN names. In 1956, 610 pAsurams of Tirumangai were set to music by MM Dandapani Desigar and Dr S Ramanathan and published with swaras. Embar Vijayaraghavachariar has suggested that the paNNs used in the tEvArams could be used for the divya prabandams too as they belong to the same time period.

BM Sundaram asked a number of questions:

- Did Nathamuni set the prabandams to music? (The speaker said that this is gleaned from the works of Melyagaththazhwar and Kizhayagaththazhwar)
- Is kAmaram same as sIkAmaram? (Yes, as gleaned from the ETTutOkai)
- Is the paNN same as raga? (The speaker said yes but Dr SAK Durga intervened and said that we can at best say they are equivalents. paNNs are more melodic progressions and therefore the raga being a later concept, absorbed paNNs into itself. Thus Ahiri contains pancamam paNN but the vice-versa is not true).

I said that Ariyakkudi Ramanuja Iyengar should be remembered for his setting the Tiruppavai to music. BM Sundaram said that Namakkal Narasimha Iyengar also should be remembered for the same reason.

Lec Dems by Suguna Varadachari and S Sowmya

On the morning of 25th December, those of us who were in attendance at the Music Academy were fortunate to listen to excellent demos. There was a record attendance too. Both dealt with the practical aspects of music and there is therefore very little for me to put down by way of writing.

The first was by Smt Suguna Varadachari, who this year receives the title of Sangita Kala Acharya at the Music Academy. She spoke on neraval singing for compositions and pallavis. She sang examples and pointed out how elaboration by way of neraval ought to be done.

The second lec-dem was by S Sowmya, easily one of the most intelligent Carnatic music artistes we have today. Battling conjunctivitis, she gave a brilliant demo on ghaNTa and allied ragas. She said that this was a raga that was essentially phrase rather than scale oriented. It appears to be a combination of phrases from kalyANi, bhairavi, tODi, dhanyAsi and even punnAga varALi at times. Sowmya’s lec-dem was largely based on Muttuswami Dikshitar’s navAvaraNa kriti and the padam nEyyamuna. Apparently, Tyagaraja has composed 8 songs in this raga (are there no limits to this great man?) and at my request, towards the end, she showed how his treatment of the raga as evident in his mangaLam, differed to an extent from that of Diskhitar. The range of the raga as evinced by the navAvaraNa kriti and the padam appears to be from M in the lowest octave to G in the higher octave. There is no D in the ArOhaNam but it does appear when the anupallavi joins the pallavi in the navAvaraNam. PDN appears to be allowed but not PDNS. The G appears to be an important note and allows for a variety of gamakas such as kampita, nOkku, ETra jAru and orikai. In the last the G appears to touch M. In the Dikshitar sampradAya there is no tendency to pause at M.

Sowmya sang snatches of raga alapana and also did tAnam in the raga. She sang the navAvaraNam in full and parts of the padam. It was a very interesting demo and the artiste had taken a very tough subject to present. Personally I would classify this raga as an inchoate one.

The life and works of Manavalli Ramakrishna Kavi

This was not the caption of the lecture of Dr CN Premlatha at the Music Academy. This took place on the 16th of December. The actual title (I think) said the Manuscripts of Manavalli Ramakrishna Kavi, whom, in the interests of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome I will refer to as MR Kavi. Dr Premlatha comes from the Sri Venkateswara Oriental Research Institute, Tirupati.

It is very rarely that anyone sheds tears during a lec dem. But on that day, the life of MR Kavi had everyone, ranging from the oldest member TK Govinda Rao, down to the youngest, weeping freely. MR Kavi was born in 1866 in Nungambakkam, Madras. He acquired an MA in Telugu and Sanskrit from this University here though the college where he did his graduation is not identified with certainty. Some have it as Madras Christian while others say it was Pacchaiyappa’s. At the age of 16 he wrote a poem titled Mrgavati and was given the suffix of Kavi. He worked for some time at the Government Oriental Manuscripts Library (GOML) and was later a Private Secretary at the Wanaparthi Estate. He began collecting manuscripts and one of his discoveries was the Abhinava Bharati. In 1916 he stayed at Nidadavolu Venkatarao’s home and copied the Natyasastra and a commentary on it while there. In 1916 he was Assistant Curator at the GOML. In 1940 he became a Reader at the SVORI and continued there till 1951.

Kavi died in Tirupati in1957 at the age of 91. His last years saw him face poverty and he was found frequently begging on the streets. He was taken care of by rickshawallahs who ensured that he got at least one meal a day. Towards the end of his life, his mind was a complete blank and he could not even discern what to do with food. And when he spoke, he could only recite faultlessly, extracts from the Bharatakosa, his magnum opus.

Kavi’s life can be summed up into three parts – his collecting manuscripts, his editing the Abhinava Bharati and his compiling the Bharatakosa.

His collection shows that he travelled all over the country and there are references to his having gone to royal courts in Nepal, Bikaner, Baroda and Travancore, libraries at Lahore, Jodhpur, the Asiatic Society, Calcutta, the GOML and the Saraswathi Mahal, Tanjavur. He made over his entire collection to the SVORI. There are plenty of lakshanagranthas concerning music and dance in this collection. It must however be pointed out that the collection largely comprises copies made by Kavi in longhand on various sheets of paper. These can also not be termed true copies as he has sometimes made what he feels are corrections to the original. In some cases, he has mainly made a summary of a manuscript. Interestingly, he has cited differences in versions in manuscripts found in various libraries and used different coloured inks to cite these. Sometimes, he uses numbers and code words to indicate the sources.

Kavi was the first to edit the Abhinava Bharati, a commentary of Abhinava Gupta on Bharata’s Natya Sastra. He studied almost all works on natya, sangita and kavyalankara for this and spent a few decades of his life on this work. This was published in four volumes by the Baroda Government beginning from 1926. It has still not been possible to identify which one of the 40 manuscripts of Abhinava Bharati was used by Kavi as his main source and this has been a criticism levelled against him at times. But the mammoth nature of his task cannot be trivialised.

The Bharatakosa is a dictionary of technical terms used in Natya, Sangita and related topics, found in various sources. It has 1200 pages and explanations of words are supported by copious extracts from various lakshanagranthas. It has since been published by the TTD.

Dr Pappu Venugopala Rao in his summing up said that the best tribute to Kavi would be for people to buy the Bharatakosa.

My talks in December

As has been the practice in the past 8 years, I presented two talks featuring two great personalities in the world of Carnatic Music, on the last two Sundays of 2010. On the 19th I spoke on Muttuswami Diskhitar and on the 26th on Tiger Varadachariar. The talks were held under the auspices of the South India Heritage Series of lectures organised by Mr RT Chari at his Tag Centre. I am much beholden to that venue and the organiser for they have played a major role in my becoming a music historian. The Hindu carried a report today on the Tiger talk:

http://www.thehindu.com/arts/music/article981420.ece

In the intro it was mentioned that this was my 20th lecture at Tag. I was quite taken by surprise. How time flies. I am listing below, (not in chronological order) the other talks I gave at the same venue:

1. Papanasam Sivan
2. Ariyakkudi T Ramanuja Iyengar
3. Musiri Subramania Iyer
4. Maharajapuram Viswanatha Iyer
5. ML Vasanthakumari
6. GN Balasubramaniam
7. Bangalore Nagarathnammal and the Tyagaraja Aradhana
8. C Saraswathi Bai
9. The History of the Music Academy
10. Veena Dhanam
11. MM Dandapani Desigar
12. Harikesanallur L Muthiah Bhagavatar
13. S Balachander
14. Maha Vaidyanatha Sivan
15. The Sangita Sampradaya Pradarsini
16. S Rajam
17. The People’s Park Vazhi Nadai Chindu
18. Chennai as a classical music hub
All the recordings are at the Music Academy archives and available for public listening

An analysis of the structure of Margadarsi Seshayyangar compositions

Noted Carnatic singer Gayatri Girish made a presentation yesterday (23rd December 2010) on the above subject. Seshayyangar was a composer of the mid 17th century. He was an uttama vaggeyakkara meaning he composed the tunes for his lyrics. He used the mudra Kosala by which it is inferred that he was from Ayodhya. He was a Sri Vaishnava Brahmin who lived in Srirangam and composed largely on Sriranganatha. There are some songs with subjects as Anjaneya, Sita, Nammazhwar and others. Though he was from the North, he appears to have been familiar with Tamil traditions. He mentions in his rE mAnasa (kalyANi) that Ramanuja wrote a commentary on the Brahmasutra. In his kriti on Nammazhwar (vandE vakuLAbharaNam) he gives biographic details of the saint. There is a mention of Vipranarayana (Tondaradipodi Azhwar) in another song.

It is interesting to see that three pioneering composers lived at the same time. Virabhadrayya left his mark on swarajatis, Govindasamayya on tana varnams and Seshayyangar on kritis. All three can be referred to as Margadarsis.

Seshayyangar compositions have come to us through various sources. The Sangita Sarvartha Sara Sangrahamu of Veena Ramanujayya has the lyrics of 18 songs. The Gayaka Lochanam of Tacchur Brothers has 9. The Sangita Sampradaya Pradarsini has 1 song with notation. The Prathamabhayasa Pustakamu of Subbarama Dikshitar has 1 with notation. AM Chinnasami Mudaliar’s Oriental Music in European Notation has 2. Sangita Rasarnavam of KV Srinivasa Iyengar has 1 with notation and Kritimanimalai of R Rangaramanuja Iyengar has 3. The Saraswati Mahal library has a number of songs in its manuscripts, with just the lyrics.

The Muhanaprasa Antyaprasa Vyavastha (MAV) of Swati Tirunal is an important source. It refers to 13 of Seshayyangar’s kritis by way of examples of prosody and alliteration.

In all 40 kritis are available as on date. 13 others are unpublished and exist in manuscripts. These were unearthed by Dr CN Premlatha of the Sri Venkateswara Oriental Research Institute recently.

Among the sources, there are variations in ragas to which the songs are set. It is worthwhile pointing out that the changes have occurred across ragas that have minute differences among them or those that can be grouped within the same family.

Most songs are of the pallavi/anupallavi/charanam type though some also have a pallavi followed by multiple charanams. There are some songs which return to the anupallavi after the charanam and some have the anupallavi in madhyamakala. An example of the last kind is sArasadaLa nayana in suruTTi. Seshayyangar appears to have been an expert in Sanskrit for his songs indicate a vast vocabulary.

Swati Tirunal praises the composer’s undeviating fidelity to alliteration and perhaps this can be a reason why he is a margadarsi, for after him, this became the norm. His compositions follow rules of

- dvitIyAksharaprAsa – similarity of second syllable consonants
- antyaprAasa – rhyming end consonants
- shrutyAnuprAsa – usage of consonants in proximity that have same place of articulation
- chEkAnuprAsa- similarity of consonants placed at unequal intervals
- paryAyOkti – examples where cause is given without stating effect or vice versa.
- rUpaka alankAra – stating that something is what it should be compared with (indu vadana and not indu samAna vadana)
- muhana – same letter at beginning of each Avarta

Seshayyangar appears to have been an influence on the Trinity and Swati Tirunal. From what was listed by Gayatri, there were some pallavi lines of Tyagaraja and Dikshitar that appear to have similarities. There is also the adherence to alliteration and the three-tier kriti format. Swati Tirunal was greatly influenced. He uses the same kind of Sanskrit and his bhOgIndra sAyinam has many similarities to Seshayyangar’s sriranga sAyinam. Seshayyangar’s unpublished shrI rAma jayarAma has the Ramayanam in 30 charanams and could have been the inspiration for bhAvayAmi raghurAmam.

Dr RS Jayalakshmi on bEgaDa

The respected scholar presented a lec-dem on this raga on the 22nd of December at the Music Academy.

Why bEgaDa? Dr RSJ said that she had taken up this raga for discussion mainly because unlike several others, it had not changed its svaras over time. But its presentation had changed considerably. Her presentation focused on the changes in bEgaDa as traced in the Sangita Sampradaya Pradarsini.

The book has under this raga, a lakshaNa shlOka of Muddu Venkatamakhin, a gItam, no tAnam, two kritis of Muttuswami Dikshitar (shrI mAta and tyAgarAjAya namastE) and a sancAri by Subbarama Dikshitar. Over this canvas, the speaker traced the changes as evinced in the 17th (gItam), 18th (Muttuswami Dikshitar kritis) and 19th (Subbarama Dikshitar sancAri) centuries.

The lakshaNa shlOka has the raga as being devoid of R in the ArOhana. Subbarama Diskhitar qualifies it as a bhAShAnga and one that can be sung at all times. There is no gamaka sign or indication of svara type in the gItams and so we can only assume these. The shlOka significantly enough does not mention that D is also absent.

The mUrchana is given as

S G M P N N S
S N D P M G R S

According to the Pradarsini, the ancient prayogas in the raga include S G M P D N D P N S, S N DN S, N S D R S. Perhaps even in ancient times the use of D on the ascent was allowed and that was why its absence was not mentioned in the shloka.

The Sangrahachudamani classifies this raga under the 29th mELa and gives it the scale of

S G R M P D P S
S N D P M G R S

The anubandam of this work has a gItam and it has the prayoga S G R G M P D N D P S. In 1800 or thereabouts Tiruvenkata Kavi gives the raga the structure of S G R G M P D P S/ S N D P M G R S

The Mahabharatachudamani calls this raga bEkaTai and classifies it under the 29th mELa. It is given the scale of S G R G M P D P S/ S N D P M G R S

The Ragalakshanamu of Tulaja has what the Pradarsini later said. In Hindustani music there is a raga called bihAgDa under the bilAval thAT.

When Dr RSJ played on the veena and sang the gItam given in the Pradarsini, it sounded completely like shankarAbharaNam. Some of the prayogas were

SNNS/PNNS/PN_DNS/NPPMGM/SRS/SMGRS/SMGMP/DMGRS/MGMP

There is no sign of what N was used or what gamakas were used.

It was interesting to find that Muttuswami Dikshitar used the old prayogas in his songs. tyAgarAjAya namastE was played in part. The song when played from the book, begins from kAkali niShAda and then in the second sangati resumes from shaDja unlike today when both sangatis are sung from top S. In this tradition, kaisiki N is used in phrases such as GMPDN_DP but kAkali is used in phrases such as SNDP.

It is clear however, that Dikshitar used his own manOdharma too. There are new prayogas in his songs such as SMGRS, SGM and SNDNS.

Phrases such as PNDDRS and SGRGMP were brought in by Subbarama Dikshitar but he appears to have dropped SNDNS.

Muttuswami Dikshitar uses PN(kAkali) S. Today this is avoided in alapanas and swaras but it still appears in kritis.

The usage of N is varied. Dikshitar uses it as follows:

SN___DP (kAkali)
SNDP (kAkali)
PDNDP (kaisiki)
SNDNS (kAkali)

The usage of bEgaDa in Tyagaraja kritis was taken up next. The notations in works show that phrases such as SGRGM and SGM are used but SNDNS/PNS are dropped. The same goes for Syama Sastry’s varnam which however suffers from completely different versions in various books. But it also avoids the latter phrases.

The speaker traced further changes in the raga with time. The usage of the N in particular and the question of where the kAkali or kaisiki N is to be used has changed considerably and today the latter is mainly used. The opposite was the case till 1950 or thereabouts.

In the summing up, PS Narayanaswami humorously remarked that bEgaDa is a raga where no svara appears to be in its place.

Vijay Siva on four allied ragas

On the 18th of December Vijay Siva presented a demonstration on four allied ragas – dEvakriya, manjari, dEvAmrtavarShiNi and kharaharapriya.

Vijay began with dEvakriya and traced its origins. It was first mentioned by Ramamatya in his Svaramelakalanidhi in 1550. The author had classified it under the kannaDa gauLa group of ragas which corresponds to the 34th mela of Venkatamakhi. It is also referred to as an inferior raga. The raga then finds mention in the Sadragachandrodaya of Pundarika Vittala. Shahaji, the Maratha ruler of Tanjavur emphasises that it is devoid of G and N classifies it as a janya of kAmbOji. He also gives it the structure of

S R M P D S
S D P M R S

Tulaja repeats the same. The raga was elaborated upon by Muddu Venkatamakhin who classified it as an auDava and upAnga raga. Today this dEvakriya is known as shuddha sAvEri is classified as the 2nd janya raga of kanakAmbari in the Sangita Sampradaya Pradarsini.

That completed the part of the earlier dEvakriya which later changed its name. Vijay then dealt with dEvakriya as we know of it today and as handled by Tyagaraja. This appears in the Sangrahachudamani where it is classified as a niShAdAntya raga and a naTabhairavi janya with the scale of

S R G M N D N
N D P M G R S R S

Later works such as the Sangita Sarvartha Sara Sangrahamu repeat the same information. The Raga Lakshanamu of the late 19th century has the scale as

S R G M N D N S
S N D M G R S

There is one song by Tyagaraja in this raga (nATimATi maracittivO) and based on the movement of notes given in this song, the Music Academy in its early years, worked on a scale for it which it gave out as

S R M P N S
S N D N P M G R S

The D is chatusruti dhaivatam. This is the form today. Vijay played DKJ’s rendering of this song. He pointed out that P N S N D P appears as a variant in actual usage, as shown in the recording.

He then took up manjari. The raga first appears in the Sangrahachudamani and has the scale of

S G R G M P N D N S
S N D P M G R S

There is a raga of the same name in Hindustani music but it is different. Tyagaraja has one song in this – paTTiviDuvarAdu. Vijay played a recording of DKJ singing this and showed that in the anupallavi puTTinanADE, there is a variant prayoga that goes – M D D N N R S N.

The next raga was dEvAmrtavarShiNi. This raga was essentially a tune of Tyagaraja’s and there is his song Evarani in it. It is also known as nAdacintAmaNi and has the scale

S R G M N D N S
S N D P M G R S

He played a recording of DK Pattammal to show that in actual usage, the P appears on the ascent and there are phrases that go P D N S R G and also N D P D. Early versions of this song were sung with shades of kharaharapriya dominating and Vijay played a recording of SG Kittappa’s to show this.

He then went on to kharaharapriya and said that though the Sangrahachudamani classifies this as the 22nd mELa, it was thanks to Tyagaraja that the raga actually took shape. He created 12 songs in it. Several songs of his begin on different notes such as

S – samAnam EvarU
R – cakkani rAjamArgamu
P- pakkala nilabaDi

Later kharaharapriya was adopted by drama and nAmasankIrtanam. The disciples of Tyagaraja strangely enough did not use this raga, except for Veenai Kuppayyar. In the next generation, there is a kriti of Patnam and 4 to 5 kritis by Muthiah Bhagavatar. It was left to Papanasam Sivan to enlarge on Tyagaraja’s canvas and leave his original imprint. He showed that it was possible to have M as a nyAsa svara and he also introduced light versions of the raga into films.

Vijay ended his presentation with the speculation that Tyagaraja perhaps chose to compose only one song in the three janyas and so many in the mELakarta because he wanted the latter to gain a definite shape.

There was a lively interaction at the end.

Suguna Purushottaman pointed out that in the Musiri and the Mudicondan traditions, dEvAmrtavarShiNi did not use P at all, even in sangatis.

TM Krishna felt it was wrong of Vijay to state that kharaharapriya did exist from the times of the tEvAram. He felt that the raga equivalent at that time was quite different in form and shape. This argument threatened to get out hand and Dr Pappu had to use the gavel figuratively.

Yours truly spoke mainly in the context of a comment that arose that Kittappa’s version was drama music. It must be remembered that an anecdote has it that Muthiah Bhagavatar withdrew his recorded version of Evarani after hearing Kittappa’s. Was it out of respect for the authenticity of the latter version or else…?

There was a question as to why Kittappa used the harmonium as an accompaniment as against the violin. The reason was that a violin in the absence of amplification was completely drowned out by the human voice. The harmonium used in the record is of the pedal variety which gave a larger volume and was a standard drama accompaniment those days.

In my view, this presentation was rather brief on content. Perhaps the topic did not allow for much elaboration.

Form and Process in the Tani Avartanam – a non-Indian insider’s perspective

David Nelson spoke on the above subject at the Music Academy on 18th December 2010. He is an American who has been studying our music for over 40 years. His gurus on the mridangam have been Ramnad CS Sankarasivam, Ramnad V Raghavan and T Ranganathan. He has learnt music from Dr S Ramanathan, Jon Higgins and T Viswanathan. It is also his 11th year as a teacher of the mridangam. In America he has accompanied artistes such as N Ramani, Ranganayaki Rajagopalan and T Viswanathan.

Nelson came to Madurai in the 1970s as a student to learn Tamil. He also decided to learn Indian music though he knew nothing about it. He was taught vocal music by Dr S Ramanathan who also took him to learn mridangam from Sankarasivam. Nelson remembers the first meeting and as to how he could not understand a word of what Dr Ramanathan and Sankarasivam said to each other. The decision to teach him was arrived at after Sankarasivam had ascertained the he was a ‘yank’ and not British!

The lessons on the mridangam began in right earnest. Nothing had prepared Nelson for the energy, focus and intensity of the classes. Everyday he had to repeat all that he had learnt till then. His guru also wrote down everything that was taught. When the tutelage ended, Nelson did not know how was to cope without the guru. Sankarasivam then suggested that on returning to the US he could continue training under Ramnad Raghavan at the Wesleyan University.

T Viswanathan and T Ranganathan came to Wesleyan to perform during the Navaratri celebrations. Nelson operated the Sruti box for them. The brothers were then at the California Institute of Arts and he decided to apprentice himself under T Ranganathan. The learning continued for 13 years. During this period, Ranganathan gradually turned over some students to Nelson for teaching. It was then that he realised that Ranganathan did not teach all students the same way. Rather he tailor-made lessons to suit the aptitude and ability of each student. This meant Nelson often had to cope with lessons he had never seen before. This also resulted in long conversations with Ranganathan.

In 1987, Nelson came to Chennai and did field work by recording the mridangam accompaniment of five artistes – Vellore Ramabhadran, Palghat R Raghu, Trichy Sankaran, Karaikkudi Mani and TK Murthy. They were all accompanying for the same song – Kaligiyunde gada and all except Trichy Sankaran were accompanying DK Jayaraman. Sankaran alone accompanied T Viswanathan who played the song on the flute. Interviews with each of the maestros were also conducted.

Over the years, Nelson created strategies and a conceptual framework for understanding the art of mridangam play himself. He now uses these to tools to teach non-Indian students. Nelson has evolved definitions for terms such as mora, korvai etc in terms of phrases and gaps. The latter he is quick to point out, is not silence (without phrases) but merely involved the absence of sound. The phrases and gaps are then built up into patterns. He demonstrated these phrases and patterns by reciting sollukattus for various talams even as he showed on screen the way he has formulated them.

It is difficult for me to put this down on paper and so I am avoiding that here. It was a very clear presentation and it is worth pondering over how much of background work would have gone into it. At the end of it I thought Nelson must be called in to conduct a workshop on tani avartanam appreciation here. This might prevent the mass exodus that takes place when the tani begins. I stick around because I like percussion but I really dont understand much of it.

Trichy Sankaran spoke at length.