By Sunitha
I love music-filled weekends! I attended a concert on Saturday evening, followed by our music session on Sunday morning and another Concert on Sunday afternoon! I can hear some voices saying " what else does she have in life" :-)) And I guess I agree with you totally! If you see my schedule during the next couple of weekends, all the rest of you will agree as well. I do consider myself fortunate for being blessed with this chance to enjoy the wonders of music, while not feeling guilty about not doing my other duties….because I don’t have many!
Let me come to the real point now. This weekend has been an exceptional one, with two amazingly beautiful concerts, which included three schools of music – Hindistani, Karnatic and Spanish (Flamenco)
Saturday I attended the "Flamenco Journey" concert at Duke’s Page auditorium by Anouska Shankar and the Traveler Ensemble. I have to admit that I wouldn’t have liked it as much if it was a traditional Sitar concert where Anoushka shankar had played with Tabla accompaniment. What made it special was the blend of multiple approaches to music, while keeping the originality of each one to its fullest form, but each one contributing to the creation of what looked like yet another school of music.
There were two Hindustani musical instruments (Sitar and Shahnai) and a Spanish guitar. One of the percussion instruments was a cajón (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caj%C3%B3n), which is a box over which the player sits and bangs with both hands. The Wikipedia article says it was adopted to Flamenco music as recently as in 1970s!).
Another interesting concept was the use of pure Karnatic percussion instruments in a concert dominated by Hindustani instruments. One guy (Pirashanna Thevarajah) played all four of them – Mridangam, Ghatam, Kanjira and Morsing. The percussion solos were really good. He also did some Kunnakkuzhal, which is vocal percussion. It was very interesting to see the Flamenco percussion guy also taking part in the tongue-twisting Kunnakkuzal and doing the "Taala" with his hands.
The vocalist (Sandra Carrasco) had a rich and flexible voice. Some of the songs she sang were based on Bhairav, which gave a Persian touch. I read a lot about her on the web. She seems to be a very accomplished Flamenco singer. Anoushka Shankar played some Hindustani raagas like Bhairavi (Sindhu Bhairavi), Bhairav, Jog, etc. What she played was mostly in Hindustani style which is what she is trained in. The highlights were the duets by Sitar and Guitar, Sitar and Shahnai. The transitioning of the Hindustani aalaap in Sitar to Spanish improv on the guitar was flawless and very unique. Overall it was a very entertaining concert, well worth the money, time and the drive!
The second concert I attended this weekend was a Karnatic vocal concert by T.N.Seshagopalan, organized by SIFAA. I can talk much more about this one because it is the form of music I am trained to appreciate better than any other form, even though I enjoy every other form of music to the same extent.
I had come across TNS (that is what he is fondly called) long ago, when he had a head-full of hair and what looked like a limitless vocal stamina and "vidwat", all attained through endless hours of practice (saadhana). I recall noticing his "shree charanam" on his forehead, and thinking that he must be a worshiper of Vishnu as opposed to the majority of musicians who put a white horizontal dash, which signifies their devotion to Shiva. ("Shree Charanam" is the long red vertical line (Tilak) drawn from the middle of his eyebrows all the way to the border line of hair over the forehead. I noticed that it had gotten much longer now that he had a much bigger forehead!) Even though the "Vidwat" and the quality of his performance were the same as I had seen before, I noticed a downgrade in the quality of his voice and stamina. I guess it is expected as humans age.
I have to admit that his concerts have always been entertaining mostly to the informed and seasoned audience. I recall a friend of mine exclaiming "I had it", after she had been to one of his concerts in California. His adept techniques and his extensive "paanditya" are hard to be recognized and appreciated by those who go there just to listen to some popular songs.
The concert was to start at 2:30 PM, but due to unavoidable circumstances, as indicated by the SIFAA organization, it was moved to 3:30 PM. I was impressed by the SIFAA organizers that they took such good care of conveying the delay information to its members when I saw the email and also a message on my answering machine. But that admiration didn’t last very long. I showed up at 3:30 pm sharp, thinking I was late. They didn’t even bring the musicians to the venue untill 4 pm. The concert finally started at 4:20 pm or so. I know the organization is run by volunteers who do an excellent service to the community here, but I hope they will fix this one small seemingly unavoidable issue by showing respect to others’ time. If they start on time, it will keep people from leaving in the middle of the concert.
TNS started the concert with the famous Bhairavi Varna, Veeriboni. (Again, it is not Sindhubhairavi – it is the Karnatic Bhairavi I keep talking about all the time. I think it is time to pick a song in that raaga). When I thought he was done with the last "ettugade swara", he started improvising the swaras, by doing swara prasthara at the charana! – a bit unusual, but I liked it. His kalpanaaswaras are always very creative – as the name suggests. He never spoke a word throughout the concert! Also he never gave a pause between two raagas or songs. After the varna, he sang a Ganesha song in Tamil, "Sidhdhi Vinayakam" in the raga Mohana Kalyani. He did a very nice aalaap and swaraprasthara in this raaga. Usha was sitting next to me – I reminded her of the only song in this raaga we have learned – "Sangeeta Saamraajya Sanchaarinee". Shobha would have been very delighted to listen to the next one – he sang "Chala Melara" in the raga Maarga Hindola. It is a very short and nicely composed kriti by Saint Tyaagaraaja. Musicians usually use these little but popular krities sprinkled throughout the concert, to make people happy and also to give some rest to their own brains – improvisations need a lot of brain power in addition to their saadhana, concentration and presence of mind.
I was surprised to see that he picked the raaga "Bilahari" for the next one. He did a nice elaboration of Bilahari in the aalaap. If you just replace the note Ma-1 (Shuddha Madhyama) from Bilahari by Ma-2 (Prati Madhyama), it becomes Mohana kalyani. The analogy is like this:
Shankaraabharana : Bilahari :: Kalyaani : MohanaKalyani
(My music students in California had renamed Bilahari as "Mohana-Shankaraabharana" 
Shankaraabharana: (Ex: Omkaara naadaalu)
Sa Ri2 Ga3 Ma1 Pa Dha2 Ni3 Sa
Sa Ni3 Dha2 Pa Ma1 Ga3 Ri2 Sa
Bilahari: (Ex: Raara Venu)
Sa Ri2 Ga3 Pa Dha2 Sa
Sa Ni3 Dha2 Pa Ma1 Ga3 Ri2 Sa
Kalyani: (You know many forms of it)
Sa Ri2 Ga3 Ma2 Pa Dha2 Ni3 Sa
Sa Ni3 Dha2 Pa Ma2 Ga3 Ri2 Sa
MohanaKalyani: (Ex: Sangeeta Saamraajya)
Sa Ri2 Ga3 Pa Dha2 Sa
Sa Ni3 Dha2 Pa Ma2 Ga3 Ri2 Sa
It would have been a great listening experience to a music student to listen to the two ragas sung back to back, done with so much clarity. He chose the kriti "Shree Chamindeshwari" in Bilahari, but didn’t do the swara improv. By now I was eagerly waiting for the raga of the evening, but he sang three more pieces before he hit the RTP (Raaga-Taana-Pallavi)! After the Bilahari kriti, he sang the popular song "Enta Muddo Enta Sogaso" in the raaga "Bindu Maalini". The next one was the raaga "Shubha Pantuvaraali". Instead of the aalaap, he did a very highly improvised shloka "Shantaakaaram Bhujaga shayanam" from Vishnu Sahasranaama. I have seen this trend in a couple of other concerts as well, and I think it is a great idea, specially for the non-hardcore audience. Instead of elaborating the raaga with an aalaap, they do the same with lyrics. I think they call it "Virutam" in Tamil. It was very nice, but I think the audience was expecting a little more from him, probably waiting for the main piece of the evening. So he didn’t get much applause in spite of his great rendition of this beautiful raaga. In fact, the ending didn’t quite feel like an ending. So we took some time to clap! When he started a Purandaradaasa song after this, I stated to wonder what he was up to! He sang the song "Yaare Rangana" in Hindola raaga. When he finally started the main raaga, people sitting in the first couple of rows got up and started leaving. I think the organizers should announce in the beginning of the concert that only those who will sit through the concert should occupy the first few rows, specially in such cases where the audience is not sensitive enough to realize that it is an insult to the artists when they do that. I usually sit in a far-away row if I know I have to leave early.
He chose the raaga Kalyani for the long Raaga-Taana-Pallavi. He literally squeezed the swaras out of kalyani using very intrinsic and sometimes very cryptic phrases. His rendition of the raagas is always very traditional, while he also uses a lot of exercise patterns which sound really good to the ears. He is very technical in his rendering of the raaga. Towards the end of the Aalaap, he did something very few humans can – the technique is called "Swara Bheda" or "Shruti Bheda". When you change the reference shruti, the same swaras will sound like a different raga. It was as though he switched the raaga to Shuddha dhanyasi (I wasn’t 100% sure it was Shuddha Dhanyasi, even though I thought it was close, but the sifaa organizer later announced it was indeed Shuddha Dhanyasi. I wish I get to listen to the recording, if someone did record it!). It was an awesome experience to see him do the swara bheda and get back to Kalyani effortlessly. These are the kind of things in his Kacheri which only seasoned listeners an appreciate. When he started the Pallavi, he started revealing his real strength. He was the first musician I had listened to, who did the creative swara impov in multiple raagas, some 20+ years ago. These days several of them do, but there is some originality in what TNS does. After doing swara prasthara for sometime in Kalyani, he switched to raagas Ranjani, Sindhu bhairavi, Atthana and a fourth raga I am not able to recall now. What was special about him was, in the final long swara prasthaara, he just intermingled all the raagas, sometimes singing swaras in each raga for a couple of taalas, then changing the raga for each taala, and later just would sing any of the 4 ragas in any order, all within one long span of kalpanaaswaras! It was profound! Only someone of his caliber can do it, and I haven’t seen many do it. Nityashree had a tab on it in her concert and I thought it was very good, Sowmya also did it, which was quite mechanical, but TNS’s looked much more original and spontaneous and it looked as though he was just playing with the notes and the raagas.
After the short percussion solo which followed the Pallavi, he sang the Purandaradaasa kriti "Jagadoddhaarana" in the raaga Kapi, followed by a jazzy sounding Tillana by Muttayya Bhagavatar (I heard the signature Harikesha in the end) and two Mangalams, one in Chakravaaka and he traditionally ended the concert with a short mangalam in Madhyamaavati.
I was thinking he would sing more Tamil songs, but I recall that the Mohana Kalyani one was the only Tamil song he sang! Very interestingly he sang two Kannada songs – both Purandaradaasa krities – and possibly a third one: The Tillana was probably in Kannada too, it being Bhaagavatar’s composition. I didn’t carefully listen to the lyrics. It is all 90% Sanskrit anyways!
More interestingly, he broke the sandhi in the song Jagadoddhaarana in a place I usually don’t expect, specially a musician from Tamilnadu do: He sang "AadisidaLu Yashodaa" instead of "AadisidaLeshoodaa" which is the norm, in addition to "Jagada Uddhaarana" for "Jagadoddhaarana". Only suggestion to him is to fix his "sa-sha" distinction. He kept singing "AadishidaLu" instead of "AadisidaLu" :-))
I am glad I made it to both the concerts. TNS’s music, the Bhairavi raag on the sitar and the beautiful voice of Sandra Carrasco are still ringing in my ears.
Sunitha
