Margazhi Music

Note to readers

We begin here a new series of regular blogposts by Aruna Sairam, where she will reach out to lovers of music to share her ideas, thoughts and insights. “I prepare in detail for every concert. While 80 to 90 per cent of my material is traditional, I always want every rasika to go along with me on that journey. I don’t want to leave anyone behind. I intend to do the same thing with these posts, where I want you, the reader, to have your own ‘aha moment’ as you join me in exploring Indian classical music.”

Margazhi Music

Chennai season is a tough task master.

Margazhi is an enchanting season, infused with the smell of wet earth and fresh flowers, and music and communion with the divine. It is not surprising that Lord Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita that among the months, He is margazhi.

And of course it is the time of the Chennai music festival. Whenever people worry about where the Karnatic live concert is going, all they need to do is spend a few days here to set them at peace.

Speaking as an artiste, I can tell you that the season is a tough task master. Expectations are very high. With every piece each artiste hopes to gain a few inches more of stature, and it keeps us all striving for excellence.

But the good thing is that after such intense preparation, I can take a quantum leap with the material that I have in my basket for the rest of the year.

I start thinking about my performances weeks in advance. I take a piece of paper and put down the different dates and venues, and then revisit it on a day-to-day basis, to put down things I can do for each of the concerts. You can’t repeat your repertoire, as sometimes the same audience may turn up for two concerts.

People have a few favourite renderings which they want to hear again and again. But I also have to sing new pieces so that others don’t feel like walking away saying she is singing the same thing.

This year I am doing seven concerts, most of them within the Mylapore-Mandavalli area and within a short period of time.

Each venue has its own identity, and its own listener base. Each group has its own way of approaching a concert, listening to it, appreciating it, dissecting it and critiquing it. They are all different from each other, right down to where they nod, and where they smile, and at what point of the krithi or alapanam they give an appreciate tsk!

Take the Music Academy, Narada Gana Sabha and Mylapore Fine Arts. (Please click here for actual schedules and venues. I am not singing at MFA this year). These three venues are within 1 to 1.5 km apart, all in Mylapore.

The Music Academy has a strong academic orientation. In its morning lec-dems and technical sessions, every raga and every nuance of a rendition is discussed thread bare. Music is argued, minuted and put down in journals. It’s like a vidwat sabha. And when I go there to give my evening performance, this is very much on my mind.

When I come to the Narada Gana Sabha, located on TTK Road, I remind myself that it has a strong bhajana sampradaya.  Mylapore Fine Arts, on the other hand, is a partially open structure, and the atmosphere is easy. Here, tickets are slightly easier to come by, and you find an eclectic crowd.

But wherever you go, the excitement and enthusiasm is undimmed, and the atmosphere is like no music festival anywhere in the world.

I once got a call at 5 am during the peak of the Chennai music season from Shri N Murali, the president of the Music Academy asking me and my husband Sai to rush over to see the scene outside the Academy. I was scheduled to perform there later that day. Getting tickets here is difficult as the Academy already has a large member base. A certain number of tickets are allocated for guest listeners (non-members) on the morning of the performance. Serpentine queues led outside the Academy with the first person having arrived at 4 am to take his position at the head of the queue. To me it was a revelation.

Two of my concerts are for the Margazhi Maha Utsavam at the Hare Krishna Centre, Thiruvanmiyur and the Margazhi Utsavam-Jaya TV at Chettinad Vidyashram.

If I am singing at the Chettinad Vidyashram, it means going for a sound check in the afternoon, and arranging for coffee for people who have been waiting there since 10.30 a.m.

When I am on stage, these very rasikas are in front of me, occupying every inch of space, in front of chairs, squatting on the floor…

Like any artiste, I feel that compulsion to respond to this spirit in like fashion, giving of the best of my music.

See you at the season!

The Swing of the Gamaka

Note to readers

We begin here a new series of regular blogposts by Aruna Sairam, where she will reach out to lovers of music to share her ideas, thoughts and insights. “I prepare in detail for every concert. While 80 to 90 per cent of my material is traditional, I always want every rasika to go along with me on that journey. I don’t want to leave anyone behind. I intend to do the same thing with these posts, where I want you, the reader, to have your own ‘aha moment’ as you join me in exploring Indian classical music.”

The Swing of the Gamaka

By Aruna Sairam

P

ick up your iPod, and play your favourite krithis, or even just the aalapanam, in any ragam. Which are the parts you particularly enjoy? What appeals to your imagination? What are the “tools” that the vocalist is using to create that magic?

If you think about it, it won’t be long before you zero in on the gamakas. It is a feature quite unique to Carnatic music, though such gliding or manipulated notes are employed in a variety of forms, both Indian and Western.

As someone who has grown up and trained in Mumbai before moving to Chennai (my folks were of course from the Cauvery belt), I am equally comfortable in the different cultures and music traditions of North and South India. But there is something very special about the gamaka, and it often comes up in discussions comparing Carnatic and Hindustani music.

I participated in one such discussion recently, in Kolkata. It was a seminar called “Uttar Dakshin” organised by the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA).

(L-R) Violin ​Vidushi Dr. Narmada, ​Mridangam Vidwan​ K.V.Prasad, ​Vidushi​ Aruna ​S​airam, ​Vidwan​ Ganesh Kumar (Moderator), ​Sitar Maestro Pt. Arvind Parekh(Moderator), Renowned vocalist Pt.​ Ajoy Chakraborty, ​Tabla Vidwan Pt.​ Anindo Chatterji

Very early I started speaking about gamakas. Arvind Parekh, sitar Maestro, and Ganesh Kumar, President, Fine Arts Society, Mumbai, were the moderators. Arvindji asked me, why do Carnatic musicians talk so much about gamakas? 

Immediately, Ganeshji said 'why not'! My sentiments too, but we actually have to go beyond a mere ‘why not’. I have also gone into this subject in many of my concerts, when listeners ask me questions.

The Gamaka is not just an ornamentation or an optional accessory. Indian classical music is something that goes deep into the intricacies of melody. If we are dealing with microtones and subtle sounds and oscillations, we have to deal with gamakas, we have to talk about gamakas; we have to listen to gamakas.

Sometimes it is useful to come up with visual imagery to describe music. 

Any note in the Hindustani system would be a straight note that curves and bends. The sustenance of a note, its extension, becomes very important. Any note in Carnatic can be imagined as a curved note that straightens. A single swara gains a lot when you present it with microtonal variations. As musicians have pointed out, it is the gamaka that moves and animates the note.

What is more, gamakas are part of the raga lakshana, and a different gamaka can change the raga itself. For instance Todi with different gamakas would sound like Sindhu Bhairavi. Hamsadwani, on the other hand, has few gamakas.

That is why there is a more of a preoccupation with that swinging kind of gamaka in the Carnatic system whereas there are more of the gliding kind of oscillations used in the Hindustani idiom. The goal is always the same – emotional impact.

Of course, many Carnatic ragas have been imported into Hindustani music.  In that discussion, for example, sarod player Buddhadev Dasgupta spoke about imports into Hindustani like Charukeshi and Amruthavarshini.

But the treatment can be very different. What is more, in Hindustani, with the same arohanam-avarohanam, you have three different ragas -- Bhoop, Deskar and Bhopali. Depending on the emphasis of the phraseology and the notes that you emphasise, you can be singing three different ragas. Whereas in Carnatic, in whatever style you sing Mohanam, you are always singing Mohanam.

Likewise, in Hindustani, the same taal, say a count of 8 beats, can get demarcated into three different taals depending on how those 8 beats are redistributed within itself. In Carnatic music that does not happen. Eight beats mean Adi taala. The accompanist can put in any number of distributions, sub-distributions into that taala, but it will still remain Adi taala.

So, to me the gamaka is integral to Indian Classical music. It is an important tool to achieve what is the objective of all music -- to touch the soul, the heart of the listener.