… music, divine profane and absurd
The music festival here in Chennai has been wonderful, simply divine, and totally inspiring. But in truth, the whole of India is a festival of sound in various stages of organization and disorganization.
Foremost in Chennai is the carnatic music, the Southern Indian Classical tradition. That is not to say that Carnatic music is the dominant style … in many ways, it is a minority music, perhaps at about the level of Jazz or 20th centiry music in Australia, but this is the undoubted hub for this music. A substantial majority of the major classical artists live within 100km, with most of these living in town. So the festival has read like a who’s who.
It has been a jam packed 10 days so far, with impossible-to-miss concerts happening from the moment I arrived. It began for me with an in-temple concert by Kadri Gopalnath at Besant Negar. This is a fair way south, and quite a long haul to get to by auto, but a very crazy and cheaper bus journey if you can work out how the busses here work. He is a beautiful player, and has seeded a rich new tradition of music for the saxophone. There are now several well known sax players around town, including a duo, the saxophone sisters. When I first heard this style of sax, several years ago, it took some getting used to, in spite of my familiarity with the vocal music. Now, I’m quite fond of it. It really is a different approach. They have developed a fine art of bends and glides with very few straight notes. Very fast and fine articulation. I think the appeal here is that the sax tone is somewhere between a voice, a violin, and the local traditional double reed horn, the nadaswaram. The favoured horn seems to be exclusively the alto. I caught Kadri a few days later at one of the music clubs, this time with a very different lineup that included Tavil (the percussion instrument traditionally used with the nadaswaram), some additional percussion, and an additional sax player. It is interesting to compare the crowds… the temple concert was a much broader spectrum of audience, less astute on the nuances, but perhaps more focused on the spiritual/devotional aspects that underly carnatic music.
Preceding this in time (though not in my memory) was, at the music academy in madras, a music drama piece from the Ramayana, one of the more respected next-generation singers. The Ramayana piece was fascinating, interspersing spoken parts with carnatic song. Though I didn’t understand any of the text, I was fascinated with the rhythm of the words and the way song flowed out of the rhythms produced. Kind of a high art hiphop. The articulation of the words is heavily emphasised, and though I missed many of the emotional parts of the story telling I think I got most of the jokes (the story is laced with them, and the audience responded with great gusto), and was thoroughly moved by the music.
Following this, a few days later, after a very messy situation that involved an auto driver, a money changer, and a hotel hustler, was a performance by Bombay Jayashree at the music academy again. I had only heard of her the hybrid electronic album aatma, and while I enjoy her voice on this, the electronics are just slightly on the cheezy side (though getting better). This was a fine performance by a strong singer from a rich heritage coming into her strength.
Somewhere in the course of events, I was on my way to see a pair of concerts, vocal featuring R. Vedavalli, and a veena concert by E. Gayathri. This was quite significant for me, as Vedavalli’s rendering of Dikshitar’s Navagraha Kritis had been one of the inspirations to reignite my passion for Karnatic music. Well … there are no straight lines in nature, or in Chennai either (and a scarcity of good street directories), and most buildings on main roads here seem to have two numbers- the ‘old’ number and the ‘new’ number- most addresses don’t say which number they are old or new. I got hopelessly lost looking for the venue, found the street eventually, and could not find the venue even given the street and the street number.
Aargh. Wandered to the end of the road, and heard a bit of Punjabi music coming from a shed. An old woman, who spoke very little English, said come and listen to the music. I wasn’t sure whether this was a bar, an empty room with a tape player, or a major event in progress. Well, it was a rehearsal for a Punjabi band, and the old lady was trying to hit me up for a fiver. I played dumb for a bit, as I had a feeling that she was
playing around, and then a few of the guys in the band noticed there was a stranger in the room. The vibe was welcoming so I sat down next to the mixer to listen. This is more or less a fairly modern funky and worldish style. It is somewhat omnipresent, and it’s roots are more eclectic than regional. But it draws mammothly from folk rhythms and melodies, while The rehearsal was for the following night (NYE) at Golden Beach (the local disneyland). Eventually someone passed me a cup of tea, and I think a bit of a rapport happened. When they gathered I was a musician, things relaxed markedly, when they found that I had a clarinet with me, they asked me to sit in for a few songs … just for fun.
And fun it was. This is a different ballpark to the Karnatic sound, but as much a part of the musical tradition here. There is a mix of notations used (both Indian solfege and western Staves), a mix of equipment, and a blend of styles and tunings. Some of the musicians have a classical background, some have a more western training, and some have no training, but a wealth of talent. The band is large, with two percussionists, 3 singers, guitar, bass, flute, 2 keyboards, sax and flute. But it is very much rooted in the traditional music of the people, and is vastly more approachable for the majority than the classical tradition. With one of the percussionists on drum pads, and triggering sequencers, it presents an exciting blend of old and new.
At the tail end of floating around the here, feeling a bit comforted by seeing a band go through a rehearsal much the same as bands do everywhere in the world, I met Nagi, a former member of the band, who has moved into the local Tamil film industry. Chennai is a hub for movies as well as music, but the scene is somewhat different again. It seems that the old bollywood sound which was very traditionally rooted, with it’s own cheesy take on the modern world, has shifted into a more slavish imitation of modern western music, hip hop and orchestral … though to my ears it is still distinctly Indian … well, at least very much not quite western (whatever that is).
New years day is, for me a return to the sublime. The Lalgudi violin duo, GJR Krishnan and Vijayalakshmi are the children of Lalgudi Jayaraman, one of Karnatic musics giants of the last 20 or so years. Both are stunning players, and as a duet they are impeccably co-ordinated. This was a very old school concert for the music lovers. A four hour epic, with wonderful percussion solos, and brilliant violin solos.
Later that week, I had a bit of a diversion while hunting for a concert by S. Sowmya, another singer of fine standing and tradition both here and overseas. Her listed performance had been cancelled, and instead I was treated to a performance by a more modern group, albeit one operating well within the Karnatic traditions (in some senses!). This 3 piece group featured a bodiless violin (a very sensible move given how difficult many of these instruments are to mike up acoustically), a mridangam, miked up more conventionally, and a percussionist on drum pad covering sounds that ranged from western kit to ghatam (the traditional clay pot drum). The violinist used a few effects pedals, but sparingly … just to build up a warm sound on the otherwise harsh bodiless violin.
The two weeks till now have been peppered with other musical moments divine and absurd. I think the sound and throb of Indian traffic deserves a separate post in itself. N. Ramani on flute was wonderful, Vijayalakshmi on vocal was creditable but I think she seemed a bit nervous, and tended to sing like someone with a good voice who was more comfortable with an instrument in her hands. I have been meeting many people, as many people with links to the pop and film music world a with the classical scene.
This is now only just two weeks in, and it seems that the dominant questions and answers are in the issues of context, modernity, tradition, and making a living as a musician. More questions and musical philosophy! I was only looking for a singing teacher, honest! I’ve found the questions, and the right karnatic music teacher is not yet to be found. Perhaps the questions are the answers! More later…
January 8th, 2007 at 11:36 am
“a very messy situation that involved an auto driver, a money changer, and a hotel hustler” – nor would i expect anything less! i’m enjoying living vicariously through this blog very much 🙂