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Music & Dance
As mature as stunted plantains
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The doyen, Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, shares his views on music and current trends with senior disciple, V. SUBRAHMANIAM. Excerpts.
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Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer ... stickler for tradition
DID THE Academy have annual conferences as is held now with presentation of talks, discussions, etc. in the forenoon followed by concerts from the inception?
Talks on musical subjects with great stalwarts participating were the content of the conference in the morning session. A sarcastic remark made by the great Vidushi Veena Dhanammal about this comes to my mind: "Pattanathile Ippo Ellam Sangeetathe Pesarangalaame"? (In Madras nowadays music is being "talked"). I am also of the view that music is to be sung and not "talked". The concerts were held in the evenings and all the senior Vidwans participated in them.
In comparison with those days, are there not a large number of concert artistes and women far outnumber the men?
Not only are the lady artistes greater in number these days but they tend to outsmart the male artistes! In this context I would like to mention that All India Radio has done great service in the propagation of Carnatic music to a wide range of rasikas kindling their interest in the art as a corollary. The concerts broadcast by AIR with announcement of the Ragam, Talam and composer has helped in broadening the musical knowledge of the rasikas.
Most of the concerts of today lack lustre and fail to create a wholesome long-lasting impression on the rasika unlike concerts of the greats of yesteryear. Is it due to lack of proper planning of the concert? No doubt planning has an important role in this regard. Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar was a past master in this respect and he has been the "Margadarshi" to every concert vidwan since his times. Ramanuja Iyengar would be observing the listeners' reaction during his concerts.
The body language of the audience gives a clear indication of the impact of the concert on them. In those days the composition of the audience was very much different. Though smaller in number most of them were quite knowledgeable so much so that the artistes were really nervous to sing to them and they took extra care in moulding their concert presentations.
The concerts then mainly contained only the compositions of the musical trinity — Tyagaraja Swami, Muthuswami Dikshitar and Syama Sastri. They were all great bhaktas and so their creations highly divine. The impact of these compositions on the listeners is unparalleled and the post-Trinity compositions cannot rise to this level. This has to be borne in mind by every artiste aspiring for consistent successful concerts.
During the music season most of the popular artistes present 14 or 15 concerts. Your comment?
This can certainly make the artistes mentally tired weakening their Manodharma resulting in less effective concerts. Under the circumstances the artistes, for the sake of variety, tend to choose compositions of lesser known authors available aplenty nowadays. As I said earlier concerts where the compositions of the Trinity are absent will fall in standards. Such concerts become a purely commercial political activity in the process of which the artistes make themselves cheap.
There is a frantic hurry these days by students of music to ascend the music platform often within a frighteningly short period of commencing music lessons. Is this trend not alarming?
In our days the gurus never allowed the sishyas to undertake a concert until the teacher was confident that the student had reached the required maturity level in the art.
This, of course, is not reached in short periods. Anybody attempting a concert before attaining this level is called "Nuni Cheepu Vazhakkai". Do you know what this means? The plantains at the lower end of a big bunch are small and stunted and they stop growing and never reach the normal mature level. The half mature music students are compared to this. This rushy trend is certainly harmful to our music.
As a short cut, a trend has set in to learn from prerecorded tapes and of late through computers. Will this not affect the quality of our music in due course of time?
It is not possible to understand the bhava fully and rightly from taped music. The reproduction of what is absorbed from the tape will just be a repetitive exercise sans bhava.
It is disturbing to find that most of the raga alapanas of these days are swara-based constructions evidencing lack of raga concept. Is this not an immature approach?
Ragas have a definite shape with characteristic bhava expressions. These have to be understood and assimilated well for rendering an effective alapana.
The concept of the raga should be well established in the mind of the artiste to enable the person to deploy his imaginative capacity fully in the rendition. Attempting an alapana of a raga with limited scope or even no scope for delineation is also a wrong trend. This would only result in acrobatics devoid of music.
The use of microphones and amplification has unfortunately reached menacing and jarring levels in our concerts. Does this not mar our bhava-rich melodious music?
The use of the microphone was adopted for our concerts in 1940 to serve the enlarging audience. The microphone then was a butterfly like gadget attached to the collar of the vocal artiste and this absorbed the sound of the accompanying instruments as well.
No mike stand, no separate mikes for the violin and mridangam. In contrast, these are days of a multiplicity of mikes and the concert artistes vie with one another for higher volume. High volume amplification spoils a concert in more than one respect. The audience will be less attentive and their concentration will be much less because the music will fall on their ears anyhow. If the volume level is comfortable they have to be more attentive to absorb the music. This is a plus point for the concert artiste. In the high volume cacophony the gamakas and nuances will be unclear and will appear jumbled. As amplification is available the vocal artistes tend to use a false voice and croon which is totally undesirable for our music.
Our music has spread far and wide to all corners of the world through our young artistes. Do you endorse this trend?
Even though it is heartening that our music is spreading wide over-exposure can be harmful. Concerts abroad can be classified as an intellectual commercial exercise. Interested listeners and rasikas should yearn for hearing the concerts. Easy availability is counter-productive. It can lead to wrong perceptions of our music. This should be borne in mind by the artistes of today. Too many concert reproductions on tapes, CDs and what not is unhealthy.
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