“All you need is a pair of ears and a place to sit”
It is something that actually stalls the beats in the hearts rising above the languages. If all the humans had sometime to appreciate the beauty and unity in it, then it is at this time that the Tower of Babel is completed. The rhythm and the melody must be able to evoke the emotion and the feelings rather than the lyrics though many times the lyrics are so good that they add a gem in the crown. Rhythm and melody are like the two essential sides of the same coin: rhythm holds the noetic side while melody the aesthetic aspect. Well, delineating rhythm and melody is more like trying to understand the English grammar: Subject, Object and Predicate. The cause of rhythm is from within us and the effect of melody is the result within us. To be clear on the difference, rhythms is what keep us moving and melody is the ethereal outcome of the translation of our feelings i.e., that of our senses in to external vibrations.
Music is the pleasure of the human soul experiences from counting without being aware that it is counting. - Gottfried Leibniz
All through the ages, there have been different great people who were impeccable composers or atleast musical geniuses, from the likes of the “Four seasons” Vivaldi to the “Jai-Ho” Rahman. Music has undergone extensive metamorphoses through these different ages. From MJ’s Bad, Diana Haddad’s Ammaneh, Cheb Khaled’s Aisha, Cheb Mami’s desert rose, Paul Allen’s To bring you back, the Chinese bamboo flutes, Tarkan’s Kiss Kiss to ARR’s Jai Ho .Still, it is really amazing to find each genre of music survive in its purest form or at least in the next of its kin. Well people take different stands on the coming of the Fusion music: To accept fusion as a genre itself?
Let’s leave it to the peers.
Its only the Indian classical music that delineates every minute change in the sounds and labels each one of them uniquely in its own way. The amazing power of music is felt throughout the different parts of India in the form of the classical Carnatic and Hindustani, different folk musics like Bhangra, Qawwali, Dandiya etc., apart from the famous bollywood music. : It’s the usual “Unity in Diversity” tag line serving here again: a safer way of addressing groups of egocentric people sticking together. Well a better tag line can be “Quality in Variety” though it sounds more like the Ad in the roadside Parota shop ( Kaapi, tea-bun ready!).
On the track, the beauty of the classical music was recognized and appreciated in the sub-continent from a very long time. It is still the case but the appreciative coterie is facing a trend inversely related to the population in the region.
I am equally affected, captivated and spell bound by the beauty of Hindustani music as I am by the beauty of the Carnatic music, only that I never got a chance to even learn the former form. It is like choosing a path to a one way travel of no return (at least for me) when there are two but different equally beautiful paths.
Some of the greatest soulful renderings for carnatic music come from the famous trinity: Thyagaraja, Shyama Shashtri and Dikshitar. I have had arguments and I don’t approve some people who think music is just a means to woo the opposite sex. Well, these three composers and many others like Swati Tirunaal, Papanasam Sivam, Sadashiva Brahmendra etc stand as an all-out answer for the antagonists. All their compositions have been towards the God. I do not want to mix god with music here.
The devotion and faith of Thyagaraja to his god apart, his musical compositions are worthy of ablution. All his compositions were focused on just a single idea and his emotions: joy, anger, faith, praise, devotion, subservience etc were all towards this single idea. The five gems, Pancharatna Krithis, sung even today in his honor are to be treasured and worshipped as the music of the soul or rather the soul of the music. The rhythm, melody and the harmony of his compositions have lured me into understanding the meanings of his songs. That is when I realized the beauty and power of music. The Krithi, Entharo Mahanubhavulu in Sri ragam just melts and captivates the heart of even the first time listeners and the recent fusion by OS Arun is a classical blend (Explosions).
With the sporadic expansion of filmy music, the importance of the basic classical music is undermined although; all the music is based on the seven swaras and the 72 melakarthas. Limiting myself to the sub-continental music and narrowing down to the Tamil filmy music, the legend Ilayaraja has given amazingly large number of filmy music with a strong classical base. “Kanmani nee vara kaathurundhen” is an excellent composition from the movie Thendralae ennai thodu. It is based on Malayamarutham. The classical Revathi comes in to play in the song “ Sangeetha jathi Mullai” while the full beauty of the raga is felt in the song “Manthira Punnagai” from the condition famous Manal Kayiru( This was composed by MSV). As the raga Kaapi is to ARR, Keeravaani is to Ilayaraja…. The kiravaani list is too big and I can just quote a few of his bests from the top of my head: Kaatril endhan geetham, Padi parandha Kili, Nenjukkulle innar endru, China china vanna kuyil, Malayoram veesum Kaatru etc., Some of the famous Sindhu Bhairavis are naan oru sindhu, Oru nallum from ejamaan, nillavu parthu from kannukkul nilavu,Keladi kanmani from pudhu pudhu arthangal.
Although ARR has used a lot of ragas in his music, his fusion of carnatic with Hindustani and especially with the Sufi music gives his music an altogether drift from the classical carnatic music. The most commonly used ragas by ARR according to me are Kaapi ( Kadhal rojave, En mel vizhunda from May madham, Ghanana ghanana,Pachai Kiligal etc ), Anandhabhairavi ( Mettu podu, theemthanana and thaniye thannan thaniye etc).
Although my knowledge of Hindustani is sparse, yet my best guesses about rags in hindi filmy music come from the likes between the different commons ragas found in the two.The most commonly used ragas in the hindi filmy music are the Pahadi, Shivranjani, Malkauns, Kirwani, etc., The recent Jai Ho is based on Bhairav and dance pe chance in RNBDJ is based on Bhairav too. The notes are pretty much explicit in this song. The enchanting Guzarish is in Megh Malhar which is equivalent to Madhyamavati in Carnatic and beautifully sung by Javed Ali. An amazing composition comes in the form of “Manmohini morey man bhave”. ARR once again proves that he could do immense justice to a classical based composition. It is Abheri and Bhimplas for Hindustani audience. And here Vijay Prakash just lives the song.
What hurts is that all these contemporary stalwarts exploit the basic classical music in their compositions to mint millions and yet they do very little to promote the same. The common man cannot even know what a raga is and what is it composed of without learning classical music and not everyone has the time and the facility to learn the same. The best these composers can do is to at least enlighten the masses about ragas through filmy music. An average joe is not able to relate himself to the same tune composed 300 hundred years ago while he is able to appreciate the same tune with a different label, which is true. Well, time dilation is still a factor but without the basic understanding and recognition of the beauty of the classical music, it is difficult even for the filmy music to survive. I have known instances where my friends who have the ability to sing melodies and steamy numbers in their really mellifluous versatile voices failed to pass through even the budding music directors; the reason being their lack of knowledge of the classical music. Not everyone is the legend SPB.
Preserving the classical music is protecting nature in its true form.
For detailed IR: http://www.tfmpage.com/ci/
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