Vidyaamagna: webinar & online lessons

  • Vidyaamagna-Webinar-2022-B-web.jpeg
  • Vidyaamagna-Webinar-2022-B-web.jpeg

WEBINAR – THE AESTHETICS OF VARNAM IN KARNATIC MUSIC

Sat, 30 July | 2 pm – 3.30 pm (BST) / 6.30pm (IST)  | £10

STELLA SUBBIAH (Artist Development Lead, Bhavan London)

In conversation with

LUDWIG PESCH (Author of The Oxford Illustrated Companion to South Indian Classical Music)

VIGNESH ISHWAR (Musician)

Today, as in the remote past, India’s musicians and dancers share a vast and varied repertoire. Apart from facilitating oral transmission, the underlying vocabulary helps to convey feelings underpinned by aesthetic principles and values. So it hardly surprises that the best-loved lyrics are those endowed with scope for reflection and debate among listeners, critics, and the artists themselves.

Mystical Dance!—
—Mazes intricate,
Eccentric, intervolv’d, yet regular
Then most, when most irregular they seem.

Milton’s Paradise Lost (AD 1667), the description of angels dancing about the
sacred hill as quoted by William Hogarth and discussed in the Chapter titled “Variety”:
Oxford Illustrated Companion to South Indian Classical Music >>

For this webinar we focus on several key composers whose vision shaped South Indian music and dance as we know it today. We will consider the compositional form of Varnam or Varna, in Karnatic music which can be interpreted as not only colour, praise , or syllable but also as melodic movements. These melodic movements of Arohi, Avarohi, Sthayi, and Sanchari add to its structure and offer various musical possibilities for musical interpretations.

Free tala exercises to supplement this webinar

Adi tala = 8 beats (4+2+2 here simplified as 4+4)
trikala (3 speeds)
“ta ka dhi mi” = 4, “ta ka ju nu” = 4

1st speed: one beat (kriya) = 1 syllable (jati) = 8 matra per avarta
2nd speed: one beat (kriya) = 2 syllables (jati) = 16 matra per avarta
3rd speed: one beat (kriya) = 4 syllables (jati) = 32 matra per avarta

Ata tala = 14 beats (5+5+2+2, here simplified as 2+3+2+3+4)
“khanda jati ata tala”
trikala (3 speeds)
“ta ka ta ki ta” = 5, “ta ka dhi mi” = 4

Source: Tāla Anubhava: Experiencing South Indian Rhythm
Concept and audio © T.R. Sundaresan & Ludwig Pesch

Keeping tala e.g. for Rupaka tala (3 counts): 2 claps followed by a wave; Adi tala (8 counts): a clap for the first beat (samam), followed by 3 finger counts starting from the small finger marks the first half; and a clap followed by a wave (twice) mark the second half; Ata tala (14 counts) differs as 4 fingers are used including the forefinger (twice), rather than 3 fingers (once) in Adi tala.
Art © Arun V.C.

Tips

  • Practice these gestures “silently” during a live recital or recording
  • Apply your practice while watching a video:
    – Basic hand gestures for Adi tala (8 beats) & Misra chapu tala (7 beats)
    – Precision tala keeping for the following drum and konakkol solo

More excercises: Practice four widely used Carnatic talas >>

Previous webinar

Find a copy of the Oxford Illustrated Companion to South Indian Classical Music

Food for thought

What’s the difference between Hindustani and Carnatic music?

Bharatanatyam
Historically, Bharatanatyam was mostly prevalent in Tamil Nadu, though traces of it were found in the 20th century in what are now Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Today it is taught and practised throughout the globe. The term ‘Bharatanatyam’ has been in existence at least from the 15th century but we do not know the compositions the dancers performed in the early years of Bharatanatyam. […] The repertoire added during the time of Tulaja and Serfoji II owes its credit to four brothers of Tanjavur who belonged to a traditional natyacharya family. They were Chinnayya, Ponnayya, Sivanandam and Vadivelu, the ‘Tanjavur Quartet’ we know.

Read the full article by Bharatanatyam music expert BM Sundaram: The Tanjavur Quartet: Margadarsis of Bharatanatyam (Sruti Magazine, courtesy dhvaniohio.org)

Tip: safe-search: Bharatanatyam Serfoji Tanjavur (modify the search terms for the present context) | More search tips >>

A lesson (thought experiment) inspired by Gandhi’s understanding of music

Mahatma Gandhi stamp set | Mahatma Gandhi and music >>

The challenge of going beyond a “narrow understanding of classical” music has long been debated among performers and musicologists; whether for the sake of creativity and self-expression or ideals like “serving society through music”, even harnessing the healing power of music where most needed.

So what about reconsidering all of this and more in the light of the following quote:

Mahatma Gandhi often said, ‘We shall consider music in a narrow sense to mean the ability to sing and play an instrument well, but, in its wider sense, true music is created only when life is attuned to a single tune and a single time beat. Music is born only where the strings of the heart are not out of tune.’

Arun VC >>

Let us, for a while, experience the joy of music in the light of a common ground, namely that of personal aspirations (like wanting to excel in a playful if not competitive spirit) and the quest for a shared “moral compass” Gandhi is known to have advocated all his life (what binds us together as responsible world citizens). 

This seems a thought experiment worth performing, so here are a few suggestions for teachers, students and lovers of Carnatic music willing to take up the challenge:

Set some time apart in order to (1) explore and grasp the deeper meaning of each of the words and concepts marked bold in the above quote, first from a musical point of view; (2) jot down your findings and thoughts; then (3) discuss them with your teachers, parents or peers; (4) all along keep asking them and yourself whether Gandhi’s intuitive, personal understanding of how music in general should play a role in our lives, while actively engaging with a music that’s time proven as well as meaningful in our modern, hectic lives and rapidly changing societies; (5) possibly being exactly that in the sense of “healing through music”; (6) prompted by Gandhi, consider any one (or all) of these ideas in terms of a “response”, considering the extraordinary stress and tension faced on a daily basis (caused by the multiple crises some of us have to cope with).

It’s up to you to explore all this and more in the spirit of free thinking (*) and – if you like – share your thoughts with me >>

(*) inspired by the BBC Free Thinking podcast about ideas shaping our lives today – with leading artists and thinkers in extended interview and debate >>

For Gandhi, music — whether it was a bhajan like Vaishnava Janato or a patriotic song like Vande Mataram — was a means of development of the “moral self” – Basav Biradar in The Hindu >>

More about the above person(s) and topics

Periodicals and sites included | More resources | Disclaimer >>

Learn & practice more

Audio |  Vidya Shankar on teaching Carnatic music to children

Vidya Shankar (1919-2010)
Photo © Ludwig Pesch
Listen to an interview with
Vidya Shankar on teaching Carnatic music to children
held at her Chennai home by Ludwig Pesch (24 February 2005)

Learn more >>

Learn & practice more

Oral transmission vs. notation in Carnatic music: Pondering the “original pathantaram-s of kriti-s” 

One of the debated topics in Carnatic music is the deviation by musicians from the so-called ‘original’ pathantaram of kriti-s. This article is not an attempt to provide a conclusive answer to end the debate but a constructive provocation and an invitation for opening up the topic for a wider debate. […]

While in matters of art and aesthetics no rule can be imposed on either the artists or their audiences, some relevant considerations in the matter appear to be: Is there incontrovertible proof in all such cases that the ‘versions’—which includes the raga, its arohanaavarohana, mela and musical phrasing—touted as the original or authentic are really the versions composed by their authors? In the case of modern composers there may not be any problem because most of them write them down in notation which, in spite of the inherent limitations of any notation to capture all the nuances of Carnatic music, provides at least a defence against wholesale distortion. In the case of composers who lived during an earlier era of entirely oral transmission of music, there would be real difficulty in ascertaining the authenticity beyond doubt. […]

Read this valuable essay and more on Sruti.com >>

Source: “‘Original’ pathantaram-s of kriti-s” by PK Doraiswamy, Sruti Magazine
URL: https://www.sruti.com/index.php?route=archives/article_details&artId=98
Date Visited: 3 March 2022

More about the above person(s) and topics

Periodicals and sites included | More resources | Disclaimer >>

A storm of songs: India and the idea of the bhakti movement

by John Stratton Hawley

Search this book in libraries near you:
Worldcat.org >>
  • Review by Vinay Lal (Professor of History & Asian American Studies, UCLA) in Canadian Journal of History: A Storm of Songs: India and the Idea of the Bhakti Movement by John Stratton Hawley: “The idea of a ‘‘bhakti movement’’ has long been one of the largely unexamined verities that have played a critical role in the idea of Indian civilization and, more specifically, the notion of a composite culture. Bhakti is usually rendered as ‘‘devotion,’’ and in the generally accepted narrative encountered in Indian histories and popular Indian opinion alike, a devotional movement originating in the Tamil country in the eighth century gradually made its way north and eventually engulfed the entire country. […] The fundamental achievement of John Stratton Hawley’s A Storm of Songs is to probe how the idea of a ‘‘bhakti movement’’ came about and what Indian scholars, inspired by nationalism, might have contributed in giving rise to a canonical narrative about bhakti’s place in shaping an Indian sensibility. […] Hawley has succeeded in gifting us an exceptional study of India’s much lauded bhakti movement.” – Read the full review on this author’s blog or here:
    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/315532465
  • Interview in The Hindu (January 10, 2016): “A Storm of Songs examines how devotional songs such as padams mingled with the abhangs, how the Dalit narrative and Sufi music found an outlet in creating the network called the Bhakti movement. In a conversation, he maps the mystical journey which knits India.” – Read the full interview here:
    https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/bhakti-challenges-communal-religion/article8086253.ece

“In this comprehensive book, Hawley traces the 20th-century history of the notion of the bhakti movement the idea that there was a significant, unified, pan-Indic turn to devotional religiosity in medieval India. The author argues that the invention and promotion of this idea was a key aspect of nation building in that it offered a narrative of Hindu unity despite the vast and disparate set of religious processes ranging over different vernacular languages, regions, and time periods.” – Learn more or find a copy in a library near you:
http://www.worldcat.org/title/storm-of-songs-india-and-the-idea-of-the-bhakti-movement/oclc/893099156

[Bold typeface added above for emphasis]

More about the above person(s) and topics

Periodicals and sites included | More resources | Disclaimer >>

“There is music of mind, of the senses and of the heart” – Mahatma Gandhi >>
Photo © Ludwig Pesch