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“Sampradaya is like a broad river and the bani is a tributary”: Umayalpuram Sivaraman on his 75 years of performance >>
Category archives: Transmission
Video | Carnatic Wave: A journey into the Karaikudi tradition
Carnatic Wave is an aural journey into the Karaikudi Veena tradition, a centuries old practice of Southern Indian classical music being carried on by a group of musicians in Portland, Oregon. This short documentary offers a glimpse into their world of Carnatic music, highlighting the importance and challenge of teaching traditional art forms in our modern society. – Documentary maker David Van Auken
- Website: www.karaikudivoyage.us >>
- Karaikudi Voyage App >>
- Video and more >>
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“Sampradaya is like a broad river and the bani is a tributary”: Umayalpuram Sivaraman on his 75 years of performance >>
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Audio | What Makes Indian Music Unique – Kennedy Center Education
To listen to the educational resources shown below, click here >>
Source: Music of India, An exploration of Indian music
URL: https://www.kennedy-center.org/education/resources-for-educators/classroom-resources/media-and-interactives/media/international/music-of-india/
Date visited: 2 August 2021
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“Sampradaya is like a broad river and the bani is a tributary”: Umayalpuram Sivaraman on his 75 years of performance >>
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Vidyaamagna: webinar & online lessons
- Register at The Bhavan (London)
- Listen to BBC podcast on Tanjavurs’s cultural legacy by Prof. Sunil Khilnani: Rajaraja Chola: Cults of the Imagination | Read his book Chapter “Rajaraja Chola: Cosmos, Temple and Territory” in Incarnations: India in 50 Lives
- Introduction for CarnaticStudent.org
- Suggested reading on South Indian music, dance and history
- Publications, book chapters and articles by Ludwig Pesch
Find a copy of the Oxford Illustrated Companion to South Indian Classical Music
- on the publisher’s website: Oxford University Press
- in a library near you via WorldCat.org
- from one of several Indian distributors and online bookstores
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 | More search tips >>
(add other search terms in the present context)
Perceptions of “Guru” now and then
A teacher teaches music – the curriculum, the techniques, the methods and so on, but a Guru teaches how to approach music: how to understand it, how to internalize it and how to enjoy it. […]
Music is a lifelong pursuit and its emotions start sinking into you with more internal growth of the self (for which the Guru is an enabler). At a certain phase in this pursuit, you become your own Guru.
Vasudevan Ram in Learning Music – A Guru Is More Than A Teacher >>
The word ‘Guru’ in the Indian context of learning places the person on par with or even higher than God.
Pantula Rama paying tribute to her violin guru Ivaturi Vijayeswara Rao of the Dwaram tradition in “Architect of Vizag’s music scenario” (The Hindu, 19 February 2013)
Note: gurukulavāsam refers to the practice of living as member of a teacher’s household >>
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Why Carnatic Music Matters More Than Ever
by Ludwig Pesch
For this musicologist and author, there are good reasons to believe that Carnatic music matters, perhaps more than ever and almost anywhere in the world. So why not perform and teach it in the service of better education for all, for ecological awareness or in order to promote mutual respect in spite of all our differences? And in the process, get “invigorated and better equipped to tackle the larger issues at hand”.
Published by Shankar Ramchandran on behalf of Dhvani Ohio | Read or download the full article (PDF, 800 KB, updated 19 June 2021):
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License
Related post: A brief introduction to Carnatic music >>
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Video | The idea of classifying ragas – Akshara & Kiranavali Vidyasankar
Akshara Samskriti is the daughter of Carnatic musician Kiranavali and scientist-philosopher, Vidyasankar Sundaresan. This video was recorded on Nov 1, 2013, when Akshara was 4 years old. It was originally in multiple parts for educational video compilation, and has been put together as a single video here.
The 72 Melakartas are regarded as the parent scales in Carnatic music and serve the purpose of grouping similar sounding ragas/scales in the same category. It also helps create new scales which can then potentially evolve into full-bodied ragas.
The idea of classifying ragas that sound similar has existed over many centuries and were taken to a more definitive stage by 17th century musicologist Venkatamakhin. It was fine tuned further by Govinda to its present and more popular form. Nevertheless, the Melas propounded by Venkatamakhin continue to stay in vogue primarily through the compositions of well-known Carnatic composer, Muttuswami Dikshitar.
More on and from Kiranavali Vidyasankar: www.kiranavali.net >>
The world of sound is a tiny bubble in the silence of the infinite. The universe has its own language of gesture; it talks in the voice of pictures and dance. Every object in the world proclaims in the dumb signal of lines and colours, the fact that it is not a mere logical abstraction or a mere thing of use, but it is unique in itself, it carries the miracle of its existence.–Rabindranath Tagore quoted by Dinkar Kowshik in
Doodled Fancy, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan 1999, p. 8
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“Sampradaya is like a broad river and the bani is a tributary”: Umayalpuram Sivaraman on his 75 years of performance >>
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There really is no such thing as a ‘learner’ raga
Gouri Dange, The Hindu, 11 May 2019 | Read the full article here >>
Every kind of music has a protocol for ‘beginners’ or ‘learners’. Students must practise paltay, alankaras, scales, études, tonalisation exercises, depending on the kind of music they pursue. […]
However, here’s the rub: for many learners, these ‘early’ ragas get translated in the mind as something very basic, or ‘shikau’, with a novice ring to them. They are seen, most misguidedly, as mundane, without the strut and stature of the ‘larger and later’ ragas that are taught after you are deemed fit to learn them. […]
It is surely a disservice to a raga and to those who lift it to its best potential, and even more so a disservice to the young student, to allow the mental stamping of some ragas as ‘learner material’. […]
The novelist, counsellor and music lover takes readers on a ramble through the Alladin’s cave of Indian music.
https://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/music/column-can-there-really-be-such-a-thing-as-a-learner-raga/article27093490.ece
Purandara Dasa (1484-1564), a prolific poet-composer and mystic of Vijayanagar, introduced a music course that is followed to the present day. Since the 17th century, hundreds of ragas (melody types) have been distributed among 72 melakarta ragas (scales).
Learn more here:
Unity in Diversity, Antiquity in Contemporary Practice? South Indian Music Reconsidered
“Unity in Diversity, Antiquity in Contemporary Practice? South Indian Music Reconsidered” by Ludwig Pesch (Amsterdam) in Music – Politics – Identity published by Goettingen University
Music always mirrors and acts as a focal point for social paradigms and discourses surrounding political and national identity. The essays in this volume combine contributions on historical and present-day questions about the relationship between politics and musical creativity. The first part concentrates on musical identity and political reality, discussing ideological values in musical discourses. The second part deals with (musical) constructions, drwawing on diverse national connections within our own and foreign identity. – Matthew Gardner & Hanna Walsdorf (eds.)
To read or download (free), click here: South-Indian-Music-Reconsidered-Ludwig-Pesch-Goettingen-2016-print
A storm of songs: India and the idea of the bhakti movement
by John Stratton Hawley
- 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.”
http://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.” – Read more and check for availability in a library near you:
http://www.worldcat.org/title/storm-of-songs-india-and-the-idea-of-the-bhakti-movement/oclc/893099156 - Custom search for related press reports and interviews: https://www.carnaticstudent.org/service/google-custom-search-carnaticstudent-org