Despite the many alternatives available today, fortunately we still get to see the tambura player on stage. In fact, the first thing many musicians do after accepting a concert date is to book their preferred tambura player. As more musicians show a renewed interest in the instrument, the tambura is experiencing a resurgence. Paradoxically, though, the number of dedicated artistes playing it is declining. […]
[Eminent violinist] RK Shriramkumar laments the fact that one needs to refer to the instrument as an acoustic tambura to distinguish it from its electronic version. “It’s a tragedy that musicians have brought upon themselves by settling for electronic versions. Just as instrumentalists are expected to bring their own instruments to concerts, vocalists must be instructed to bring tamburas. Students should be encouraged to play the tambura for their gurus on stage to experience the constant give and take.”
Source: “The tambura is back. But where are the players?” by Lakshmi Anand in The Hindu 2 December 2021
CHENNAI: We are aware that the ultimate aim of every composer and musician is to achieve the coalescence, the essential factors of classical music namely bhava, raga and tala. We know bhava literally means, expression, the expression of existence. In a composition, bhava encompasses the aspects rasa, raga and laya and for a musical composition to be meaningful and beautiful, it should be rich in bhava. In short, bhava is that which enables the transmission of experience of thoughts and emotions from the composer to the musician and from the musician to the listeners. We understand that bhava has to be experienced by every individual, in a personal and subjective manner and devotion is the pre-dominating aspect depicted in a musical composition. I am sure it would be of immense value to study the aspects of bhava, expressed by the musical trinity Thyagaraja, Dikshitar and Syama Sastri, who were contemporaries in the 18th century. […]
Source: “Efficacy of Bhava — An Evaluation” by by Narayana Vishwanath, The New Indian Express (21st September 2015) >>
In this part, I quote from my recording with S. Rajam on T.N. Rajarathinam Pillai, done in early 2007 [brief excerpts]
“Carnatic music grew because of the nagaswaram. Our art originated in the temples — especially, dance and nagaswaram. During the daily three-time worship at temples, the nagaswaram would be played all the times.
Mallari played by Sheik Mahaboob Subhani & Kalisha Bee Mahaboob
With the disintegration of feudalism, Carnatic music, once confined to the precincts of temples and royal durbar halls, stepped out and started filling concert halls. While some music forms such as Mallari, inextricably linked with the rituals of temples and festivals, are still in vogue, others such as Odam, Yecharikkai and Odakkuru have more or less disappeared. […]
Yecharikkai is also played in Vishnu temples when the deity is taken inside the sanctorum after the procession. In earlier times, the devadasis of the temple would perform the ritual of warding off the evil eye after which the nagaswaram player would play this musical form.
“Yecharikkai is played in Saveri set to tisra nadai,” said Mr. Subramaniam. Mr. Chinnathambia Pillai said it could also be played in Yadukula Kambhoji and Ahiri. […]
But in many temples, these rituals are no longer followed,” said Mr. Subramaniam.
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. […]
Interview with filmmaker Beeban Kidron, plus exclusive clips from her new film. Sex, Death and the Gods explores the complex world of India’s devadasi, girls devoted to a goddess and then sold for sex at puberty | Lindsay Poulton and Joanna Moorhead, theguardian.com, 21 January 2011 >>
Documentary maker Beeban Kidron (4:49): “They [the devadasis themselves] know what an education means. And what an education means is a possible way out. Not necessarily a way out but a possibility that you could earn your money some other way. […] This is about economics. This is about poverty. This is about not having alternatives.” […]
Girl taken out of school at a young age by her mother (5:30 onwards): “It’s been two years. […] No money in our hands, so I don’t go [to school].”
Beeban Kidron (7:27): “One of the things that is fascinating but complicates the whole issue is that there is more than one form of being a devadasi. I think what is important is to know and to understand that the elite devadasi are actually the grandmothers of Indian national dance bharata natyam in the elite world of temple and court. These women were the lovers of princes and priests and other high caste men. And it was a huge privilege and a sign of social mobility to be a devadasi. But there has obviously been a break in the tradition and it was made illegal in 1947 as the British left India. […] We have to be careful how we view things. And that was the journey for me. […] That system of dedicating young girls is abusive, is sex slavery, and so on. It’s paradoxical, you have to raise the age of consent, you have to work with the women, you have to help them educate their daughters, you have to help with the alternative.”
Read a recent interview with Beeban Kidron in The New York Times, on protecting children online
The Baroness Fighting to Protect Children Online By Natasha Singer, August 27, 2019
Beeban Kidron has successfully pushed stricter limits on how tech companies can target children online in Britain. […]
A member of the House of Lords, she had just flown in from London to attend an international meeting hosted by the social network. And now, in a hotel thronging with tech executives, she was recounting her plan to overhaul how their companies treat children. […] Read the full interview here >>
More (documentary) films by Director, Producer and writer Beeban Kidron on imdb.com >>
Learn more about the devadasis throughout (known) history in Music, Dance and the Art of Seduction
Chapters by Joep Bor (pp. 233), “On the dancers or Devadasis: Jacob Haafner’s Account of the Eighteenth-Century Indian Temple Dancers” and Tiziana Leucci (pp. 261), “Between Seduction and Redemption – The European Perception of India’s Temple Dancers in Travel Accounts and Stage Productions from the Thirteenth to the Nineteenth Century”
Find out more about the persons and subjects covered above
