Disclaimer: I know you will land on this blog expecting to learn something new and basic about Carnatic Music. But, today, I’m going to change course and pull you into an interesting topic.
Performance:
Performance, in itself is an art I would say. Performing what we know, or was taught, is not a big deal. How do we connect with the audience? That matters a lot. As long as you understand your audience, your performance will stand out.
Bharat Sundar, one of today’s prominent artists in the field of Carnatic Music, made me write this (not literally, rather inspired me to write). After listening to a one and half hour Pallavi concert in Mylapore Fine Arts a couple of days back, his music just urged me to give him an entire blog post. I’m taking his concert as an example to cruise you through the art of performance.
Todi’s Thaandav:
The pallavi “Thiruparam Thiruchandhur Pazhanimalai Muruga, Thiruveragam Thiruthanigai Pazhamudhircholai “ was set to the Raaga Todi. /S R1 G2 M1 P D1 N2 S \S N2 D1 P M1 G2 R1 S.
One might think, what’s much to sing in Todi? You have the set of notes, traverse front and back and you’re done. Nope! That’s not it. When the artist slides from S to R1, one can find how good the artist has understood Todi. Bharat is one such who quickly showed the essence of Todi and started building on top of it.
Elements of surprise:
When we’re watching a movie, what makes us feel a knot in our throat and glue us to the edge of our seats? Elements of surprise. In a horror movie, we don’t gasp when the ghost shows up in the start of the movie itself. If this happens, we’ll get used to the face of it right at the beginning, which dissolves the purpose of sitting throughout that horror movie. You lose the horror in that.
On the contrary, if the director builds the story strongly, wait for the moment, introduce a stunning silence and then jerk us all with the appearance of the ghost, target hit.
Well aware, Bharat drew the audience attention to him with the right build up. Him introducing the elements of surprise at the right moments gave us gitters. That made us all sit.
Handling the sangathis and sprinkling them in between the melodic segments at the right time was handled exceptionally by him. Oh! The best elements were Graha Bedham(A huge topic of discussion, but, in short, showing glimpses of another Raaga, in the raaga that’s being performed. In this case, Todi is the parent raaga). He effortlessly went on to glide down the raagas like Kalyani and Karaharapriya. Not too much not too less. Some of his experiments in the Pallavi made us even smile out of joy.
Beauty in disguise:
Let’s take a comedy show. The build up is done, the joke is cracked but the audience still did not connect. Where could the equation have gone wrong?
Modulation. It is the beauty in disguise. The build up of the story and the flow is not set right, if there is no modulation. If you don’t incorporate it, then its a failed communication of the actual emotions.
With his spectacular display of dynamics and modulation, Bharat held us all spell-bound. I was at the edge of my seat, eyes wide, ears full open, to not miss even a single beautification of the Todi he does. It received him so much applause from the crowd.
There needs to be some balance between the brighas and the dynamics. Too much of Brighas in a performance will compromise the beauty of a raaga. One can sure learn from Bharat’s concert as to how to strike this balance throughout the performance.
A strict thala tightness:
Pakka vaadhyams should be pakkaa vaadhyams in any concert. Especially, when a pallavi with such difficult patterns of thala is rendered, it is all the more important for the co-artists to be on the same page.
Let me tell you what kind of alertness is required for the entire team to perform this. When a group of singers attempt an entirely harmonized song, if one misses their part and touches a wrong note, the other set of people tumble and collapse.
Mapping it to Pallavi, every artist on stage should be alert on not missing the thala metre, while cruising through the pallavi. L. Ramakrishnan on the Violin, was just as amazing as Bharat. Oh, infact, some of his responses to Bharat’s phrases were exceptional that it got him unstoppable applause. Sumesh on the other hand, was spinning his magic with his wand- Mridhangam. It was as if he threw himself into the well of the pallavi’s thala that drove him right from within. And to equally respond to him was Chandrasekar Sharma on the Ghatam.
Stage presence:
Closing the eyes and singing on and on is going to make the audience feel left out. The singers interacting with their co-artists is another amazing sight. Bharat nods and Sumesh plays just as expected. Such was their interaction. Why is this important? With no coordination amongst the artists, the overall concert, will sound absolutely disconnected, how much ever good the performers were, individually.
As and when I’m writing this, I feel this urge to show off, to all who’s reading this and could not make it to the concert 😛
Listen and learn:
When you do not know Hindi and want to learn the language, how many ever spoken Hindi classes you go to, you can master it, only when you have a North Indian family in the neighbourhood, watch a lot of Hindi movies or you relocate to North India.
Whatever theory you learn, how many ever classes you go to, nothing like going to a concert and getting your minds enriched with a lot of learnings. Concerts like Bharat Sundar’s are must goes. Watch out for it and block your calendar the next time! 🙂
Carnatic Jam 