Music - The Universal Language?
Last Saturday I was watching a program on Vijay TV called 'Coffee with Anu' in which Kadri Gopalnath and T H Vinayakaram participated. During the discussion Anu made the comment, "After all music is an universal language". All of us would have heard this many times that music transcends boundaries and music unites people etc etc. This got me thinking and I am putting my thoughts here which may run contrary to what many people say.
At one level, the popular one, music does transcend boundaries. A case in point is the Western Pop genre, which has a wide following across the world. Almost everyone across the globe knows about Michael Jackson, has heard or heard of Spice Girls, Bruce Springsteen, Mariah Carey, Elvis, Elton John and many others. You can see the impact of the pop music on almost all nations. In Japan you have many pop groups, Thailand has them, India has them, Singapore has them and many other countries have pop / rock bands as well. (As in India, you will also hear criticism about the purity of their national music being destroyed by such western influences). Rock music also has a decent following in many nations but its popularity is a notch lower than that of pop music. Maybe the easy and catchy rhythm of pop music is the key to its success. In Indian film music itself you find that A R Rahman's western pop beats inspired music is easily accepted all across the country. Seeing all these examples we can probably come to a conclusion that music is indeed an universal language. But then music is just not western pop music and there are many genres. If you start digging deep you suddenly encounter many problems.
If you were to go deep into South India, maybe to some place like Nagerkoil, and ask a writer who writes in a 'small' literary magazine, as to whom he considers as the greatest writer in the world, you can expect to get answers such as Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Marquez etc. If you were to ask a painter in India about great painters of the world, you will hear names like Picasso, Cezanne, Monet, Rembrandt, Van Gogh. An Indian sculptor would talk about Degas, Moore and others. The same goes for movies as well. Many directors will tell you about the movies of Bergman, Kurosawa, Eisenstein and Fellini. The same is with the fans of these art forms. All of them have a common benchmark against which they measure the art and the benchmark is generally global.
Now comes the interesting part. If you were to ask a carnatic musician or a carnatic music fan about whom they consider as the best singer / instrumentalist the answer will be an artist within the same musical form, i.e. a Carnatic musician. If you were to check about their opinion on who is the great composer the debate would most probably be between Tyagaraja and Dikshitar. The same would apply to a Hindustani musician or a fan of Hindustani music. It will not be very different for someone who loves Western Classical music either. In all these muscial forms, the benchmarks to measure the art lies locally, i.e., within the art form itself. So when you ask whose voice he/she would consider as an ideal voice, most Carnatic music fans will allude to the voice of M.S. or Balamuralikrishna. They will not try to compare these voice with the voices in Hindustani music or voices of those who sing operas. No westerner is worried about Tyagaraja or Tansen and they believe Beethoven, Bach and Mozart to be the greatest composers the world has ever produced. The current crop of musicians are well traveled and have a better idea of world music compared to earlier days when the musicians were only immersed in their own musical form and had no ear for other forms of music. (As with all generalization this is also not 100% true but the fact remains that majority of the older generation didnt care about other forms of music, especially foreign ones).
Given that the awareness of other musical forms itself is low, it is no wonder that the influence of these musical forms on each other is very less and in some case not present at all. This is not true with other art forms. When Marquez writes about musical realism it has an echo on the writing of the Tamil writer Konangi. Kurasowa's samurai movies inspire the American Westerns and as recent as last year we have Martin Scorsese remaking the Hong Kong film, 'Internal Affairs' as 'Departed'. Poets, Painters, Sculptures, Photographers, Cinematographers and others get inspired by works which cut across cultural and geographical boundaries. Any serious practitioner of these art forms is generally aware of what is happening across the world and the influence of others on his/her art is for all to see.
Musical forms like Carnatic, Hindustani, Western Classical and probably the traditional music of various countries are self contained and dont take in too much of external influences. The aesthetics are well defined, even if they are not written down and any innovation has to happen within certain accepted parameters. So you have Hindustani music taking ragas like Keeravani and Hamsadhwani and integrating them within the Hindustani system and giving them the 'Hindustani' touch. Similarly Carnatic music has taken ragas like 'Hamir Kalyani', 'Yamuna Kalyani', 'Bageshree' and others from Hindustani music and integrated them into the Carnatic system. (You should hear Brinda singing the 'Hamir Kalyani' krithi 'Venkata Saila Vihara' to know how carnatic the ragam has become.) Given the strict aesthetics and grammar of these systems it is no wonder that external forces find it difficult to break through. The musical form doesn't remain stagnant but evolves from within. It doesn't need an external influence to move it forward. Whether it was the Muthiah Bhagavatar coming up with new ragas or Koteeswara Iyer composing in all the melakartas, the javalis that came up during the early part of 20th century, the ragamalikas which have become famous now, all carry the carnatic music stamp. (The exceptions are the bhajans and abhangs which are sung towards the end of the concerts).
Given that each musical form has its own aesthetics, it is very difficult to have a common benchmark to measure the quality of artistry on a global level. In other art forms, though not stated or defined, there seem to exist a global benchmark which tells us which artist is a superior one. The lack of a global benchmark in music is because you need an understanding of that particular musical form in order to appreciate it. (If you were to just take a common parameter like voice culture you will find that lot of the great names in carnatic music not making the cut.)
Asking the question in a different way, is it necessary for a musician in one system to know about other musical systems? Will it help him in his art? The answer in many cases is a 'NO'. I am sure Mallikarjun Mansur's 'Gowd Malhar' or Semmangudi's 'Sreeramam' wouldnt have sounded any better had they been aware of Western Classical music. Infact many would say that these pieces of Mansur and Semmangudi sound so good and are classics because the artist in question just concentrated on his own musical form and didnt worry about other musical forms!! This aspect upsets many people who want the musicians to be broad minded and take in external influences. I heard one interview of Guitar Prasanna, wherein he was complaining that Carnatic musicians think that carnatic music is a complete system and dont want want to listen to anything else. While acknowledging that carnatic music was a complete system in itself he said it wouldnt do any harm to try and take in some external influences. The 'purists' insists that it not need be the case and that external influences will only 'dilute' the classicism of carnatic music (Who constitute 'purist' and what constitutes 'dilution' are debateable). There are bound to be similar debates raging in Hindustani music as well. (It will be germane here to relate an incident. GNB was a known lover of Hindustani music and a great fan of Bade Gulam Ali Khan. T N Rajaratnam Pillai, the Emperor of Nadaswaram, told GNB that though he tried to listen to Hindustani music he still couldnt appreciate it. GNB replied saying that TNR was a diamond as far as carnatic music was concerned and it was OK if he were to just listen and play carnatic music)
The paradox is that art forms like novels and movies talk about local subjects and local problems and they become universal. Marquez talks about Chile and West Indies and the whole world celebrates him. Ozu's 'Tokyo Story' talks about a family in Japan and the whole wide world sheds a tear. In case of musical forms like Carnatic or Hindustani, they take something universal: sound, put some restrictions (in the form of arohana / avarohana, the gamakas it can take etc) on it and voila, it's no longer universal !! I am ofcourse simplifying it in order to highlight the paradox here. An universal property like sound become localized while a local story become global. Many people have written about how music is very culture specific and lot of people are involved in research on this aspect of music. Music is more abstract compared to other arts but the way sound is abstracted has got to do with the specific culture and that also leads to how music is appreciated by that culture. A friend of mine sang a wonderful bit of Bhairavi and told me that if people who don't know Carnatic music were to listen to him they would feel he was singing apaswarams. This was because of the gamakas that he had to impart on the swaras to get the swaroopam of Bhairavi!!!
Compared to many other art forms, music doesn't transcend boundaries so easily as people would want us to believe. So when you hear someone say, "Music has no boundaries", take it with a pinch of salt.
Comments
But composers can still make it transcend boundaries right. Ilaiyaraaja can still prove this viewpoint wrong, by playing his Hamsadhwani improvisation of a Bach piece in the album 'How to Name it'.The notes were already set in Hamsadhwani scale but the manner of playing it brought the difference. Which means, the note were already transcendental, but they assumed different shapes only when Bach and IR localized it to their respective ethnic forms.So, Can we call it as reverse-transcendance?
Another thought which got triggered was the kind of acceptance levels which global musicians have, towards all forms of music, compared to Indians. I mean,in the west, a 'purist'-violinist might treat Mozart as God but at the same time might also appreciate Sting or Jethro-Tull or any rock music and might even try to play a popular rock song in some concert/performance.
Indian musicians, or 'purists' are less embracing about other forms, i think. How come? the level of 'purism' or say, the conviction with which they hold their own 'school' might be of equal magnitude for both, a purist here and a purist there. Still, they enjoy everything while our musicians might not do that, for some reason. I am not criticizing, but just probing into the reason.
Ofcourse, as generations progress, we have newer artists collaborating and appreciating even western forms of music.
But whatever, it was a wonderful article.
and btw,ARR's pop sounds might have found national acceptance, but i think his music is not just all pop.To be fair enough,some of his scores are indeed outstanding.Thats my take anyways,despite me being an ardent admirer of Ilaiyaraaja or for that matter ardent admirer of any good music, by anyone.
Thanks for your views.
To some extent even in music here things like what you say about the western world is happening. In the sense that Bombay Jayashree, Nityashree or Sudha is not averse to singing a 'pure' film song. In earlier days when MLV and DKP were singing, the songs had more carnatic touch to it and both of them gave up film singing after some time. Same with MS.
Music keeps evolving and we are bound to see more collaborations in the future.
My idea was not to call Rahman a 'pop' composer. Sorry if that was conveyed. I too like good music wherever it comes from. What I meant is that his songs which had more of the 'pop' elements, catchy loops, electronic music etc, were more easily accepted. Say a "Hamma Hamma" and "Muquala Muqabula" were more easily transposed to Hindi than say an "Azhagana Rakshasiye" or "Minsara Kanna". I feel even the Slumdog Millionaire's scores success is because of using Indian music within the more accepted (in the west) pop framework. (Again I don't mean pop in a bad sense). It is a good combination of familiarity with a bit of exotica for the western audience.
i am looking forward to some good collaborations, between our musicians and say Hindustani or western etc. This is the reason, i so have some ear for fusion music (where fusion music DOES NOT mean playing an indian instrument and overlaying it on synth beats. It is absolutely disheartening that people have lost the meaning of fusion now-a-days. even skilled instrumentalists like Rajesh Vaidya are misleading peopl, by stacking dozens of albums on music stands..albums which just have a veena and synth beats).
Reg Rahman's pop sounds,his music outlook has been different and his upbringing, environment, influences, inspirations,collaborations, fascinations, all collectively shaped his school of thought.As you said, people associate his music to more of pop sounds.Personally, i prefer most of the genres he covers except those fast-paced 'Muqablas' etc.More particularly,i like slow-paced ones or period film songs and very few of the groovy songs and ofcourse, some differently experimental ones like 'Dil Gira Hai Dafatan'(a very different composition for the odd metred lyrics it has got).