Music And Movies

Long back, when the announcer on the radio said that Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer would be singer, my mother urged me to listen to him. "Hear the way he sings kalpanaswaras ", she said. That was the first time I heard him. I still remember clearly the first concert of T N Seshagopalan and Maharajapuram Santhanam that I attended. I remember watching Bombay Jayashree for the first time on TV and telling my mother, "She sings well." I remember the first time I heard most of the artists, be it MDR , be it KVN or Musiri . But I don't remember when you entered my musical conscience. I don't remember the first time I heard you. I don't remember when you became my favorite. But you had!! Unknown to me, like a gentle breeze that is all pervasive, you had entered my heart. In my journey as a listener, I had many idols in my younger days. As my journey progressed, I had to leave many of them behind. Somewhere along this journey, you had entered and stayed firm...

Nothing like adding a bit of color to pep up proceedings. And if the colors keep changing constantly, you can be assured of audience participation. Ragamalikas perform this function in many of the modern day concerts. As with any classification, we can have different types of classification for ragamalikas. I will categorize them as two and deal with it in two parts. The first type of ragamalikas are the composed ragamalikas. The second type is the one which happens in 'kalpana sangeetham'. We will start with the ragamalikas which are pre-composed. To start right at the beginning, we have the Navaragamalika varnam. As the name indicates the varnam is made up of nine ragas. There is a rendition of this by Trivandrum R S Mani, which is available commercially. I haven't heard any other ragamalika varnam as such and I am not sure if more ragamalika varnams exist. Hear MDR sing this Patnam Subramanya Iyer varnam in his inimitable style. One area where ragamalika comes to the res...