Music And Movies

In this article, we will again look at a grand krithi replete with challenging sangathis and an innumerable number of them.  Just like 'O Rangasayee' that we heard in the last part, this song too is built brick by brick, sangathi by sangathi, and slowly revealing the grandeur of one of Carnatic music's majestic ragas: the mighty Todi. We must observe that the sangatis, especially in the anupallavi, can enthuse the musicians to such an extent that they would go over the top, and sometimes the music tends towards cacophony, with the violinist, mridangist and if present, the upa paaka vadhiyam like ghatam or kanjeera joining the din. Given the structure of the sangatis, which demand a lot from your voice and are crowd-pleasing in their construction, it is no wonder we get to hear some excess in this krithi.  In this rendition of MS, we hear more than just the voice control and precision we seek from her; we also hear her aesthetic decisions. There is a sense of quietude even i...

  In this series of articles, the regularity of which I cannot guarantee, I wish to try to present some great krithis sung by MS, as well as the neravals done by her and give my opinions of these aspects of her music. I say 'opinions' and not 'analyze' because analysing implies that I am an expert and understand the technicalities of music, which is not the case. So, whenever there is a need for a technical analysis, I borrow the thoughts of my friends who are well-versed in music. My approach will be that of a rasika, may I dare say a 'serious' rasika, for I shall not highlight the oft-heard and loved by all pieces of MS and concentrate on pieces where I think she had done a great job and that needs to be heard and appreciated by more people. I kickstart this series with a mammoth krithi of Veena Kuppier, 'koniyadina napai,' in Khambhoji. This is a grand krithi, where sangathi follows sangathi in building a grand edifice. Long back, I attended a concert...

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...