Music And Movies

Everything turns a bit more interesting if you have some imagination. This would apply perfectly to Indian Classical Music, where imagination is key to enjoyment. In case of some singers, you enjoy their imagination and innovation. In case of some other singers, you have to just imagine that you are enjoying their singing !! Any which way you look at it,imagination cannot be divorced from Indian Classical Music. As was promised in the last post on the subject of Ragamalikas, we will discuss about Ragamalikas in 'kalpana sangeetham'. According to Carnatic music purists, the piece-de-resistance of Carnatic music is the Ragam-Thanam-Pallavi. As can be expected in a fast moving world, this has now been christened RTP. We find that Ragamalikas exists in all three arms of RTP, namely, Ragam, Thanam and Pallavi. Now, singing Ragamalikas while elaborating a ragam would be frowned upon, and rightly so. But if you are going to take up a ragamalika pallavi such an exercise in raga alap...

The ragamalika in carnatic music post that I wrote had quite a few people talking to me and giving their feedback. The feedback was good so I thought I will follow up my own post with some more details. My good friend of mine told me that the article did not feature Dikshitar Ashtotra shata raaga taala malika . It features 108 raagas . I had known about this mammoth composition of Dikshitar but I have never heard it. So I did not put it in the article. He also mentioned about the Dasavathara Ragamalika of Swathi Tirunal , ' kamalajasya '. He mentioned that M D Ramanathan has sung this. I have heard this only once and that is why this did not occur to me when composing my post. Another good friend Shaila had replied to me asking me on why the ragamalikas of Purandaradasa were not mentioned. She mentioned krithis like ' devaki nandana ', ' rama rama ' etc. Honestly my knowledge on Purandaradasa's compositions is weak. From what I gather, ma...