Music And Movies

I n this part, I will point you to some of MS's iconic neravals, which I am sure you will all enjoy. All the attributes I had mentioned in the earlier parts of this series about MS's neraval are present in each of these. The breath control, vocal consistency across the range, vocal dynamics, creating tension and resolving it, clear enunciation of words, gripping phrasing and above all, the bhathi bava that she injects into each one of these neravals. 1. We start with the most famous of MS's neravals. 'sama gana vinodhini', the charanam of 'Sarojadala Netri,' the Syama Sastry krithi in Shankarabaranam raga. The kriti rendition, featuring neraval and tani, took the roof down during her UN Concert.  (This link starts from the neraval. To hear the whole ragam and krithi, search for Part 1.) Her voice is in great form, and she effortlessly traverses the higher reaches.  The neraval has left such an indelible mark on the psyche of listeners that few artists take o...

As with people, ragas have their own individuality. Some of the ragas are tradition bound whereas some others are very versatile, adapting themselves to various styles. I will talk about a couple of ragas which exemplify versatility. Kalyani is the only raga from the 'grand' ragas of Carnatic music which has this versatility. The 'grand' ragas that I am referring to are Todi, Sankarabaranam, Kalyani, Kambhoji and Bhairavi, the famous five. Some people may take up the case of Sankarabaranam since it is one the major scales in Western music as well. In cases like Sankarabaranam, the identity of Sankarabaranam changes so much that we are not able to recognize it as Sankarabaranam!!! To take away the carnatic flavour from a ragam like Todi and give a 'lighter' touch is a very difficult thing. I remember reading a review of U.Srinivas's concert by noted Hindu critic N M Narayanan (NMN). In the review he says that U.Srinivas tried his best to break Todi from its c...