I have always wondered if there is a well-developed theory of aesthetics in CM. All Indian classical dance theory claims allegiance to Bharata's navarasa theory of the nine "rasas" or emotions. Is there a similar theory for CM? In some places I have heard musicians also refer to the navarasa theory for music but only in a vague sense. To put the question more concretely, is there a theory that discusses the need or ability to project different kinds of emotions in CM and is such a theory followed in practice? For example, in some old books such as Subba Rao's Raganidhi there is mention of the emotions that certain CM ragas are suited for but I cannot find evidence that composers or performers pay much attention to these suggestions, except for the rare case.

-Then Paanan

I think you have brought up a very interesting topic, thenpaanan,

There is a need for an organised and well-articulated discourse about aesthetics in carnatic music.

It may help to borrow principles and terminology from the critical theories used in the appraisal and interpretation of classical arts like literature, western classical music, art and architecture.

I believe some material may be found in the Indian treatises that concern themselves with cognition-perception-experience/awareness/aesthetics and memory; like say the pratyabhignya school of kaishmiri shaivism.

People who study music or musicology in Universities abroad, have a very useful course called Music appreciation; which probably covers the principles of music and music analysis/ interpretation.

Keerthi,

I hope to be able to connect you with one of my friends in Bangalore who has worked on this aspect.

Also, I have attended a lec-dem by Sri. Karaikudi Subramaniam (of Brhadhwani organization) about 2 - 3 years back here in Detroit when he addressed the same topic. Hopefully, I still have some notes from that event. I will let you know.

Sreeni Rajarao

Regarding aesthetics of music ( rasa ), film music directors are quite an expert at this when they score the background music for the scenes. The sound that accompanies a scene needs to be an appropriate one. Since the scenes depict a whole variety of human emotions ( an order of magnitude more than what most lyrical classical compositions capture ), we can relate directly to what kind of music ( ragas being a subset of them ) goes with what human emotions and interactions. Granted, a good bunch of them are trite and tripe, but there is so much out there over the period of 70+ years ( even longer if you include movies from the west ) that even a small subset provides a wealth of information.

There is also immense research potential to contrast how different cultures perceive this music to rasa association by looking at that background music of films from various countries. It looks like there are some globally applicable mappings of music to rasa. Most people will relate to sad music or happy music no matter what film they are watching ( Hollywood, Indian, French, Thai....), and then a lot that are very culturally specific. With in India, no matter what language, we probably share a bigger set of such mappings which a westerner may not immediately relate to.

Among modern popular music directors, Ilayaraja in India and John Williams in the west had done a lot to set the bar high for such aesthetics. At subtler levels, Malayalam film background score has a wealth of info that is more rooted in ragas. Ilayaraja's immense contribution is in his folkish and classical combined idioms and come up with some unique musical expressions to correspond to human experiences. Next time you watch a Ilayaraja movie or a good malayalam movie, pay specific attention to the background music.

Also, we should not forget layam. The rhythm carries a bulk load of the rasa. That is an entirely another dimensions to the full rasa picture.

As Keerti has mentioned the ancient Indian treatises articulate aesthetics eg Bharata's Natyasastra.

Rasa theory has carried forward from these into dance and Hindustani music but, whilst prevalent, is not closely observed in Carnatic music. Rasa can be deifined via its culinary origins as taste or flavour and in music, this equates to the flavour or mood that a particular raga generates.

However, as far as aesthetics is concerned, other aspects come into play such as bhakti, bhAvam, sukham, etc. Some of these are very hard to quantify or rate.

Also, the gauge of what is aesthetic is constantly changing as audiences change and indeed the world changes. What was considered as aesthetic 50 years ago may not be the considered so today.

The essentials of aesthetics in Indian classical music (Hindustani or Carnatic) are the same. Less followed in Carnatic music because of the preoccupation with religious themes, as well as the modern tendency for using a large number of "new ragas" or "rare ragas" of dubious aesthetic value. But the core Carnatic ragas are aesthetically strong. Some practical differences exist - for example, Hindustani ragas tend to be more emotion-specific, whereas core Carnatic ragas tend to express different types of emotions within the same raga. If one is interested in putting Carnatic music on a firmer aesthetic foundation, it is best - in my opinion - to merge naturally with the aesthetics of Hindustani music and create a more unified Indian classical music. In unity there is strength.

SR

I can't agree with this. Aesthetics are subjective and one's aesthetic sense is built through prior listening and perception. Some people can't appreciate rare or new ragas because they are not familiar with them, not because they do not contain aesthetic value.

I was not making a blanket statement on all "new" ragas. Each has to be looked at individually. Agreed shravana-manana-nididhyasana is a must before making statements like "dubious aesthetic value".

Aesthetics is not purely subjective - otherwise an aesthetic framework/theory is not possible. Even in the Sangitaratnakara of Sharangadeva (Chapter 2, Section 2) there is a clear (though elementary) attempt to define ragas not only by "scale" but also by the embellishments/"grammatical rules"/phrases that characterize them. The Sangitaratnakara also states the main rasas conveyed by the raga. Of course, there is no discussion as to *why* a particular raga triggers a particular rasa. That is the subjective part based on continued listening and perception which ultimately results in accepted tradition. These values of the Sangitaratnakara have been developed very intricately in Hindustani music over the centuries, and also exist in the core ragas of Carnatic music.

The Brhaddesi of Matanga is also an important work that perhaps gives a clue as to how old ragas have emerged - through folk music and other similar sources which emphasize creation of music driven by emotions. At other times, ragas have been "created" in a more intellectual way and done very well.

One must take some of the so-called "rare ragas" and look at them in the context of these values - perhaps answers will emerge regarding what value they add with respect to what is already existing. That effort has to be made. In Hindustani music the number of actual ragas in use is much more limited than in Carnatic - the need is not felt to maintain a high "raga-diversity" for its own sake. I am sure musicians and scholars in all of India have been tinkering with "new" ragas for centuries, so there is likely a good reason why "rare" ragas remain rare.

SR

I agree that not all 'invented/discovered' ragas need to make the cut. Each has to be looked at individually and the sieve has to be quite small.



Implication noted. Consider this possibility, at least for some of them. There is a "long tail" in the histogram for anything when large numbers are considered and some of these rare ragams may belong there. That does not mean they inherently are poor at something, it is just that it appeals to a relatively small number of people. Just as until the past decade, advertising to the long-tail section of the population was not economically feasible until internet advertising came about, a similar dynamic exists for most things that are stuck in that long-tail portion of the curve. There is the usual boot-strapping problem. In CM, compositions of great vaggeyakaras have provided the necessary boot-strap mechanism for some ragas.

No doubt, this is a valid possibility. I guess what I am saying (and I am not the first to say it by any means) is that there is a rich field of aesthetically refined ragas already existing in India due to the efforts of both our classical music systems - and only a minority of them have been treated in detail in the Carnatic system (and similarly, only few Carnatic ragas have been treated in Hindustani). So it seems that a productive path will result from accessing and incorporating these ragas in both systems. Doing so will also require, and result in, a deeper integration of the two music systems so that it will become unnecessary to differentiate them at a fundamental level. This will perhaps serve a higher purpose than taking the "new/rare ragas" path.

It is not as if these "rare" ragas will be somehow "erased". They are still out there and available for development - and as you said, if someone successfully bootstraps some of them, then all the better. The "theory of aesthetics" inquired after by the original poster can provide the guidelines for doing this, and is more strongly developed in HM. But after 3 millenia of development of Indian classical music, the window is rather narrow. I believe the most important things we can do at this time are: (1) increase the thematic scope of CM beyond the religious, and (2) better integrate the "two" music systems. There is much creative potential in these avenues.

SR

Thanks SR. Understood.

Back to the rasa theory itself, can we take an attempt to slice and dice it to the following?

Let us consider the four quadrants. Low Pa - Sa, Sa - Ma, Pa -Sa` and Sa` to high Pa. Let us restrict ourselves for now to the second and third quadrant and also restrict ourselves to phrases that stay within those quadrants.

Now, I think most of us feel that M1 and M2 evoke quite a different set of feelings. M1 providing neutral to more upbeat emotions and M2 proving for a more sedate mood.

In the second quadrant, we have four swaras ( R1, R2, G2, G3 ) and four non-vivadhi combinations: R1-G2, R1-G3, R2-G2 and R2-G3
In the third quadrant, we have four swaras ( D1, D2, N2, N3 ) and these four non-vivadhi combinations: D1-N2, D1-N3, D2-N2 and D2-N3

First a subjective question:

Can we all pitch in regarding what rasas those 8 swaras and 8 combinations invoke for you all? If you do not not want to think about swaras directly first, think about ragas and the emotions they invoke and then look up what swaras they use. Consider many ragas that create same and different emotions for you and then try to map it to the swaras. We can take bits and pieces of such subjective opinion as well. It does not have to be comprehensive or exhaustive. Personally for me, G2 and G3 definitely provide different moods. Same with R1 and R2. I would say R1 and G2 are more on the reflective and sedate side where as the moods that R2 and G3 creates belong to more upbeat ones. A gamaka laden G2 also produce more sensuous and romantic sounds. Though I say this, ragas like Sahana are exceptions where its gamakas transform the overall mood so much.

Now, questions to ponder:

1) Can types of rasas be assigned to these 8 individual swaras and 8 combinations?
2) Are the second quadrant and third quadrant combinations symmetrical? i.e Is the rasa of R1-G2 and D1-N2 pretty much the same except for the higher frequency the third quadrant occupies.
3) On top of these base rasa assignment, do different kinds of gamakas while executing the combination provides for rasa enhancement?
4) Is item 3 a rasa enhancement or what we get out of item 3 is the primary rasa determinant?
5) Do we need a minimum of two notes to define a rasa or just one note by itself or one note with or without a gamaka can evoke a rasa?
6) What is the effect of the duration of a note on the rasa?

7) Does Sangitaratnakara take a similar approach in its methodology? Can the concepts there be roped in to understand all this?
8 ) Do we really need to go strictly by classical texts? Are there modern methods available to understand this better to the extent a non-subjective analysis is possible?

I am listing the above just to get things started. I realize that higher level combinations can produce different rasas but I am limiting it to these 8 so we can chew on this without overwhelming ourselves.

Also, I may be reinventing the wheel here, either what is covered in classical texts or what has been developed in CM/HM. Even if so, most of our discussions are of that type anyway so do not hold that against me At the minimum, our own subjective evaluations of rasas will give us an opportunity to compare notes.

VK,



No. Firstly, individual svaras have no meaning in Indian classical music (ICM) unless the base svara (say "shadja") is defined. Hence, the basic unit is two, never one. A fundamental aesthetic principle of ICM is that two svaras on their own are insufficient to portray any type of "refined" rasa. One needs larger "molecules" in order to effectively convey rasa in the "classical" sense. Overall, a coherent, "higher" rasa experience cannot be obtained with fewer than four or five swaras.



Irrelevant, see answer to #1.



Yes, but gamaka is irrelevant without raga. Simply singing R-G or D-N with different kinds of gamakas creates no aesthetic experience greater than that of the animal kingdom. Even birds and monkeys have "gamakas" in their sound production. One does not need Indian classical music to produce that level of rasa.



Neither by itself. Several requirements must be met before aesthetic coherence in ICM can be achieved. It is the overall picture of the raga that creates enjoyment in its parts, as much as the individual parts make up the raga . This is another basic principle of ICM. The G-R gamaka in Shahana or Dvijavanti has by itself little value without the overall cognition of the raga. This principle is embodied in such constructs as raga-ragini, or the development of iconography accompanying each raga.



One needs more. See above.



Too general a question. Depends on all the other factors. They cannot be decomposed to the extent that you suggest. The basic aesthetically coherent unit is a 4 or 5-svara "scale" which is a minimal raga. Folk tunes and music of relatively primitive cultures (e.g., China, Japan, East Asia, Africa) rarely go beyond this minimalism. The high refinement of "rasa" is present only in Indian classical music and European classical music.



Sangitaratnakara is a late work in the overall development of ICM. Most of the earlier works are lost. By Sharangadeva's time, it was very well known that the raga is the basic aesthetic form. He simply states the aesthetic traditions, and does not derive them.



Depends on what you are trying to analyze. If you are trying to get at the relationship between certain swara-combinations and emotions, then I am afraid this may prove a waste of time. It is subjective and essentially reflects the ancient Indian mind and its evolution under a myriad of influences. The thing worth doing is to preserve these subjective traditions. Deconstructing them further is futile - a purely academic endeavor without tangible benefit or hope of enlightenment. On the other hand if you are trying to understand the creation of new ragas and emotional experiences by combinations, recombinations, and alterations of existing ragas, then there is plenty of interesting lines to trace in the development of both HM and CM.

SR

regarding your first question, I have a vague memory of reading some highly dubious account of the nature/traits of each swara, using terminology from human behaviour,('r1 is of serious ponderous nature; while G2 expresses a range of several moods - flighty, sensuous or melancholy'... something to that effect).

i don't feel that individual notes can invoke any rasa/ emotion; and even our interpretation of certain note patterns as being associated with certain feelings, (I think)is a conditioned response.
This is open for verification/ falsification through experiment.


could it be that rasa-niSpatti - the emergence of rasa is due to the interaction of the various sruti(swara)sequences, the laya cyclic that is discernable; and at another remote nonetheless extant level due to the lyric..?

I gathered some very astute observations from Sri Akella-garu, about the difference between note-based handling of a rAga and phrase-based handling.

his illustration of note-based singing is not the scampering-up-and-down-the-scale unimaginative singing that we sometimes encounter.. it was a highly creative exposition, which employed jAru-s effectively and eschewed too much of the kampita-AndOlita. Also his singing was totally free of any of the stock/ standard/ cliched phrases of the rAga he sang (- suddha dhanyAsi in this case); and truly exemplified the spirit of Indian classical music.

it was chaste Suddha DhanyAsi, but had almost none of the commonly heard movements. even if they were sung, they were sung differently. I think he came close to the ideal that SR aspires for us to attain - singing that almost but not quite transcends idiom.

i have seen similar treatment in the hands of Voleti Venkateswarulu.


#6. gamakas, can be used to good effect by varying the following parameters -

frequency - Repetition of the same gamaka.
Magnitude i.e. degree of oscillation or slide depending on whether it is a jAru or kampita.
Amplitude - using volume modulation, to effect variety.
duration - this arises out of one's cultivated sense of proportion(pramAna) and suitability (aucitya) and even incongruously drawn out gamakas have been made aesthetic, by dint of the performers craft and aesthetic vision.

the trouble is that all the above, more or less, apply for all elements of raga singing - like swara-s or sancara-s (motifs). Variations of swara-s or sancAra-s or gamaka-s vis-a-vis the above parameters all make for good music.

But to map out specific motifs and the corresponding rasa - is as challenging as the Human genome project, where a one-to-one correlation between genes, and the protein they/ produces/ function was made.

Fantastic SR and Keerthi. A lot of good gyan to reflect on... Just a couple of points for now.. I realize this is not a short term topic and hopefully we can continue this very productively...Hope the direction this will take agrees with what the OP thenpaanan intended.





These two points clarify what I was thinking. You have stated them much more concretely.



Is it at the raga level or the ragAnga level? My idea was at the latter level hence my stipulation of quadrants. The second and third quadrant are basically the pUrvAngA and uttarAngA. I realize that there is useful stuff when the quadrants are combined/overlapped. But to start with, are there ragas whose rasas are ( more or less predominantly ) determined by characteristics of each of the two quadrants. If so, then I can at least theoretically see where the two note combinations and their gamakas are the prime determinant of the rasa of that anga. ( Assuming S and M provide the anchors, though that may be faulty thinking ). If two note ones are too small as SR says, may be we can just go to the 4 notes by bringing in both S and M1 for purvanga and P and S for uttaranga. But it does not explode the number of combinations. I thought HM analysis of raga families are based on such rasa assignments to angas with a restriction that the rasas of the two angas of a raga should not be very dissimilar ( whereas CM allows that thereby producing multiple rasas for a single raga ).

We can definitely find exceptions to the above way of bottom up thinking but I am curious if there are at least some classes of ragas that lend itself to such restrictive rasa analysis within the angAs.

Independent of the question of aesthetic theory, I am convinced that the ability to sing a raga alapana well without using cliches is a true sign of "vidwat" (loosely, scholarship). And in my listening experience, only some of our well-known artists seem to have held on to this notion of vidwat in performance, notably, GNB, Ramnad Krishnan, SKR, etc. (This is not to say that the other big artists had less vidwat, they hewed to different concepts of good scholarship/performance, which is a good thing, IMHO. Let a thousand flowers bloom, as they say.)

Now I am completely beset with curiosity. Keerthi, is this demonstration by Sharmagaru available online somewhere? I am very impressed in general with those who can achieve freedom from cliches, but to do this with Suddha Dhanyasi, a raga that has been quite scale-driven in my imagination, is quite something.

-Then Paanan

Thenpaanan and Keerthi,



Yes to a good extent. Kumar Gandharva is an excellent example in HM. In CM, KJ Yesudas is excellent in this regard - the ability to present well-known ragas in a new light in a small amount of time (e.g. the arabhi alapana prefacing "pahi parvatanandini" or the mohanam alapana prefacing "karunakari" are pure genius in my opinion). He brought out these "old" ragas very well with no "cliches" and with a far superior voice culture to anything we have seen in CM. Unfortunately this "vidwat" has been squandered by him.

SR

In what way would you say that KJY has squandered his vidwat?

-Then Paanan

Comments - "Unfortunately this "vidwat" has been squandered by him" - needs more supporting data

Singing the "same old" limited set of compositions all the time, and getting too scattered in different types of genres. No doubt that his foray into Hindi and Malayalam playback singing produced some excellent work (which I listen to much more often than I do Carnatic music), but the depth of classical singing started to erode. Became more confined to singing relatively uninteresting kritis in a medium-fast tempo. Consistently fails to do a good job with Dikshitar kritis these days, whereas "back in the day" he handled scholarly kritis like "vatapiganapatim" and "siddhivinayakam" outstandingly. The other day I listened to his singing of "shrisatyanarayanam upasmahe" - absolutely disappointing. Not that he is incapable of slower, raga-rich, and meaningful renditions...I also recently listened to his interpretation of Andal's "ambarame" in Kanada in a vilamba kala format, indeed a brilliant rendition that is more aesthetically pleasing than the Kalyani version followed by the Ariyakudi adherents.

I hope nobody reading this gets the wrong impression - I count myself as one of KJY's most avid connoisseurs in general. A class act overall. Apart from all his other outstanding musical qualities, one especially good thing is his complete avoidance of gesticulations, odd on-stage habits, and horrendous facial contortions that we see in CM almost universally these days.

SR

Is it the method of singing and the voice timbre that gives us this non-cliche alapana or some unique phrases and pidi or something else? Also, would such an artist keep creating such non-cliche alapanas or there will be a lot of overlap among the various concerts. May be it is not amenable to such analytical understanding but if any of you have some ideas around it, that will be useful.

As you rightly say, the phenomenon doesn't lend itself too well to analysis; but it is possible to understand it by taking case studies -

VoleTi's usp lay in singing long phrases that went back and forth in a tantalising sleight-of-larynx act. Also, he sang the swara-s of a rAga, not just with the gamaka-s normally associated with that note in that rAga, but by investing jaru-s and orikkai/ odukkal-s that normally aren't used so much..

As a result, one heard phrases in his singing, that in swara notation would look commonplace, but in gamaka notation would probably seem novel.

Like a good piece of writing, can be good because of a clever plot, good penmanship, some intelligent play of words or an interesting combination of all these, in varying proportions; a good rAga treatment could arise out of creative pidis, multi-speed passages (depending on vocal felicity) or even a new approach to the rAga each time - based on nyAsa notes etc.

Thanks keerthi. Your analogy to writing is quite relatable. It is quite amazing how musicians have the ability to translate their thoughts and feelings into such elaborations within that raga motif. Even if the space allowed is as narrow as a balance beam, some musicians can do a lot of things within that space without falling off the beam.

I have not listened to Yesudas in a long time now but his early work in CM was quite promising. I have never actually listened to him dwell on a vilamba kala kriti, all the stuff that I have heard from him has been fast or medium tempo. Even his ksheerasAgara shayana started sedately but picked up speed as he inserted brigas everywhere he could. The problem with having a strong yet nimble voice (as younger artists like Sriram Gangadhar are no doubt discovering) is that there is a thin line between brilliant and wild. But considering everything, one could do worse than have this problem.

As for KJY spreading himself across genres, I would like to think that it is both good and bad. The good part of being a film singer (I hope!) is that you learn to hold a steady voice that does not waver from the sruti, which seems to be a often found problem in CM. Indeed I have wondered how film singers manage to stay in sruti in live performances without a tambura even when there does not seem to be enough support sruti-wise (or too much din) from the accompanying instruments.

But vidwat is part talent and part attitude. I suspect that KJY was not looking to be an avant garde Carnatic musician and push the boundaries, his being a regular concert artist of CM alone was avant garde enough in the given social context. So he perhaps was content to deliver what would be considered his standard fare, which by all accounts was and is still popular. If what you say about his recent singing is true on a regular basis, it would indeed be a waste of a significant talent. Perhaps it is age or perhaps it is simply that he does not need to prove anything any more so the eagerness to excel may be off a little bit.

But then the truism about vidwat (as articulated so well by the late PNK in a different thread) is that vidwat is uncommon.

-Then Paanan

When I posted the question originally I was thinking of something other than what was in the responses. But, so what?

Regardless, I am enjoying the conversation hugely (which seems to have died down a bit now).

-Then Paanan

To revive the very interesting discussion here let me propose a set of questions that are related to the topic but take it in a different direction.

1. I know there are many composers on this forum, some known and some hidden. To them I have this question: if you were composing a new song do you try to match the melody to the meaning of the lyric and if so what are your guidelines?

2. To the many rasikas out there: do you feel that, in CM, the melody always matches the lyrical content? If you think yes, then can you point out the pattern (i.e. what sort of tune matches what sort of lyrical content) and provide examples of two or more different songs where that pattern is observable?

3. Finally, here is some food for thought. In the famous Swati Tirunal piece, "bhAvayAmi raghurAmam" in the charanam that is sung in mohanam today

patagavarajaTaayunootam | panchavaTeevihitaavaasam ||
atighOraSoorppaNakhaavaSan- | aagatakaraadiharam ||

the first of the two lines above describes an idyllic scene of Rama, Sita, Lakshmana in 'panchavati" and the second describes the "exceedingly horrific" shUrpanakhA among other things. Do you feel that the melody actually portrays this 180 degree turn in emotion in the lyrics? Alternately do you think that anyone who actually sings it today portrays it accurately to you?

-Then Paanan

P.S. I had trouble selecting the right word -- I use "lyrical content" above as a placeholder for "lyrical emotion" or "rasa" -- substitute with whatever term suitably expresses that aspect of aesthetics -- namely the binding together of all dimensions of performance of a given art form.