Raga Tarangini - debate on old vs new versions

Rāga related discussions
RasikasModerator1
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Re: AbhEri - Old and New

Post by RasikasModerator1 »

We feel the topic has been on tarangini for too long, much longer than Abheri itself, and is also going off on another tangent about everything else Dikshitar, we'd request members to discuss that raga and other compositions of Dikshitar in its own thread. At least when someone searches for tarangini on google, they must find the thread.

So to encourage it, and to let you all cool down a bit, we're locking up for just one day. Yes, the lockdowns have finally come to rasikas.org.

The thread will reopen on Saturday, 24 hours from now.

Also one more thing, please start all raga threads with the word Raga or Raaga because it helps the thread come up on Google Search on the first page.

RasikasModerator1
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Re: AbhEri - Old and New

Post by RasikasModerator1 »

Thread unlocked.

shankarank
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Re: AbhEri - Old and New

Post by shankarank »

As we remember Prof. T.N Krishnan - here is one of the last few or may be a dozen accompaniments he may have provided - that was in 1997.

After late 1980s/early 90s , usually with TVS @ Kalarasana, it was not very many times, I could catch TNK accompanying - but I was always not around in Chennai at that time.

Sourced from varsha's uploads. I uploaded it as I did not find this full version, only the tani on youtube.

I was present in this concert and written about it. No song is ever more popular than this one - within the realm of CM's outreach. Irony that it is NOT considered authentic!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Wv5RHCVG_c

The seminal moment comes when during neraval, they exchange some khanDam patterns: https://youtu.be/9Wv5RHCVG_c?t=439, that then becomes the theme for tani.

shankarank
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Re: AbhEri - Old and New

Post by shankarank »

Now when I searched for tarangini , apart from its own thread, it got a hit in many other whiner threads about things changed in SrI dIkshitar sAhitya renditions. Now I did talk to an 80 plus elder on my relatives by marriage side who lives in the West Tirunelveli village, now Tenkasi district.

This "mAyE" kriti, she learnt it again from another elder , her sister in law (still alive in US and belongs to yettayapuram on her mom's side - I am not kidding!) who learnt it from SrI Ramalinga BhAgavatar, brother of SrI vEdAnta BhAgavatar. The latter had no progeny. Ramalinga Bhagavatar's descedent stuck to vaidIham and recently passed away.

This was taught in the changed rAgA how it is being sung by many musicians today.

She sang it over the phone. She then added few stories. According to that, SrI dIshitar's family children were afflicted with Chicken Pox and that is where "this he asking the mAyA to go away" comes from. And it has been a practice across the communities in that belt to sing this whenever that happens.

Her brother who lives in Chennai after US life attending concerts, in those days would be given "cycle money" to go away when music classes happen to the daughters. For millennials to make sense of this : the kind that works today in Smart Eco-cities like Austin or Bay area, where liberals rule the roost where you can detach one with a card swipe!

When rest of the music world was just coming out of pallavi contests, and kritis were just being started to be sung, here is a community spread of such kritis, which otherwise have the lofty "other worldly" interpretations : http://guru-guha.blogspot.com/2008/04/d ... -raga.html , being composed, taught and sung for "this worldly" purpose.

So as a kriti that was sung for challenges in life, it would have been simplified for community teaching. This is not some vidvAn trying to appeal to make money. May be yes, the bhAgavatar was collecting hefty fees - yeah right! In Tirunelveli district! That then gets picked up into concert / recordings!

You know when the start is shaken like cencuruTTi, what happens to the rest. Being taught to daughters with sons sent away - so they don't get addicted to music and jeopardize their livelihood!

And SSP was being translated from telugu much later right?

Would be an apt kriti to be sung today to drive out - you know what. Sing it in either of the rAgA , how it comes to you!

RasikasModerator1
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Re: AbhEri - Old and New

Post by RasikasModerator1 »

Ok. Now you all really, really need to move to a thread on tarangini. If you don't, we will make a thread and start shifting the posts.

As mods we never enter a discussion, but for once even we agree mAyE tvam yAhi is indeed something we need in these corona days, especially us old ones.

rajeshnat
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Re: AbhEri - Old and New

Post by rajeshnat »

SrinathK wrote: 05 Nov 2020, 19:50
10 or 20 years later, the internet landscape may change so much that forum sites may vanish altogether along with all the veterans of rasikas.org and everyone will only be on whatsApp or Facebook or whatever next comes up. This type of structured seriousness will be gone underneath a deluge of data, but not useful information. Most of the useful stuff will again be private. We also don't know where any of us will be by then.
Srinath
you joined in 2013. People like me , rshankar , vk etc we all started as early as 2002 from sangeetham . In 2006 the MH370 was the sangeetham.com . No information given suddenly the plug was pulled and then slowly all the content was even purged from web archives . IT takes a lot of time and secrecy for MH370 team to do what they did.

Dont worry atleast my hope for sure srkris will not make rasikas.org vanish.

bhakthim dehi
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Re: AbhEri - Old and New

Post by bhakthim dehi »

This is not some vidvAn trying to appeal to make money.
Irrespective of the reason, it is clear that they have changed the original text. Please don't come again saying I like this version, what is wrong with the existent versions, etc. I am not interested in arguing on that part.

If everything was changed, what is the point in saying this particular school is preserving the tradition and placing scathing remarks over textual tradition? Atleast they are in books untouched.

I have proved sometime back that the music of OVK was changed. I hope members can remember that discussion. The changes happened to Tyagaraja kritis is well known. Now it is clear that Deekshitar kritis were changed. In such a case, there is no point in boasting about the oral tradition. A beautiful system was exploited for individual benefits and we are made to scratch our heads on the original versions. What we hear is certainly not the music of Tyagaraja or Deekshitar. We hear the versions modified by the yesteryear vidvans.

Now I can relate the research going on to record the old versions.

RasikasModerator1
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Re: AbhEri - Old and New

Post by RasikasModerator1 »

Ok my friends. Om Shanti Shanti Shantih.

nAdopAsaka
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Re: AbhEri - Old and New

Post by nAdopAsaka »

We can hope it stays that way...is a separate thread being created to segregate abheri specific posts ?

regarding "worldly applications", Brihaspate, the athana navagraha kriti has been noted in past as a kriti of dikshitar specifically to allow one of his students to pray for relief from an illness..

AnandAmruta varshini can be considered another such example , for relief from a famine..

bhakthim dehi
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Re: AbhEri - Old and New

Post by bhakthim dehi »

And since NCV belongs to 1940s, her songs are not widely known and I miss no opportunity to give link to her renderings . A singer rated very highly by contemporary giants.
Even we admire her singing. It was not NCV whom I opposed in my earlier thread. If you suggest or moderate, you must first fit yourself into the standard. You cannot ask us to not deviate and giving a link of your favourite artist in the same thread. You must set an example.

RasikasModerator2
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Raga Tarangini - debate on old vs new versions

Post by RasikasModerator2 »

We are moving the tarangini related posts from Abheri thread to this thread.

shankarank
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Re: AbhEri - Old and New

Post by shankarank »

bhakthim dehi wrote: 10 Nov 2020, 17:49
This is not some vidvAn trying to appeal to make money.
Irrespective of the reason, it is clear that they have changed the original text.

If everything was changed, what is the point in saying this particular school is preserving the tradition and placing scathing remarks over textual tradition? Atleast they are in books untouched.

... there is no point in boasting about the oral tradition. A beautiful system was exploited for individual benefits and we are made to scratch our heads on the original versions. What we hear is certainly not the music of Tyagaraja or Deekshitar.
Text is only a part of the evidence you have, and nobody can know the original music of the composers. We will not know how the d1 was conceived by the original composer and approached! We don't know how their kALapramANam was and how they held their breaths and voiced their music etc. Is music just the rAgA lakshana? That is the big question I am after!

Even the oral tradition , lets say it preserved the original form of the rAgA (the lakshna of it), still there will be modification as we are seeing with "unmodified" and "preserved" parts of their work. And without oral tradition , we will be doing d1 like how a keyboard does d1 - who is to say? SSP specifies the vINA approach to reproduce it, but how do you think you will get anything close to Authentic, if the vINa playing tradition was not kept alive? Aurally?

I am not after a conclusive evidence here in the form of a recording from SrI dIkshitar himself etc. Everything is just a pramANA and not the exact truth. More a philosophical point. We need to absorb some of the outlook they have in their own compositions about "truth" don't we. That is a not a "subject" of the music. That is also the music that emanates.

All I am saying is, whatever we do, we shouldn't pretend as if we are after their "original" music and on the basis of it ascribe motives on those that may have changed it. We also don't know how the change was effected as it could be a naturally evolving situation, with copying errors like how biology works. 100 years in music that propagates mostly orally is like a million years in other phenomena.

Lets be generous and accommodative.

SrinathK
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Re: Raga Tarangini - debate on old vs new versions

Post by SrinathK »

One thing to clarify here is that this is also part of the effort to audio archive the SSP, so we are going to present it as it is notated.

Of course the nuances involved in handling a note is a huge topic, but after seeing hundreds of notated songs and over a century of recordings, I am absolutely certain that the weight of gamakas has gone up significantly in the 20th century regardless of stylistic variations.

However all the stylistic variations in the world can never make d1 as d2 no matter how much you try shaking it. On the ragas section you really cannot argue over whether raga lakshana is necessary, after all, what is this part of the forum for?

CRama
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Re: Raga Tarangini - debate on old vs new versions

Post by CRama »

Srinath, is it your expectation that henceforth musicians should sing the songs as demonstrated in the TLM series by Dr.Aravindan.

SrinathK
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Re: Raga Tarangini - debate on old vs new versions

Post by SrinathK »

@CRama No. I am not prescribing anything to the music world at all. Nor am I going to insist and demand that everyone should only play Baroque music. Let's not get the wrong idea because of the debate that has been raging for a while now.

So far I have been trying to cover all possible versions of a raga and this will continue the same way down the road. As per my plan I totally intend to talk about the old and new versions of tarangini and other Ragas. And yes, there will be more of the "Tall tales on Ragas".

The resistance has so far been coming from you know who. He has ignited the debate, that too over a story, on a thread which was silent for a long while. It appears he's taken it as an attack of some sort and has a lot of objections. It has also become a question of style, but that is secondary. After a lot of back and forth, it looks like we're meeting somewhere in the middle. But this is actually an exception. A lot of people who know and read the forum have in fact responded positively to the effort.

If there is one thing I have very explicitly criticized, it is creating spurious compositions in the name of the Trinity instead of acknowledging the real composers of these songs - in this day and age greater transparency is expected by more aware rasikas. I have also commented in specific cases where I felt the modernizing only resulted in a net loss to the music.l and resulted in a version that was watered down to the original.

Other than that, I won't rant about this topic in my music reviews. Peace!

Coming to some other questions -- There are people who will criticize using a book as a reference, but I'll tell you, not one of them have opened a single page and seen what is in it first. I am not sure how many of them even attempted notating. I have been there myself. Yes, notations are the basics, but a lot of people who say that don't know the base itself. Nor are they aware of how things like neraval, sangatis and swaras have come into the compositions or the intricacies of stylistic variations or even the performance to performance variations by the same musician. I will cover all these as far as I can, case by case.

I am not even the first to do this by a long stretch. Efforts in this direction have been happening since the time the Music Academy was formed. In their early years, most of the effort and debate went into trying to find common ground on ragas and compositions, that too I will cover. Today, due to the efforts of SRJ mama, Dr. N Ramanathan, Dr. RS Jayalakshmi and also many musicians (esp. the parampara of TMK and R K Sriramkumar, Vedavalli school, Smt. Gayathri Girish, etc...), many of these compositions are coming out of cold storage.

And ours is one more effort in that direction. The rasikas of CM have always been very proactive and this is another step.

I am not expecting anything other than that I should just be able to continue exploring the vast universe of Ragas and compositions in our music and bringing it out to the public. These compositions and ragas have their own glory and inevitably, they will gain attention at their own pace.

And while we're at it, allow me to use this firecracker of a thread to wish all rasikas a very Happy Deepavali!!

SrinathK
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Re: Raga Tarangini - debate on old vs new versions

Post by SrinathK »

@CRama Also these ragas and their stories, the point of them is so that these topics can be handled in a lighter vein. As topics like these can easily become controversial, It takes the hard edge off. Some people will still get worked up over it, and call for a heated debate, but let me clarify, I have no intentions of declaring war! :lol: :lol:

Ultimately we should get the information and have a good laugh at it all.

rajeshnat
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Re: Raga Tarangini - debate on old vs new versions

Post by rajeshnat »

SrinathK
I think these raga expositions by artists is just like signature verification where they use the scanner and compare it with the stored original which is even questionable even in elections. Some times with too much of excess focus by artists on trespassing to other ragas may sound stale in lacking manodharmam in the ears of the rasika . Of course on the other side All said overall i agree no one has a right to tamper like say what ARI did where he retuned yaaro ivar yaaro from saveri to bhairavi . More importantly no one can spuriously add a mudhra and get it tagged as trinity krithi which say Maharajapuram early school may have done.

On a side note for many many years i used to listen to TNR bhairavi . It was pouring left right and centre with ideas . Then once i spotted a kharaharapriya sangathi after many years ,then from then on my ears started finding more kharaharapriya trespasses of bhairavi.

All said very well written- keep up your great writing . You have to excuse i will listen right now maaye tvam of madurai mani iyer. Keep them coming , i am not trespassing with your flow.

Ananthakrishna
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Re: Raga Tarangini - debate on old vs new versions

Post by Ananthakrishna »

Sorry for the late response. I just saw this thread.

Firstly, I think we need to recognize the fact, that each and every aspect of a composition is basically the intellectual property (not legally speaking) of the composer. Thus, we cannot change or alter anything as far as possible, since that'll be violating the rights and wishes of the composer.

That being said, music is organic. It is not stagnant. It'll keep changing and evolving and we need to evolve our tastes along with it.

Let us all note that, when it comes to Dikshitar's compositions, we can state with certainty that the SSP, DKP, and most of the krithis from Justice TLV's Pathantaram are authentic. Furthermore, Shri SRJ is certainly an expert on these matters. I would like to say that all the members of this forum (myself included) ought to study what Subbarama Dikshitar, T N Natarajasundaram Pillai, Justice T L Venkataraman Iyer and Prof. S R Janakiraman have said on this subject before forming our opinions.

When it comes to Tarangini, its apparent to all that it was the 26th Raganga Ragam. It sported the shuddha dhaivatam. So, to sing Maaye in what is basically Jhanjhooti minus Bhashanga prayogams is a great disservice to Mudduswami Dikshitar. I say this because the change from Tarangini to Jhanjhooti was not an organic change. A set of musicians (I'd rather not name them) consciously thought the krithi would sound better with a D2 instead of D1, and rewrote raagalakshanams to suit their aesthetic tastes. This is a wrong that has to be righted.

I can prove that the raagam Tarangini did not change organically, since, another composition was also set in Tarangini in the same time period of Dikshitar, the Chatur Raagamaalika by Maharaja Swathi Thirunal. Tarangini is a ragam that features in this raagamaalika, and is sung in its original form, with D1, the distinctive PDNDS prayogam and vakra sancharams. The raagam Tarangini did not change organically, some musicians simply altered Maaye for reasons that can only be speculated.

The link to the Chatur Raagamaalika- (Sung by SSI)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VjdMv5nwwo

The krithi in question (Maaye, sung by MSS)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHCU9-btPDE


Clearly Tarangini did not evolve to sport a D2 and use Madhyama Shruti, but was changed.

When it comes to spurious compositions of Dikshitar and Tyagaraja, I feel that constitutes a separate topic for debate by itself. I'll not touch on that aspect of this thread.

To conclude, there is no new Tarangini. There is a Tarangini, as seen in Saanandam Kamalamanohari (the Chatur Raagamaalika) and a 'Fake' Tarangini, as seen in Maaye. To call this fake Tarangini Sudhatarangini and assigning it a new lakshanam (D2, Madhyama Shruti, e.t.c.) is (pardon my language) akin to converting black money to white. Musicians ought to start presenting Maaye in the real Tarangini, with D1 and vakra sancharams.

Vakulabharana
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Re: Raga Tarangini - debate on old vs new versions

Post by Vakulabharana »

Refreshing to see a sensible response.
It is not stagnant. It'll keep changing and evolving and we need to evolve our tastes along with it.
Yes. I have mentioned the very same point in one of my earlier post and this is the same reason for me to support archiving these older versions.

I am unable to understand few contradictory points in your post. I will be much happy if you can give me some clarity.
Let us all note that, when it comes to Dikshitar's compositions, we can state with certainty that the SSP, DKP, and most of the krithis from Justice TLV's Pathantaram are authentic.
As far as i k ow, SSI has sung this kriti with chatushruthi dhaivatam. In that case, how can his version be considered authentic?
I have not heard DKP singing this kriti. But many krits of her version differ from the ones notated by Subbarama Deekshitar. Chronologically, S Deekshitar's publication is much early and on all possibilities, he must have taught to Ambi Deekksitar, whose disciple was TLV. How can we take be reconciled?

Ananthakrishna
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Re: Raga Tarangini - debate on old vs new versions

Post by Ananthakrishna »

Vakulabharana wrote: 02 Jan 2021, 17:42
I am unable to understand few contradictory points in your post. I will be much happy if you can give me some clarity.
Let us all note that, when it comes to Dikshitar's compositions, we can state with certainty that the SSP, DKP, and most of the krithis from Justice TLV's Pathantaram are authentic.
As far as i k ow, SSI has sung this kriti with chatushruthi dhaivatam. In that case, how can his version be considered authentic?
I have not heard DKP singing this kriti. But many krits of her version differ from the ones notated by Subbarama Deekshitar. Chronologically, S Deekshitar's publication is much early and on all possibilities, he must have taught to Ambi Deekksitar, whose disciple was TLV. How can we take be reconciled?
Thanks a lot for raising this question.
I wish to clarify two things.
1. SSP refers to the Sangita Sampradaya Pradarshini, and not Sri Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer.
2. DKP refers to the Dikshitar Kirtana Prakashikai written by T N Natarajasundaram Pillai.

As far as how D K Pattammal Amma learnt from Justice TLV, I actually have doubts myself about how and how much she learnt from him, since some of her renditions do not match with the few recordings present of Justice TLV. I maintain that Justice TLV's pathantaram and statements on this subject are accurate, but I will reserve comments on how much of Justice TLV's pathantaram was imbibed by D K Pattammal amma. All I can say, is that I enjoy and adore her voice and vidvat, but would not take all her renditions (regardless of how beautiful and soulful) as completely authentic all the time.

Edit:- I also think we should read and go through the Journals of the Music Academy. To my knowledge Tarangini has never been studied explicitly, but valuable nuggets of information will certainly be found there

Vakulabharana
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Re: Raga Tarangini - debate on old vs new versions

Post by Vakulabharana »

Thanks a lot for your clarification. I have read it wrong. I should check my vision :P

Again reading a wise and genuine statement on Smt DKP and her learning from TLV
Who will not enjoy her renditionsand diction? That being apart, it is must to analyse properly when we want to do some research.

Another fact is also to be considered. Even the versions of TLV differs from the versions given by S Deekshitar. Thos is equally to be examined .

Ananthakrishna
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Re: Raga Tarangini - debate on old vs new versions

Post by Ananthakrishna »

Vakulabharana wrote: 03 Jan 2021, 09:24
Another fact is also to be considered. Even the versions of TLV differs from the versions given by S Deekshitar. Thos is equally to be examined .
This is a great point to note! I'm glad that we can discuss this here.

To discuss this point better, perhaps we should open a new topic of discussion, on how we can check for authenticity of compositions.

As a thumb rule of sorts, what most musicologists do in these cases is to take the Sangita Sampradaya Pradarshini as authentic. The SSP is generally supposed to be more authentic, and to a large extent, the word of the SSP is taken as law whenever a discrepancy between two pathantarams regarding a Dikshitar krithi arises.
The SSP is accorded this much respect because of Subbarama Dikshitar's famous statement, that he has held nothing back.
Most musicologists take this at face value. I personally think that the SSP is largely authentic, but there still remain problems in the quality of translation. The 'tappopulu' section is also noteworthy, where Subbarama Dikshitar acknowledges that a few print mistakes have happened, which he has done his best to correct.

I have no personal comment on this matter, but I remember a remark made by Vid. Sanjay Subramanyam. He said, that to always stick only by the SSP will be a mistake, since there are other manuscripts dating back to and even before the SSP.
So to make a well reasoned judgement, we need to research carefully, keeping all this in mind.

As to how we resolve the SSP-TLV discrepancy in particular, I think it changes on a case by case basis. We need to do further research, which I for one have not yet done. I hope I can take some time to think about this, and then get back to you all.

Vakulabharana
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Re: Raga Tarangini - debate on old vs new versions

Post by Vakulabharana »

I am not into research and the posts made by me are indeed imbibed from various sources online.
With regards to SSP, I too agree ot might not be fool-proof document. Infact no human made document can be mistake free. But this should not be confused with authenticity.
S Deekshitar might have made some errors even after his effort to make his document error free. But these will be pertaining only to the notations, that is with respect to a svara or a gamaka
Certainly a fake kriti was not inserted as a genuine construction of Muthuswamy Deekshitar. Even the errors could not be of great magnitude to create a major concern is my opinion.

Regarding other manuscripts, I remember reading an article by Dr Aravind Ranganathan which I will search and post.
As I have said in my earlier posts, i have gained a lot of knowledge by reading his articles. He is working on manuscripts and he may be contacted for more information.

Ananthakrishna
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Re: Raga Tarangini - debate on old vs new versions

Post by Ananthakrishna »

Vakulabharana wrote: 03 Jan 2021, 18:34 Certainly a fake kriti was not inserted as a genuine construction of Muthuswamy Deekshitar. Even the errors could not be of great magnitude to create a major concern is my opinion.
I quite agree!! I meant any errors in the gamakam symbols that Subbarama Dikshitar used, that can be a differentiating factor in the way Dikshitar treated a ragam. Since we are discussing the lakshanam of the raagam Tarangini, I feel that even changes in these gamakam symbols an be of importance

Vakulabharana wrote: 03 Jan 2021, 18:34
Regarding other manuscripts, I remember reading an article by Dr Aravind Ranganathan which I will search and post.
As I have said in my earlier posts, i have gained a lot of knowledge by reading his articles. He is working on manuscripts and he may be contacted for more information.
I have been a huge admirer of Dr. Aravindh Ranganathan's work. I would very much like to contact him to ask these questions, and a few others as well. Could you please tell us how he may be contacted?

I think at this point, we have mostly covered all the major points of discussion on this topic. Could we start a new one another such ragam? Kaapi perhaps?

Vakulabharana
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Re: Raga Tarangini - debate on old vs new versions

Post by Vakulabharana »

You can contact him through his YT channel TLM - The Lost Melodies or his FB page by the same name. He responds promptly. If you are looking for his personal contact details, let me know.

SrinathK
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Re: Raga Tarangini - debate on old vs new versions

Post by SrinathK »

The bulk of all these changes have happened somewhere in the 50 years post Trinity till before the age of recordings began. The root of this is basically due to paucity of information and changes in the presentation of the music. In those days it was simply not possible To have the kind of easy info we do today. It was a great struggle to even find a musician who knew a particular song and who would be willing to teach it. Very few people even had school education. So a lot of "jugaad" was done to sing many compositions in the modern kutcheri format (we Indians own the term jugaad you know). To some extent they have continued after that also with several compositions that were unknown at the time.

But CM has stabilized to where it is now due to the sheer wealth of recordings available and these recordings tell a fantastic story in retrospect. It takes only a run through the archives of many Trinity compositions to realize how many versions exist for some songs. Thyagaraja kritis are the most affected by this. There are kritis having as many as 4 versions. Many even have 1 kalai and 2 kalai versions. Almost all his kritis have been through a lot for changes, for better or worse. Fortunately quite a few of his kritis were preserved on manuscript.

Since the 1950s onward, the problem has mostly been in the realm of spurious compositions that have been claimed to be original without clear sources. Even this has now been examined in much greater detail with the information we have now, which was not that available even 10 years back. But there are many dead ends and it may not be possible to truly trace every single one of these back to the composer. Dikshitar is the prime example. At least his tradition has survived due to the meticulous documentation of Subbarama Dikshitar.

In the 21st century though, there are many clearly modern tuned compositions where a lot of effort is being made to establish them as Pre Trinity with many reverse claims even though the entire history of the music points otherwise. ;) Some people may argue if it is possible to tune such kritis in this day and age. The answer is yes, It is very much possible and has been done for very old composers like Annamacharya whose music no longer survives today and we have to accept that yes, for all composers other than the Trinity, the old tunes were mostly lost, so we had to retune them. Just to clarify, I like the tunes myself. It's the dubious claims I have an issue with. Guess who... :twisted:

shankarank
Posts: 4042
Joined: 15 Jun 2009, 07:16

Re: Raga Tarangini - debate on old vs new versions

Post by shankarank »

The one that you are alluding to, the chandam is infectious and very inviting of tunesmiths! And the vidvan/vidushi in question also otherwise has demonstrated excellent tuning skills in various other contexts! And the vidvan/vidushi tried to defend the accusation that "he/she had tuned them". But so what if they (vidvan or vidushi) had indeed tuned them!

They didn't land from Mars or Venus to tune them!

shankarank
Posts: 4042
Joined: 15 Jun 2009, 07:16

Re: Raga Tarangini - debate on old vs new versions

Post by shankarank »

Ananthakrishna wrote: 02 Jan 2021, 09:49 Firstly, I think we need to recognize the fact, that each and every aspect of a composition is basically the intellectual property (not legally speaking) of the composer. Thus, we cannot change or alter anything as far as possible, since that'll be violating the rights and wishes of the composer.
The term intellectual property is an affront , it implies a system of royalties and in many instance one can argue has led to greediness and avarice. Some critiques question this, as much of research is publicly funded.

That is not the reason to not to change Trinity compositions. The sacredness with which Sampradaya system maintained these was largely responsible to keep the overall integrity of the system. And unless a sufficient body of rasikas seek into this knowledge system and be able to question and assert the right sense of the tradition in various fora, it will get changed. If continuous teaching tradition is not there, somebody will change it even without knowing.

And they did not claim any rights and no system of rights were in force when they composed.

Ananthakrishna
Posts: 130
Joined: 01 Nov 2019, 17:38

Re: Raga Tarangini - debate on old vs new versions

Post by Ananthakrishna »

shankarank wrote: 05 Jan 2021, 13:28
Ananthakrishna wrote: 02 Jan 2021, 09:49 Firstly, I think we need to recognize the fact, that each and every aspect of a composition is basically the intellectual property (not legally speaking) of the composer. Thus, we cannot change or alter anything as far as possible, since that'll be violating the rights and wishes of the composer.
The term intellectual property is an affront , it implies a system of royalties and in many instance one can argue has led to greediness and avarice. Some critiques question this, as much of research is publicly funded.

And they did not claim any rights and no system of rights were in force when they composed.
I think I have clarified there that I refer to the term 'intellectual property' not in a legal sense. The question of greed and avarice I feel is not entirely relevant, and not what I was aiming for or hinting at at all. I'm sorry if my statement was ambiguous or conveyed such a meaning. That was not my intention.

Also, I do feel that when we retune a composition simply because it doesn't fit in with our aesthetic sense, we are insulting the composer. The composer (Mudduswami Dikshitar in this case) composed the song in a particular raagam or tune. Who is anyone to simply re-tune it for one's own purposes?

When the original tunes are lost, as in the case of the Sangam Age compositions, Annamacharya Sankeertanams, Bhadrachala Ramadasa Keertanams e.t.c., then yes, a case can be made for retuning it sensibly. But retuning a composition despite its original tune being known and prevalent basically amounts to disrespecting the composer, since we are disregarding his work.

If the point being made here is that my argument that the 'composer is being disrespected' is moot, and that the main reason for not changing tunes is about adherence to sampradayam, this is true, but even the most 'sampradayam adhering' musicians have made errors in this regard. The overall integrity of the system that we respect about CM was, and remains tainted, by how compositions like Maaye, Nagumomu e.t.c are re-tuned, songs like Needu Charanamule, Rangapura Vihara e.t.c are misattributed, and numerous spurious compositions have been found and are sung on a regular basis.

That strict adherence to Sampradayam has kept our music (for want of a better word) pure is undisputable, but the misunderstanding of that word has led to problems like these. Since all rasikas and musicians respect (and to a certain extent worship) these composers such as the trimurthis. a change is better effected when we say that spurious krithis and tunes are disrespectful to these composers whom we hold in high regard.

Thus I make this point because,

1. The tune of a song is as much the composer's as the lyrics are
2. It is a better more proactive approach, since no one will want to willingly continue disrespecting the composers whom they respect deeply

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