khayal in Carnatic?

Ideas and innovations in Indian classical music
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thenpaanan
Posts: 635
Joined: 04 Feb 2010, 19:45

khayal in Carnatic?

Post by thenpaanan »

I have been listening to Hindustani music for a while (my daughters learn to sing Hindustani) and I have been struck by the power of slow singing. In particular I am listening to a "badaa khayaal" in rag VIbhaas. In Carnatic this would be considered a minor raga (roughly equivalent to Bhowli ragam) and practically no one (except TNS perhaps) would spend 30-40 minutes in detailed exposition of such a ragam.

I was wondering what a similar Carnatic treatment would sound like. In particular the badaa khayal or vilambit khayal is marked by very slow gait and a lot of 'alapi' which is free form improvisation using only vowels (mostly aakaaram), and the khayal line is merely used as a refrain. This structure of exposition allows for a methodical (even meditative) exposition of the rag without the encumbrance of words but using the simple (not overly decorative) rhythm line from the tabla that allows for variance of speed and what we would call kanakku within the aakaaram.

I find this hard to do within either a traditional Carnatic chowka kriti where the neraval line usually has to be repeatedly sung (most to the full) for the improvisation, and there is no tradition of breaking into extensive akaaram inside a neraval. Similarly within a pallavi (as in RTP) the rhythmic structure has to be followed quite strictly and the focus is on rhythmic improvisation not raga development. Of course our alapana allows akaram but there is no refrain here nor a rhythmic background.

So my question is has the idea of vilambit khayal attempted in Carnatic music i.e. using Carnatic ragas and talas and following the general Carnatic idiom but using the khayal structure? There is nothing inherently disallowed about this in Carnatic music and yet I have never seen this performed.

Is it just the power of convention that this is so or is there something about the Carnatic idiom that makes it hard to make it work?

I will try to experiment with this but I wanted to see if people have tried it before and if so how it turned out. What ragas and talas would be suitable? etc etc.

Looking for a vigorous discussion,
Thenpaanan

shankarank
Posts: 4043
Joined: 15 Jun 2009, 07:16

Re: khayal in Carnatic?

Post by shankarank »

I don't know about baDA or cOTA, but nano khyal is here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jbvSl0xxdw :lol:

Especially don't miss the svarams - he could have done that as tAnam instead :cry:

Look at the no of hits man!!

May be a new composition in vilamba like in 2 Kalai rUpkam - in the lines of Sri Sathya nArAyaNam ( in terms of speed)! - you get your baDa! No social commentary like in enta muddO - just express some love - simple two or three syllables!

What about this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxypn0MOTWk :lol: :lol: - seems to be very popular going by the hits! There is also tabla in there man oooh! :lol:

Fast Hindustani is there here and popular too!! - Not sure about slow :mrgreen:

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