Just wanted to see people's opinions on when a student is ready to start attempting manodharmam aspects of carnatic music.
There are schools of thoughts that 25+ varnams and hundreds on krithis are required before even giving it a thought however, time and time again I have seen students particularly from overseas sing reasonably well without a large repertoire.
Also, before one starts to render a particular ragam is it necessary to know 5-10 krithis in that particular ragam or will just a few 2-3 be enough?
Interested to hear your thoughts
I think students can start experimenting with man0dharma after they have learnt 5-10 varnams and a similar amount of krithis. The more compositions you learn, the better your scope for manodharma will be. If you learn 10 major krithis in Thodi for example, you probably would have encountered all the major phrases that can later be incorporated into an raga alapana.
Dear brother-member, Rasika911, I have made umpteen experiments and, by the grace of the Almighty, came out with a very successful method in making the aspirants efficient both in Svarakalpana and Ragalapana even before completing 3 or 4 Varnas leave alone Kritis.. As it is not a traditional and conventional method people, in general, hesitate to follow even after assured with better and quick results. If you are really interested you can visit ‘youtube.com/msakella’ and find nearly 15 kids between 5 & 15 years of age demonstrating different rhythmical intricacies and some varieties of mathematical Svarakalpana in ‘Kids’ Svarakalpana’. It is not that easy to understand or to reproduce them even to some of the professionals. All these kids have learnt only 4 Varnas, Natakuranji, Kambhoji, Darbar and Shankarabharana. Plans are afoot to upload some more Videos of these kids singing Ragalapana. Presently plans are afoot in training such young aspirants in this city of Hyderabad in Manodharma-sangita. Such things should only be made with sincere, hard and dedicated work. amsharma
msakella wrote:Dear brother-member, Rasika911, I have made umpteen experiments and, by the grace of the Almighty, came out with a very successful method in making the aspirants efficient both in Svarakalpana and Ragalapana even before completing 3 or 4 Varnas leave alone Kritis.. As it is not a traditional and conventional method people, in general, hesitate to follow even after assured with better and quick results. If you are really interested you can visit ‘youtube.com/msakella’ and find nearly 15 kids between 5 & 15 years of age demonstrating different rhythmical intricacies and some varieties of mathematical Svarakalpana in ‘Kids’ Svarakalpana’. It is not that easy to understand or to reproduce them even to some of the professionals. All these kids have learnt only 4 Varnas, Natakuranji, Kambhoji, Darbar and Shankarabharana. Plans are afoot to upload some more Videos of these kids singing Ragalapana. Presently plans are afoot in training such young aspirants in this city of Hyderabad in Manodharma-sangita. Such things should only be made with sincere, hard and dedicated work. amsharma
The students clearly have the ability to sing kannaku swarams whether this is learnt/memorised or not i dont know. There is alot more to swarakalpana than just singing korvais.
msakellaji: That is quite an incredible demonstration by these kids. They have learnt very well using your innovative methods. Having this much control over laya at this young age should serve them very well in their self learning, expression of their musical thoughts & ideas and in general in their musical career.
Tell us more about the AMS Foundation ( I saw that flashing by in one of the videos )
While, on one hand each and everybody wants to learn music from a best teacher and aspires to sing songs or Kritis or Svarakalpana or Ragas as efficiently and as quickly as possible irrespective of his/her deficiencies of age or concentrative ability or grasping power or reproducible ability or required regular and strenuous practice, on the other the respective teachers always want to earn money as much as they can unnecessaarily elongating the process of teaching music to the aspirants in the absence of any yardstick to assess their teaching ability or assess the value of the material taught or to assess the level of true knowledge the student acquired. More over the music teachers always want to follow only the traditional and convemntional methods of teaching which facilitate to squeeze more money from the aspirants or their parents and they never want to quicken the process of teaching by following any other novel method of teaching lest they loose their regular income.
Everybody very well knows that a lot more is there is singing Svarakalapana on their own than spitting out such rhythmical patterns though not easy as many guess.. But, in which way every aspirant is ready to get the Gold-medal in his examination even without going through the hardship and in which way everybody aspires to get ghee out of the milk even without making the required process, every aspirant even in music aspires to sing Svarakalpana and Ragalapana by overnight and, most unfortunately, neither the aspirants nor the parents are aware that the music-teachers are going on teaching either a number of Varnas or Kritis in the absence of knowledge to teach Svarakalpana or Ragalapana. They never even teach how to learn a music composition on their own without the help of the teacher lest they loose their income by this, None of the music teachers ever even experiment to make the Svarakalpana or Ragalapana easier to the aspirant or even follow any proven novel method of its teaching lest they loose their income. Many people are very eager only to know about such easy methods but not to follow or propagate them sincerely at all and, in my experience, there is no use however number of times I write like this harping on any such easy methods. amsharma
Dear brother-member, vasanthakokilam, My heartfelt thanks to you for your sincere appreciation. Some of my sincere friends, who are amazed of the easy methods in quickening the process of teaching Svarakalpana and Ragalapana and by the astounding results of such kids’reproducible talents, are in the process of bringing out this ‘AMS Foundation’ at Hyderabad at the first instance to be spread all over our State of Andhra Pradesh and later to all over South India for the benefit of our Karnataka-music-aspirants. After finishing the formatlities I shall inform you and seek the help of each and every individual in this Himalayan task of serving the cause of our music. amsharma
Respected Akella garu, pranams. Thanks for your periodic insights on many musical matters.
I have a question for you ... while all instrumentalists are rightly advised to learn vocal music, might not vocalists benefit from training on some instrument, say like the violin or chitravina ? Might not students greatly benefit by having an intimate relationship with the way sound is actually produced instead on relying purely on instinct and then wondering around middle age why they suffer from "voice problems" and such ?
Again in matters of laya too, might not some training in mrdangam or khanjira be beneficial for vocalists as well as melodic instrumentalists ? It is one thing to keep taalam with one's hands and fingers and vocalize the nadais, theermanams, etc but it is an entirely different experience to practically reproduce them with ones hands and fingers while keeping the rhythm mentally.
Doesn't Hindustani pedagogy have tabla and some melodic instrument as part of a vocalist's training ? Western vocal training includes piano.
Last edited by Guest on 17 Apr 2009, 15:33, edited 1 time in total.
msakella wrote:While, on one hand each and everybody wants to learn music from a best teacher and aspires to sing songs or Kritis or Svarakalpana or Ragas as efficiently and as quickly as possible irrespective of his/her deficiencies of age or concentrative ability or grasping power or reproducible ability or required regular and strenuous practice, on the other the respective teachers always want to earn money as much as they can unnecessaarily elongating the process of teaching music to the aspirants in the absence of any yardstick to assess their teaching ability or assess the value of the material taught or to assess the level of true knowledge the student acquired. More over the music teachers always want to follow only the traditional and convemntional methods of teaching which facilitate to squeeze more money from the aspirants or their parents and they never want to quicken the process of teaching by following any other novel method of teaching lest they loose their regular income.
Everybody very well knows that a lot more is there is singing Svarakalapana on their own than spitting out such rhythmical patterns though not easy as many guess.. But, in which way every aspirant is ready to get the Gold-medal in his examination even without going through the hardship and in which way everybody aspires to get ghee out of the milk even without making the required process, every aspirant even in music aspires to sing Svarakalpana and Ragalapana by overnight and, most unfortunately, neither the aspirants nor the parents are aware that the music-teachers are going on teaching either a number of Varnas or Kritis in the absence of knowledge to teach Svarakalpana or Ragalapana. They never even teach how to learn a music composition on their own without the help of the teacher lest they loose their income by this, None of the music teachers ever even experiment to make the Svarakalpana or Ragalapana easier to the aspirant or even follow any proven novel method of its teaching lest they loose their income. Many people are very eager only to know about such easy methods but not to follow or propagate them sincerely at all and, in my experience, there is no use however number of times I write like this harping on any such easy methods. amsharma
Brother rasika I am very much anticipating the raga alapana performances by these kids! Let me know when they are up.
If u dont mind sharing us how do u teach these kids to sing raga alapana with limited knowledge of kritis. Ive always thought the best way to sing a thodi alapana is to learn many trinity compositions in thodi and listen to past masters rendering the ragam...i could be doing it the hard way!!!
However, I think some of the generalizations about teachers wanting to milk out money from students are unnecessary. I have learnt of well-respected gurus who would refuse to tell me how much I should pay...they don’t like taking money from students. Learning compositions oneself isn’t always the best method to learning a krithi or varnam especially if one is a beginner however since many Indians live overseas and don’t have access to good gurus this has to be done at times. I can recall an article where Semmangudi Srinivas Iyer mentions that the true intricacies of a kirtanam can only be learnt from a guru.
Dear brother-member, Uday_Shankar, Blessings. All the things what you wrote are damn correct, highly useful and needed. But how many follow them is the great question. People want quick music, quick Radio-programme or TV programme to sing or play and at the same time the teacher also wants quick money and more money. Among all of them the required discipline is entirely lost. For all this chaotic condition I cannot at all blame the student but the most-selfish-teacher. As you rightly wrote, if the true knowledge of the actual relationship with the sound is furnished to the student in every minute detail making him independent in all the matters relating to Shruti or Laya which are mainly sound-based the aspirant can certainly make a mark in the field. For all these things a teacher must be knowledgeable, efficient, sincere, impartial and loyal and teach his/her students with a motherly affection. Then only the students flourish.
Most unfortunately and pitiably, in any Karnataka-music-syllabus, not even a single Mridangam-sollu has ever been included. After my retirement in 1996, between 2005 & 2007, once in every two months, I have toured all the 12 Govt. Music Colleges in our State without charging any remuneration and propagated all the easy methods in teaching music along with very important rhythmical-exercises and being the member of the Board of Studies of the Telugu University I have also included some of these important rhythmical exercises in the Syllabi of not only of the Govt. Music Colleges but also of the B.A & M.A. of this University. But most pitiably, some of the teachers of these Music Colleges have lodged complaints to remove these rhythmical exercises from the syllabi and the teachers of the music Department simply skipped them off to teach their students. In fact, I have held either Lec-dems or Workshops on these easy methods not only in all the Music Colleges of our State but also some of the Universities of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamilnadu including the Kalakshetra the Great of Adyar. But, most unfortunately, I have found that more than 90% of the respective teachers are reluctant to continue to teach them even all the students everywhere have learnt them very enthusiastically and practicing them. Everywhere, mostly all the teachers are in interested only in quantitative-teaching merely covering only the items of the syllabus but not in qualitative-teaching. Even in case of the Kalakshetra the Great, few months back, when I have brought this lacuna to the notice of the Principal, instead of taking proper action in this matter in the interest of their students, she found fault with me that I have interacted with their students without obtaining permission either from their teacher or from the Principal herself. In the absence of a suitable yardstick either to assess the standard of the teacher or to assess the lesson taught or to assess the proficiency the aspirant acquired, everywhere many of the music-teachers are teaching as per their will and pleasure in the absence of any ‘supervisory-set-up’. Unless some concrete efforts are made to establish a ‘supervisory-set-up’ in all these institutions there is every possibility of producing only impotent candidates from all of them. amsharma
Dear brother-member, Rasika911, Since last one week many of these kids are being properly trained in singing Ragalapana and I am hopeful that I shall be able to upload the relevant video clippings possibly within a month or so.
While fulfilling this Himalayan task of making the aspirants sing Ragalapana even without going through Kritis at all there are so many points to follow. Even though a Lec-dem may properly serve the purpose in this regard than listing out all of them here you should allow me some time to bring them all in these columns.
I feel, Guru’s talent should only be adjudged by reasonably quickening the process of teaching music and also by making the aspirant a replica of him but not by non-fixing of any figure for his remuneration.
Nowadays the online facility brings the teacher and the aspirant together irrespective of any place they reside on the globe but the efficiency, sincerity, dedication, rational approach to things of the teacher on one side and the grasping ability, concentrative ability, perseverance, regular and heavy strenuous practice of the aspirant on the other matters much.
Of course, I cannot agree with you that one should not learn any Varnam or Kriti on his/her own without Guru. amsharma
Well, in Hindustani music, at least for the khayal style, there isn't much heavy-weight composed work available. So the raga is learnt essentially through the manodharma done by the guru and other seniors only. Going by the deep similarities in what actually is a raga in Hindustani music and in Carnatic music, that should work.
Last edited by srikant1987 on 17 Apr 2009, 19:11, edited 1 time in total.
Hi all, As it is apt I shall serially furnish the intricacies of the easy methods in teaching music in the sub-thread ‘AMS Easy Methods-2007’ under the main thread ‘Sangeeta Kalalaya’. amsharma
