Carnatic Music at its most creative

[Vayoo Flute]

The object of this thread is to focus on the most creative Carnatic music performances and hopefully, as a repository of links to such creative performances.

I will start off by providing a link to one of my favorites:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04chwhKHRME&t=19s

In this, Flute Mali has rendered a shankarabharanam that is full of creativity. Each period of silence is followed by a simple but powerful and startling phrase that completely complements all the previous phrases. In fact, the whole alapna is like a carefully structured Beethoven symphony, with the sum of all the delightful phrases and melodies beautifully coordinating with each other to perform a perfectly wholesome alapna. This creativity continues into the kriti. Some rules are broken here, like dwelling on the Ni kalyani-like, but when Mali is in flow, you don’t bother with rules and traditions.

[Sachi_R]

Great thought behind the thread. Will listen to the Mali clip.

There is a caveat I think about creativity. Max. creativity ≠ Great music. Ready examples would be those graha bhedas, those raga alapanas which keep you guessing (like, "Have I boarded Guntakal Local instead of Mysore Express?"), or swaras/tani's rendered to bamboozle listeners.

[Vayoo Flute]

Great thought behind the thread. Will listen to the Mali clip.

There is a caveat I think about creativity. Max. creativity ≠ Great music. Ready examples would be those graha bhedas, those raga alapanas which keep you guessing (like, "Have I boarded Guntakal Local instead of Mysore Express?"), or swaras/tani's rendered to bamboozle listeners.

I agree that one should distinguish between the different types of creativity. My intended focus here was genuine musical creativity versus the synthesized ones for showing off particular skills of which there are plenty today. Genuine musical creativity is what will last. It is often recognizable by the impact it has on the audience and the accompanying musicians. It produces the kind of music that one never tires of listening. This Mali clip, for example, is one I have been listening to for more than 55 years and each time I find something new about it and each time I am amazed how the whole piece fits together so nicely.

[Sachi_R]

Thank you. I heard the Shankarabharanam on my headphones amidst the noise of heavy rain here.

Surely extremely enjoyable Shankarabharanam, i heard it on Adi Shankara Jayanti

I am blown away by Mali's blowing power and fidelity across octaves on a single flute. I found the raaga all decked up with his pure notes. He plays with the fluency and timing(and footwork+wristwork in batting) of a Dinesh Karthik in full flow like in this IPL

[rajeshnat]

His ideas are like clustering and grouping like a mountaineer climbing Mount Everest visualizing clusters of peaks , First pocket had the usual meditative madhyamakala ideas , then a sudden a short like whistle certainly going away from the sampradaya pidis atleast I am thinking a bit like Illayaraja or a western beat . Then suddenly he goes so deep into sampradaya sankarabharanam with so much of notes like say swararagasudha , certainly may be giving a western note additions like a kadanakuthuhalam like feel at pockets . Then a pause suddenly long serene blows almost at times only searching for aadhara shadjam , there brilliant violin in tandem- I am at that time feeling like seeing some western movie climax where some one is going to move on in their life .

Also the krithi with swaras,he is caressing with such care to bring more SPA massage at most times.mrudangam is lovely in krithi

In all that he pauses each time for us to regroup and assimilate his ideas around each cluster. Genius and maverick , but you can get unheard raaga Bhaavam of SPA bharanam.

IS he using his so called custom flute with the 8th hole extra @Vayoo Flute

[Vayoo Flute]

IS he using his so called custom flute with the 8th hole extra @Vayoo Flute

Mali did not create the 8th hole. That is a myth. In my Bansuri Innovations Series Episode 2, I have included a picture of the flute that belonged to Sharabha Shastri. That too had 8 holes.