Ragams and Songs for Main and Sub Main Items in a Concert

Raval · Post by **Raval** » 25 Oct 2008, 03:25

This is a wide subject and predicting will be hard. But, what are the most common ragas and songs that artists select as their main and sub main items?

appu · Post by **appu** » 25 Oct 2008, 06:27

Ravl, More than prediction, a certain level of understanding the scales is important in deciding the ragams for the sub main and main. Starting from the ragam for the varnam the artiste is setting himself up for his next ragam. If let say the artist decides on Kambhoji Ata tala varnam, he will rarely do a Kambhoji RTP or even sing a hari khambhoji main. The idea is to contrast the ragas so that you do not slip into another ragam, while developing the current ragam. Rarely would you see an artist perform a Shanmukhapriya and follow it with a Bhairavi immediately. The structure of the two ragams is such that while developing Bhairavi, slipping into Shanmukhapriya, which was your previous ragam is almost 100 percent.

So to answer your question an artist does a lot of pre thinking on his concert structure/list prior to the show and makes changes as he progress through the concert depending on the ambience of the venue, audience base etc.

gobilalitha · Post by **gobilalitha** » 25 Oct 2008, 06:32

The days that only weighty raagas like kambodi, todi, sankarabaranam,kalyani must be taken as main raagas have gone . Now a days even raagas like bageshri, darbari , jaunpuri, yamunakalyani are taken as main raagas and the vidwans with abundant talent exhibit their mastery over these raagas. gobilalitha

gn.sn42 · Post by **gn.sn42** » 25 Oct 2008, 06:56

DePauw University built a database of songs presented at about 300 concerts during the 2003 season: this should be representative of what was popular at that time:

Overview: http://www.depauw.edu/library/musiclib/RagaDatabase/
Database: http://www.depauw.edu/library/musiclib/ ... tabase.asp

If you read the "Kutcheri Reviews & Recordings" thread http://rasikas.org/forums/8/kutcheri-reviews-recordings/ you can collect information about what is currently popular. If you do, please post the results here!

vijay · Post by **vijay** » 25 Oct 2008, 15:23

Appu's points are largely similar to mine in the short (2 message!) discussion below

http://rasikas.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7023/kutcheri-pieces/

Except for one thing - It is a concert planning fad to sing Ata Tala and the Pallavi in the same raga! This was apparently done quite often in the past when Pallavis would be taken up in major ragas (as against the present norm where Pallavis are generally rendered in relatively less popular ragas).

Sanjay for example uses the Ata-tala varnam-RTP combo at times. I think this was even discussed on a review thread sometime back.

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 26 Oct 2008, 04:33

Also TMK?

sbala · Post by **sbala** » 26 Oct 2008, 08:28

Proper placement of sub-main and main seems to be far more important than the actual choice of ragas for main or sub-main. Usually, I get restless when the submain is delayed beyond the 3rd or 4th piece or when there is little gap between sub-main and main.