Thalam and Varnams

[ardhanariswar]

I'm having difficulty deciphering how jathis are integrated into varnams. Any help/comments would be much appreciated.

In particular, I'm looking at some youtube clips of the famous Anandabhairavi Rajagopala Varnam (or is it a swarajathi?) by one of the TQ bros.

please have a look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAwcjwUPg80

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qRNUH8HpU8

Why isn't the singer starting the adi cycle clapping at 'Sakhiye' which I'm assuming is the beginning of the Pallavi?

Also the jathi segment in the first clip starts kinda oddly, with the mridangam fudging around a bit.


Here's another clip of the varnam where the thalam confuses me, especially at the start of the trikala jathi.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lbi9T7OZo9g

Thanks for the help!

[Umesh]

I am far from a tala expert, so better informed rasikas please correct me if I am wrong.

Samam of the talam begins on "ye" of "sakhiye. The laghu slap (thattu) should begin there. Think of the syllables sa-khi like "pickups" in Western musicology. In other words, the song begins slightly before the tala count (I believe we call this atheetha eduppu).

In the latter clip, the jathi commences on the first aksharam of the second drutham, with the "thalanguthakadiku" bit on the first drutham. This brings us to samam on the "ye" syllable once again.

Hope that's not too confusing. More enlightened individuals, chime in!

[vasanthakokilam]

I replied to the same question by ardhanariswar over here in the thala section: http://rasikas.org/forums/viewtopic.php? ... rnams.html

Umesh, what you wrote will also work. In this case the singer is going with a 1.5 eduppu.