In his recordings one can easily discern his manodharma by listening to any song. What is even more creditable is that he became a master in such a short span of time, and endeared himself to the highly critical Madras audience, so much so that he was honored with the title "Bhagavatar" by popular consensus, an honorific which is not easily earned even by seasoned musicians.
i have one concert
with mc-kar mani.. in fact i posted a bhairavi kamalamba-from this concert- to badri for the navrathri thread, but in the aftermath of the crash, i never checked up why it was not posted.
badri do you have it.
anyway i will start working on the noise reduction for the full concert and post it.
i also have two full hours of his singing bharatha natyam songs to students.this is an accompanying set of tapes for a book authored by him on the subject.i only have the review of that book in a sangeeth natak academy issue.
Please post them. Higgins was the first to bring us self respect in our performing arts. He not only strived to master CM but also tried even to mimic the mannerisms and lifestyle. He is an important milestone in the history of our pages in CM!
Folks, please accept my apologies.
Just missed it when getting all the links together (I had missed a
couple of others, which CMLsir was kind enough to help correct).
Here's the rapidshare d/l link from Shri Kulkarni (link is still active).
[rapidshare link deleted]
also have two full hours of his singing bharatha natyam songs to students.this is an accompanying set of tapes for a book authored by him on the subject.i only have the review of that book in a sangeeth natak academy issue.
KMBC is Karnatik Music Book Centre in Sripuram, Chennai. It is close to Ajanta Hotel. Yes they do have copies of several out-of-print books including rare and very old ones. They have a stock of books in all languages. In fact I got hold of the first volume of Mysore Vasudevacar`s compositions(published by himsef with aid of HHJC oDeyar. The second volume was of course from those unbelievable roadside second-hand book vendors in and around Avenue Road Bangalore.
CML,
I emailed Giri Trading and KMBC. Giri Trading got back to me with the info that they do not carry the book, but will try and locate it in other book stores in Madras. If I hear from them or from KMBC, I can ask for 2 copies. Can you do the same? I am sorry to send this through the main posting: the email link doesn't appear to work!
Ravi
Shankar
Thanks for the offer. I have e-mailed too. If either of us get an answer we will ask for two copies and share. Do email meat cmlover@rogers.com
The name is rather peculiar. Higgins is a western name. But Bhagavathar? Purely Indian â?? South Indian in particular.
Higgins Bhagavathar was half-American, half-Indian, South Indian. Not by birth, but by conversion, adoption. He, out of his own volition, became Indian, in the sense that he was breathing Indian culture. He was an exponent of Karnatak music. Thus he was Indian without becoming a naturalised citizen of India.
Higgins Bhagavathar's name, before he became 'Indian' in the real sense, was John B. Higgins. He was known only as such in his native land. He was born in Connecticut State. A musical prodigy, his was a household of musicians. His mother was a reputed musician. As a boy, he used to sit for hours listening to the notes of music. Of course, it was western.
Love for Karnatak music
The person, who was the proximate cause of his love for Karnatak music, was the great Bharatanatya artiste Balasaraswathi. Young Higgins attended Balasaraswathi's performance at his place. A new enchanting world of music and dance opened up before him. Particularly the musical accompaniments enticed him. The accompanists were none other than Balasaraswathi's own brothers â?? T. Viswanathan and T. Ranganathan.
Balasaraswathi was in her advanced age then. Still the dexterous movements of her nimble body and the rhythmic dance transported him to the heights of ecstasy. They had a mesmerising effect on him. The background music rendered by Viswanathan and Ranganathan was soulful. Purandaradasa's song Krishna Nee Begane Baro (Krishna, come soon) in particular, made him go into ruptures.
Divine charm
He resolved to learn Indian music. It appears that he had earlier heard some Hindustani music, but this had a divine charm of its own. He introduced himself to Ranganathan and Viswanathan. His desire was to visit the land where Karnatak music was born â?? to South India.
He tried for the full night scholarship for learning music in India and was successful in getting it.
His Gurus
He came to South India and stayed here for more than three years. He went straight to Chennai (then Madras) and enrolled himself as a student of Karnatak music. His gurus were T. Swaminathan, T. Brinda, T. Mukta and T. Ranganathan, descendants of Veena Dhanammal. After three years of gruelling practice he became almost perfect. Perhaps he excelled many Indian musicians. It was a miracle, especially in view of the fact that he was a Westerner.
The saying that 'east is east and west is west and never the twain shall meet' is more true in the case of the two systems of music. 'Almost every traveller in India', says Captain Day, 'comes away with the idea that the music of the country consists of mere noise and nasal drawling of the most repulsive kind, often accompanied by contortions and gestures of the most ludicruous description'. Many foreigners who have tried to appreciate Indian music end up by saying that though it interests them, does not appeal to them in the least'.
But Higgins Bhagavathar succeeded in overcoming the many hurdles as enumerated by H.A. Popley in his book 'The music of India', in the way of understanding and appreciating it and finally in mastering it. Very soon, he was able to discern the difference between the two systems of music.
He realised that the dominant factor in Indian music is melody, or monody, while that of western music is harmony, or polyphony. In Indian music, notes are related to definite notes of a raga. In western music, they are related to varying chords. Indian melody is cast in one definite mood throughout, and both time and tune are wrought into one homogeneous whole. In western music, mood is used to articulate the balance of the whole piece.
Salient notes
In Indian music, the salient notes are fixed by long association and tradition. The relation of the individual notes to one another is settled by ancient tradition. In western music, the salient notes are made by the momentary impulse of the harmony or of the counterpoint.
In Indian composition, the melody is dependent upon the relation to certain fixed notes which vary according to raga. Western melodies tend to circle round the notes which are harmonically related. Indian music lays stress on grace â?? gamaka â?? 'curves of sound.' They are essential parts of the melodic structure. Finally Popley adds that one thing which depresses the western mind is the harsh nasal tone of the Indian singer. But it is said to be the degraded form of a fine tradition. The Yogi could obtain the power to go on singing without breathing. The ha-bit of singing at the back of the nose is said to be the result of the desire to attain to this power.
Singing ability
It is really marvellous that Higgins Bhagavathar was able to sing like an Indian, a South Indian at that. His voice was suitable for Indian music, Karnatak music in particular. The western style which was 'humming,' as it were, was influencing his singing in an imperceptible way. His voice brought to one's mind the twisting together of many thin steel wires to form a thick steel rope, the gushing of a great mass of water, making a roaring sound, which would at once thrill the audience.
Higgins Bhagavathar was every inch a South Indian musician. He gave many concerts in Mysore and Bangalore. He would always come dressed like a South Indian Vidwan, in Jubba and lungy (dothi), with an angavasthram round his neck and sporting vibhuti and kumkum on his forehead. He would fold his hands and say Namaskaram before sitting on the dais with crossed legs in the padmasana mode. He strictly followed the tradition of Karnatak music. He would sing varna, alapana, keerthana, swaraprasthara, kalpanaswaraprasthara and neraval, his pronunciation being perfect. It looked as though the great vaggeyakaras had blessed him.
He went back to the US to propagate Indian music among his people. He had obtained a degree in Ethnomusicology from the Pennsylvania University. Alas! His life was cut short in a road accident.
- HSK
As I understand it, he was not just a wide eyed innocent who came to India to learn music: he spent some 5 years in India, and ended up writing up his experience for a PhD from Wesleyan University - talk about killing 2 birds with one stone. In fact, the book that was referred to by Kulkarni was his thesis.
Ravi
The book referred to in earlier conversations by Jon Higgins on the Music of Bharathanatyam is in fact his Phd thesis at Wesleyan University. The details of the PhD thesis can be found at wesleyan university's website. A copy of the thesis can be purchased from some organisation which sells university PhD thesis. I have personally seen a copy of it at the Univ. of Madras, dept of music library. Ramesh
I just read the write-up on Mr. Higgins in this thread.
Where does this stereotype of Westerners thinking CM music is all about Nasal noise come from? That seems like a meta-sterotype, an Indian stereotype of what the western stereotype is.
Granted a few great ones did not have the greatest voice and produced nasal sound but that is not the majority. I can see the writer needed a context to place Higgins' interest in CM and to bring out the fact how rare that is but it makes me mad that he chose the wrong one to emphasize. There are certainly obstacles to appreciate CM for a foreigner but that does not have much to do with nasal noise.
A case in point is, there is enormous popularity of early twentieth century Blues music in the U.S.A. Many of the revered greats were once poor street musians in the southern U.S.A. who were singing with just a guitar in their hand. The voices were not that great ( may be nasal in some cases ) but what we call as 'Bhavam' and 'Soul' is what they were great in, as applied to the Blues genre. People do not have any problems looking beyond the nasal voice to tap into the inner and deep sentiments they were singing about. ( As many of you know, the 50s, 60s rock, though considered the music of the counter-culture, is all strongly rooted in the rural Blues music. ).
In general, it is just not easy for a casual listener to appreciate a foreign system of music, especially classical. So, that in itself is a great tribute to Higgins, being attracted to CM at a fundamental level, to cross all that mental barriers, sticking with it for the full course and reaching the high position he achieved. It is more his perseverance that needs to be appreciated and held in awe rather than making it bigger than what it is by bringing in the illusion of an unattractive exterior of CM singers and then theorizing how hard it should be to look beyond that for a typical westerner.
I did not know Higgins got attracted by 'Krishna ni begane baro' on his first CM listening experience. There is his rendering of this song in the B side of the vinyl. Very slow, moving and touching version indeed.
There are also Vinyl recordings of other CM artisits that are streamed . I will post this in the general section as well.
Vasantakokilam,
How did you hear the Vinyl recording in real player? I get this meta file error leading to real player. I have a DSL connection at home.
Realplayer and I usually do not get along but in this case it was OK.
I clicked on the 56K or 256K buttons. That kicked off RealPlayer which then played the record.
That is the short answer.
To look up some info for you, I coped the direct URL from the clip properties in real player and pasted it in IE. That gave me an error from the site 'No direct linking to audio allowed'. Fair enough. But now if I click on the 56K or 256K buttons, it launches realplayer OK but realplayer displays an error 'File not found'. I have cleared caches of every kind I know and that did not help. I had by now messed up both sides of Higgins with this experiment. But KVN links played OK.
I did the following two things which solved the problem. Did a security update on realplayer ( using tools->Check for update in realplayer ). Rebooted the machine. Now the Higgins links started playing OK. Most probably it is the reboot that did it but I can not be sure.
VK,
If I understand correctly, Higgins and the Western world (includes Kersenbaum, Kay Poursine and other American disciples of Balasaraswati) owe their introduction to the legendary dancer, and the Indian Art form because of the dancer's brothers who taught at Wesleyan - through them, the west saw Balasaraswati and were reeled in by her sheer artistry, hook-line and sinker!
Bala's dance to krishNa NI bEganE bArO was Jon Higgins' intro to carnatic music and bharatanatyam.
Ravi
Thanks Ravi for the background. Yes, Wesleyan U. had a great deal to do with CM propagation in the U.S. There are some interesting anecodotes from KVN as to how the professor from WU lobbied Musiri to release KVN from his teaching duties so he can be a visiting faculty at WU for a year.
Back to my rant, but in a more positive tone, if I am a writer, the path I would take for introducing some dramatism in the Higgins description is: Research and find out how Balasaraswathi's trip to U.S. come about and link it with Higgins ascension. Say, it all happened over a casual conversation outside Music Academy (over the munching of some delicious vadai and sambar ), the lead-in line can be just that: 'How a casual conversation to have Balasaraswathy perform in the U.S. led to an American's life time of dedication to carnatic music". Though there is a bit of dramatization here, most major events in people's lives can be traced to comparably trivial encounters as opposed to grand planning.
You know, everyone concentrates on Higgins, but dancers like Kay Poursine and Dr. Saskia Kersenboom, people who continue to propogate Bala's style of dancing here in the US are completely ignored.
Here is web-page with an excerpt from Jon Higgin's PhD thesis: http://www.kpoursine.com/BHHIST.htm
Ravi
That is interesting. I do not recollect their names specifically but vaguely remember reading about them in some dance related web pages. How well are they regarded/known in Chennai? In the dance circle or with the audience?
I think they are excellent dancers who seem to have undertaken several journeys to India to understand both the physical, but more importantly, the spiritual basis for the dance. They, like Higgins, stayed with Balasaraswati, if I remember correclty. Dr. Saskia Kersenboom is one of the world's leading experts on the devadasi system in India.
I am not sure how well they are regarded in Madras, but here in the US they have large schools and Ms. Poursine teaches/taught at Wesleyan...
Did you read Higgins' thesis? although his PhD was in music, I think there is as much info on bharatanatyam as there is on CM in his work
Ravi
I must share this anecdote which appeared in SPAN and Reader's digest a while ago about Higgins singing "krishna Nee begane baro". This is a true incident and could be corrabarted by other artists concerned. Apparently higgins and other members of his kutcheri party visited udupi temple. Even though Jon was in Veshti-angvastaram and his namam, was noticed as a foriegner by his color of the skin and was not allowed in the sanctum sanctorium. V.thiyagarajan, the violinist persuaded Jon to sing "Krishna nee begane baro". Spell bound by his rendering, the priest fell at his feet and let him inside the sanctum of the temple.
), the lead-in line can be just that: 'How a casual conversation to have Balasaraswathy perform in the U.S. led to an American's life time of dedication to carnatic music". Though there is a bit of dramatization here, most major events in people's lives can be traced to comparably trivial encounters as opposed to grand planning.
