Op-Ed in The Hindu: Live vs. Recorded CM [ARTICLE]

[GautamTejasGaneshan]

Rasikas,

Thought you guys might take an interest in this article I wrote a while back,
picked up in the Chennai paper as a "Margazhi Feature":

"On the Gathering vs. the Recording"

http://www.thehindu.com/arts/on-the-gat ... 249757.ece



It was originally written as a sort of manifesto posted around town,
both for its own sake and to promote a performance
in Berkeley, CA, USA at the Freight & Salvage - "Home of Traditional Music"

with:

Gautam Tejas Ganeshan (me) - singing
Mohan Rangan Govindaraj - bamboo flute
Rajna Swaminathan - mridangam
Christina Boyd - tambura, singing

You can find a complete recording of the concert by looking for the Apr. 7th, 2013 performance date among the SoundCloud playlist at the bottom here (scroll past all the videos):

http://gautamtejasganeshan.com/recordings.html

- G

[rajeshnat]

Gautam
Lovely and crisp writing- it just radiates with sense . I did read that but did not place your name then. I will go one more mile with all your inputs. The measurement of success of art(especially cm ) should be on the gathering and not on the recording.

[Purist]

quote Gautam..."Know your farmer, limit your processed food. Know your singer, limit your processed music".

Nailed it Gautam. No better way to emphasise the need to listen 'live'

[GautamTejasGaneshan]

Thanks @rajeshnat & @Purist.

I love recordings too, of course. But usually what I'm listening for is some sense of what the concert was like. That's one reason I post full length films / recordings myself. Some people say "Why don't you try to put your best foot forward, and just select the good stuff?" Lots of reasons, primarily that the funda unit of CM appreciation is the kutcheri as a whole. Plus it's setting too low a bar to cherry pick. Every minute of GNB was class, don't have to cut any chaff. It's easy enough to sing a tuneful 2 minutes, but let's aim for 50 years instead... And also, things like thoppi development over the concert is sort of like cricket ball scuff evolution over an innings - it's part of the game. Can't be fully appreciated in isolation.

Thoughts, thoughts, thoughts...
This, that, & the other...

- G

[Rsachi]

Gautam,
Well written and an important truth felt by lovers of music.

Last year, Ramakrishnan Murthy's concert in Vani Kala Kendra was washed out by heavy downpour. Some 50 people were huddled backstage wondering how to get back home. I suggested that we go into a classroom (it's a school campus) and requested the musicians to perform by candle light. They obliged, and we had an unfogettable candle-light mikeless concert experience.

A lady was rather cross about the whole situation and wanted to go home just as we were moving into the class room. When I told her it would be a unique candle light concert, she scoffed and said that she already had many recordings of RKM!

I would like to add something to your idea. Just as the audience experiences something incomparable in live music, the musician too experiencea something unique as he performs in synchronicity with a live audience. And the music that comes in every concert, every moment, is beyond duplication and for want of a better word, truly an act of God, with everyone and everything in the moment playing a unique role in the experience. That is why music - and I mean that phenomenon in that moment - is something beyond both the artiste and the audience.

We need to feel the immensity of the moment and the phenomenon in all humility!

You would have felt this too, I think.

Again, an important articulation, that - from you.

[mahavishnu]

Gautam: I sent you a message through the forum, please check your spam folder.

Very interesting article. I like your writing style.

A similar point about live and performed music was brought up in a recent interview of Vijay Iyer in the New Yorker. The last paragraph in this article talks about perception of events and time.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/ ... is-a-ghost

"Gibson advanced what he called an ecological approach to perception and cognition,” Iyer said. “It’s not that we just hear sounds. We hear the sources of the sound, and we’ve evolved to identify them. He also talks about time and events. There’s an article called ‘Events Are Perceivable but Time Is Not.’ We experience this tumult of events, and time is a ghost of what we actually experience. What we call time is really the feeling of eventfulness, so this kind of makes music a matter of events and our perception of those events. Music is made of us listening to each other.”

[varsha]

HM Musicians still believe in the sacredness of the moment.That is a very fundamental issue.A Malkauns on one blob on the time frame is not the same as any other.Very difficult for someone who has grown with recordings to comprehend.

Nityanand Haldipur narrates a wonderful story in a DD Bharati interview
In his words
Quote
My mother used to know Annapurna Devi personally, but never interfered with my musical education.Before passing away she advised me to approach Annapurna Devi if I ever encountered a block in my progress.Situations like being stuck in a rut and unable to climb out
Sure enough I got to a point where I saw a wall in front of me , which I could not scale or go around.I had been performing for close to two decades now and was successful for all practical purposes
And I went to Devi seeking guidance.
She listened carefully and asked me to play something.
I recollected that Nikhil Bannerji had the same question thrown at him when he went to her decades ago and played an elaborate malkauns.And was ticked off.
So I tried be wiser and asked her what she wanted me to play
And she was aghast.
The thought of an artist performing something others wanted was incomprehensible to her .
And she taught me a lesson that changed the course of my life.
"Music is something that happens to you first. The springs are within you.It should first envelope you.As you get to be a master you will succeed in getting others, near and far into that envelope.There is simply no way you can play what others want.It is a very personal thing.Others may be allowed a peek, at the most.
Unquote
Dagar-Bhopali is

Dagar-Bhopali 31st July 2005

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQSiPHLtKDY
Recordings are for likes of me who ...well , forget it ...

[SrinathK]

A live performance is beyond compare to even the best recordings.

[shankarank]

The basic premise that somehow recorded CM is just "sound" needs to be examined further. If anything, Carnatic music as we know it disproves that music is anything like a "sound". The better nAdam is a good thing to have - but even that better nAdam comes with something called sAdhana in addition to may be gift. So when you hear that nAdam - you are actually getting a glimpse of sAdhana behind it.

If pratyaksha (direct experience) and anumana ( inferred experience) are both valid methods of acquiring knowledge ( I am extending the term knowlegde to musical experience as well) , then it is valid to consider recordings also as musical experience.

But the odds are somewhat stacked against the inferred method - if the listener has no pratyaksha anubhava to begin with.

Even with that limitation we try all sorts of things. For example to understand golden era music ( that was not any specific intent actually to begin with) - I travel with a golden era rasika some 40 years older from Columbus Ohio to Chicago IL - a 6 hour drive. My interest is CSM's gumuki , but he is having a recall pleasure of SSI. I have not accepted SSI's music whole heartedly yet - as spool tapes were inaccessible to much of anybody in India. It would take another 5 - 6 years for me to fully warm upto SSI on my own without him by my side. Sangeethapriya came about - and even there I wanted to see how PMI sounds in an SSI concert.

Before that we also sat side by side in Waetjen hall in Cleveland state for an afternoon concert of TKG ( year 2001 I think). Only memory of TKG I have is a national TV program in India about a year into when Television starts broadcasting down south - a haridAsulu veTalE. I remembered I kind of liked it. He starts pUrvikalyaNi Alapana - his voice was in fact worse than even this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY5y6tAn5dQ. There was barely any sound - he was barely audible.

I bent down lay on my lap - and tears were pouring into my spectacles. My friend 40 years older was wondering what is going on? What is the big deal here?

Later he will tell me - even at this age SSI would execute better - I get mad at that deflation attempt. I had company - another student said he has not heard anything great like this. As I think about it - avALukellam appatilE nai midandadu - nambaLum irukkOmE all we got are these YACMers ( they had ghee floating in their appam - a sweet snack) - they could choose between a TKG and an SSI.

[varsha]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNFLMJH5RqE

I would not have believed that this did happen , if I did not have proof of the recording.What better way to move back and forth in time ?
caveat 1

A live performance is beyond compare to even the best recordings.

caveat 2
A "dead" great performance is beyond compare to a "live"mediocre performance
caveat 3
A recording of a "dead" great performance is beyond compare to whatever is written about dead or live recordings

[Purist]

The debate I should say is not ' live music vs recorded music ' , which is superior etc.The emphasis Gautam placed,
I guess, was let us not be wholly immersed in recorded music and neglect or ignore 'live music'.

[GautamTejasGaneshan]

...an unfogettable candle-light mikeless concert experience.
A lady was rather cross about the whole situation...

Ramakrishnan Murthy is great.

And I LOVE mic-less concerts. 90% of mine are that way. (Most of the time the mic you see is for recording only, not live sound augmentation.) And 100% of the 400+ concerts I hosted through the Sangati Center 2006 - 2014 were strictly acoustic. "Sangati Center concerts are distinguished by being presented strictly acoustically, with nothing amplified or plugged in, and with humans rather than electricity being responsible for the sound - recalling an age-old approach wherein musicianship retains the focus in lieu of elaborate production. "

Speaking of cross ladies, one time a lady requested a refund of the ticket price at one of my concerts, which had taken place in a beautiful botanical gardens, because her being able to understand the words prevented her from zoning out, which presumably it had been her intention to do.

In other words I taxed her brain too much.

You can hear me discuss this incident in an interview on the radio -
scroll down here to #ZoneOutRefund:

http://gautamtejasganeshan.com/interviews.html

...with everyone and everything in the moment playing a unique role in the experience.

This is, I take it, why we call our music samgeetham.

Gautam: I sent you a message through the forum, please check your spam folder.

Can't seem to find it.
Is it supposed to show up as email, or in some inbox somewhere in the forum interface?
Maybe try using my website, or facebook or twitter or something?

Very interesting article. I like your writing style.
A similar point about live and performed music was brought up in a recent interview of Vijay Iyer in the New Yorker.

Nice Vijay Iyer quote. He's a smart dude. Particularly "Music is made of us listening to each other." & "We hear the sources of the sound." All the "surround-sound" in the world cannot compensate. This is one reason why I tend to refuse "monitors" - I don't want myself or the other musicians listening to a facsimile coming from somewhere else. The other reason is to do away with stupid gesturing from the stage for more and more volume. Makes a total waste of a greater proportion of concerts than anyone seems willing to admit.

HM Musicians still believe in the sacredness of the moment. That is a very fundamental issue. A Malkauns on one blob on the time frame is not the same as any other. Very difficult for someone who has grown with recordings to comprehend.

Apparently in his latter years Ali Akbar Khan would not even allow folks working on the archive of his many lessons over decades to listen to recordings of him teaching the wrong raga at the wrong hour. The story goes, he would barge into the room and claim this would lead to ill-health. Personally, I'm not very much persuaded by the strict time-of-day doctrine (and I know that's not exactly what you're saying, @varsha.)

...a 6 hour drive. My interest is CSM's gumuki...

Anyone driving 6 hours to research CSM's gumuki has a certain amount of default respect from me.

TKG... his voice was in fact worse than even this... there was barely any sound - he was barely audible.

I have had this experience as well. I organized a TKG concert in SF through the Sangati Center many years back (obviously). His voice was but a rasp. And yet, it was bona fide old school CM. Somehow...

What better way to move back and forth in time?
A "dead" great performance is beyond compare to a "live" mediocre performance.
A recording of a "dead" great performance is beyond compare to whatever is written about dead or live recordings.

Points well taken. I, for one, love recordings. And obviously I take care to produce good recordings & films of my own concerts.

Devil's advocate says: what if the result of "caveat 2" is that we rasikas increasingly hole ourselves up with our headphones instead of participating in the musical culture at large? A kind of brain-drain, which I believe is happening. I, for one, am not attending a concert just in order to be blasted with a silk sari advertisement. So then what though - do I just sit at home listening to Ramnad Krishnan in Jamshedpur in 1964 and pining for the old days until breathe my last, meanwhile not having a stake in where things are headed?

In fact that's what I do, in part! (Well, besides practicing & singing, of course.) But I'm just questioning...

The debate I should say is not 'live music vs recorded music,' which is superior etc. The emphasis Gautam placed,
I guess, was let us not be wholly immersed in recorded music and neglect or ignore 'live music.'

Correct. And furthermore, the same relation obtains with respect to mic-less concerts. The problem is when, in the average experience of the average rasika, mic-less concerts become vanishingly rare. At that point something is lost. Not that all concerts should be mic-less. (I have been VERY OFTEN mistaken for having this latter position over the years...)

- G

[varsha]

(and I know that's not exactly what you're saying, @varsha.)

I was not saying that .Only that HM celebrates the NOW through some rules which are based on "komal"ness or "tIvra"tva of predominant notes.
I understand what you are getting at.
As a frequent day-traveler to Bangalore it is painful too see 90 % of a/c coach travelers hooked to earphones.Slumped on their seats .
I changed my preferences to ordinary coaches-with more Life.Closer to earth.I pick a great story to tell, to learn from ... from each of these trips.
It all boils down to what one goes by, in defining " LIVING"
Omkarnath Thakur and Firoz Dastur rarely sang for recordings, for this reason.

[shankarank]

So we should settle for Live recordings? We will wait for VR to become reality

[Rsachi]

This is my assessment, if we have to force a comparison from my listener point of view:

So if a bootleg recording is a x=10, y=10, a live concert is x=1000 y=1000. So the ratio is 100:1000000.

if a bootleg has only 100ppm musical aesthetic experience, it is rather low!
And a live concert is 10000 times better!
But we are kinda used to recordings for reasons of antiquity and accessibility.

Now a CD/label recording is only different from a bootleg recording for reasons of studio audio quality. However, I find musicians rarely perform with the same verve and presence in a studio filled with cloth,wood, metal, plastic, plaster of paris, fibre and board, and a few unshaven people nodding from behind glass windows with headgear, pushing knobs. Even the accompanists are subjected to degrees of separation for reasons of "isolation" and "spatialisation". The final output is a mix, tweaked and filtered to become a plastic flower. The bootleg, at least, captures it like a mobile-phone captures a historic event from where you are, when it happens with sound and picture.

Now the live recording I am showing is a concert CD released by the likes of Charsur, or even Youtube type of recording with the right camera angle, mic and sound management. In terms of musical content it scores over both studio labels and live-casts. It suffers from a lack of aesthetic immersion afforded "in the moment".

[varsha]

Probably the tradeoff can be achieved by assessing the worthiness of the recording(or performance happening) to be labelled RELIVE Recording
Surely this one is worthy
https://archive.org/details/KomalRishabAsavariRelive

[varsha]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRlfbIgAESc

And youtube is swamped with such nuggets of history that is more engaging than the happening bit. Also to be factored is the fact that the period till 70 s(one can start wherever) was a one great period of gold rush.
I wish I could live till I am 150 years old!!!!!

[bilahari]

The article presents a rather quixotic view of the 'people phenomenon'. In many concerts, I have been annoyed to no end by the antics of audience members (reading newspapers, answering phones, constant texting, photography, mindless applause and ovations, feverish page turning in the raga-kriti booklets, chit chat, coughing, sneezing, flux of people), and this has significantly distracted me from the music and diminished my listening experience. The dynamic on stage can be troubling too; for instance, while Sri Seshachari's authoritarianism on stage has frustrated me in live performances, I can enjoy the Hyderabad Brothers' music more in recordings without the troubling visuals of him waving his brother to start and stop singing at his command. Sometimes, there is also seemingly little chemistry on stage, with three musicians performing independently and none of the sidelong glances, smiles, and appreciative gestures that make live performances so endearing. The same concerts I have enjoyed more in recordings because the ultimate musical output is actually exceedingly good.

The listening experience is not just predicated on gatherings. As we have discussed before, a rasika's frame of mind in any given concert is very different, and it takes a rare confluence of factors to truly enjoy a kutcheri. I remember working late in lab, struggling in traffic, and racing into concerts and finding myself entirely unable to concentrate on the music despite my best efforts. The big advantage of recordings is that we as listeners get to dictate our own listening environment (venue, time of day, mood, company) and consequently the listening experience. Many of my most emotional and intense listening experiences come from recordings, right from playing with thatha's gramophone records in Calcutta as a child to listening to MSS's akhilandeshwari with him in his final days, watching his eyes well with tears as he dissolved in the music, to the first time I listened to KVN's inta sowkhyamaninE one evening on the balcony, to coming home from the hospital after having lost my first patient and wanting nothing but to listen to MDR's giripai... And then still darker moments in my life when I listened to the same recording of TNK's mokshamu galada on loop...

This is not to say that I have not had similarly magical moments in live concerts, but to claim that one is inherently superior to the other is just not acceptable to me. There is something supremely emotional about music that cannot be dichotomized so neatly into live vs. recordings. Many of us - due to work, geography, and a host of other reasons - are also not fortunate enough to participate in the culture of kutcheris. Given how much our ancestors like my thatha who spent most of his life working in Bihar really struggled with having any access to CM, we should instead be grateful that we now have the means to so readily enjoy this music that we love.

[rajeshnat]

Bilahari
Being stressed at work/study and getting a touch of music for say 30 minutes is one thing and certainly what all you have said makes sense . But how can we concentrate without distractions internal or external and still listen to music at home or work for a full 3 hours plus. Of course access and being away in a city where there is no concert is always there. I may also add the experience where in you can control the volume in a recording which you have no choice then take it with what is given in live concert- all that is sidetracking.

When you go to concert you are part of the game where you as rasika think you are part of the team with vidwans and vidushis (you lie to yourself). The guess of 2 T krithis is gone and a MD kriti is done with a papanasam sivan thamizh krithi is gone , and when the sankarabharanam main alapana is on ,you start thinking this should be saroja dala netri of shyama sastri - it may be very likely right or may be wrong - but you have a more * present conscious* experience during a concert. The joy of aurally looking at how upapakkavadhyam joins and leaves at the right time , the violin return being precise and not robbing the intent of vocalist idea etc all that is there only in live concert.

Thank god Sadguru thyagaraja did not have a mp3 recorder and a device - he would have spent his life in listening again and again Sonti Venkataramanayya recording .

[Nick H]

I don't know why there should be a versus, implying that one wins and the other looses. Do we have to make an exclusive choice? No of course not. We have both --- or at least some us do: Chennai residents have an embarrassment of riches whilst some in the world have no live carnatic music at all.

Having said that, being in city of carnatic riches, I find the live experience so great that I generally keep the electronics for other kinds of music, but I still celebrate that both exist.

[Purist]

Thank god Sadguru thyagaraja did not have a mp3 recorder and a device - he would have spent his life in listening again and again Sonti Venkataramanayya recording .

[bilahari]

Rajesh, I did not make myself clear.

We can all agree that the musical experience comprises more than just the musical output. However, we cannot selectively consider the perceived positives of a live concert, that I do not dispute, while ignoring the plethora of negatives, and similarly the advantages and disadvantages of recordings. Or relegate any counterarguments to mere 'sidetracking' as you have done. As Nick says, it isn't one vs. the other at all.

Of course, a performing musician's perspective might be entirely different, as he or she is much more likely to draw inspiration, ideas, and enthusiasm from a receptive and plentiful audience. But the points I raise, and that others have raised, are from a listener's vantage point, as the original article does as well.

[Nick H]

Perhaps there is one dogmatic "versus" argument that I can make, in support of live music: recorded music does not come with a social life attached

[shankarank]

In the new age it comes with social media life attached

[vasanthakokilam]

Sachi's Magic Quadrant made me think of a parallel. We get to see the studio portraits of our grandniece and grandnephew once in a while by email. Almost every week we get to see their photos and videos over Whatsapp. Once in a while we get to see them in real time on Facetime. We recently saw them in person. All have different emotional impacts.

[GautamTejasGaneshan]

Well this is just the sort of conversation I had hoped for.

I listen to recordings every day.
That said, come to concerts please!

SF bay area people:

Sun. Apr. 17th @ Studio Grand in Oakland with:

Me
Ashwin Krishnakumar - bamboo flute
Rohan Krishnamurthy - mridangam
Christina Boyd - tambura
Vijay Narayan - tambura

& see y'all at TNK later today!

- G

[Nick H]

In the new age it comes with social media life attached

But for those of us that want, the online and the face to face complement each other nicely

[rajeshnat]

Ashwin Krishnakumar - bamboo flute
Rohan Krishnamurthy - mridangam
Christina Boyd - tambura
Vijay Narayan - tambura

Gautam,
I just appreciate the sense and sensibility of you putting this two tambura as part of invitation Christina Boyd - tambura and Vijay Narayan - tambura. . It is just so important and the most essential prerequisite , I hope this kind of invitation details rubs to rest of the world .I hope both strum and work like ganesha and are not for just tejas.

In future open a thread like Sangathi center berkley concerts in the event and continue posting invitations of your recurring events there there . Best wishes for more attendance .

All,
I just googled to find this about Ashwin Krishnakumar . Ashwin Krishnakumar was trained in Carnatic classical flute by Sri. A.V. Prakash in Mysore and Late Sri. B.N. Suresh in Bangalore. Best wishes for ashwin-rohan-christina and vijay

[srikant1987]

I was really happy to see Bilahari's pointing out how recordings can sometimes provide a better experience. Varsha's "the moment" thing is also very true. But I think that ... "the moment" thing is what leads to timeless music -- and timeless music is what never gets "stale" after multiple listenings (as in on a recording).

[GautamTejasGaneshan]

Gautam, I just appreciate the sense and sensibility of you putting this two tambura as part of invitation Christina Boyd - tambura and Vijay Narayan - tambura. . It is just so important and the most essential prerequisite. I hope this kind of invitation details rubs to rest of the world. I hope both strum and work like ganesha and are not for just tejas.

I've always listed tambura players. They're gonna show up and sit there, they deserve mention. These two in particular also sing - listen to Vijay's Todi in the ATA concert, and Christina's manirangu at the Freight & Salvage and elsewhere.

They are absolutely not just for show. I don't additionally use an electronic drone. It is only, exclusively the real deal. Why don't you come and listen and hear for yourselves?

In future open a thread like Sangati Center Berkeley Concerts in the event and continue posting invitations of your recurring events there there. Best wishes for more attendance.

Thank you.

You're right, I ought to do that.

(& there's already a thread called "Gautam Tejas Ganeshan, 2016.")

All, I just googled to find this about Ashwin Krishnakumar . Ashwin Krishnakumar was trained in Carnatic classical flute by Sri. A.V. Prakash in Mysore and Late Sri. B.N. Suresh in Bangalore. Best wishes for ashwin-rohan-christina and vijay

He's good. Looking forward to this one. Thank you.

- G

[rajeshnat]

Gautam, I just appreciate the sense and sensibility of you putting this two tambura as part of invitation Christina Boyd - tambura and Vijay Narayan - tambura. . It is just so important and the most essential prerequisite. I hope this kind of invitation details rubs to rest of the world. I hope both strum and work like ganesha and are not for just tejas.

I've always listed tambura players. They're gonna show up and sit there, they deserve mention. These two in particular also sing - listen to Vijay's Todi in the ATA concert, and Christina's manirangu at the Freight & Salvage and elsewhere.

They are absolutely not just for show. I don't additionally use an electronic drone. It is only, exclusively the real deal.

I am glad you donot use electronic drone. I am extremely interested to hear your sound management principles (I willl open a new thread in a week and add lot of my points , you can give your expert advice there-dont write anything as of now). We have to globally get rid of the menace of microphone setup which was never a problem . Your inspiration is alathur sound setup

https://www.google.co.in/imgres?imgurl= ... MwgtKAYwBg

My inspiration to hear is this ariyakudi and mmi setup


https://www.google.co.in/imgres?imgurl= ... MwguKBIwEg


https://www.google.co.in/imgres?imgurl= ... MwgbKAAwAA

Why don't you come and listen and hear for yourselves?

I took lot of time last weekend to read your webpages. YOu have wonderfully written . Looks few years back you have tested waters in nanganallur I did not know you then . I wish Berkeley is in between nanganallur and adambakkam . All the best in whatever you do.

[GautamTejasGaneshan]

Thanks @rajeshnat.

BTW - the talk I just posted a link to in another general thread - "Archiving Music"
discusses mic placement at 1:35:00.

Yes, I accompanied my father's concert on violin in Nanganallur,
while the priest rode an elevator to put a tremendous vada mala on the anjaneyar.

- G

[rajeshnat]

BTW - the talk I just posted a link to in another general thread - "Archiving Music"
discusses mic placement at 1:35:00.

Yes, I accompanied my father's concert on violin in Nanganallur,
while the priest rode an elevator to put a tremendous vada mala on the anjaneyar.

Gautam
Can you please share that link again , sorry I lost it.
Also may i know your fathers full name - ganeshan is what i know but that is just not enough. Is your father a violinst or vocalist?

[rajeshnat]

I sang at the Musiri house on Luz - all classics. Darini Telusukonti, etc.

Singing in musiri house is quite an achievement .I am yet to go there to that house to hear any concert.
Can you share that recording in a private mail to me . I am assuming it is not proper to share in public forum and I dont want to put you in a dharmasangadam.

- LOFOHEAT

[rajeshnat]

IF you are wondering what LOFOHEAT means - it means
Looking forward to hear the aural telusukonti

[thanjavooran]

Ada Rabhana ! What is this ? W W T D , L O F O H E A T
Where we are heading ?
G O K

[GautamTejasGaneshan]

G N B L G J P R R

- G T G

[GautamTejasGaneshan]

Singing in musiri house is quite an achievement.

Yes, that's rasikas.org's own "Chitravenu" @uday_shankar generously pumping the sruti petti.

source: https://www.instagram.com/p/BB0nT3sxkYY

- G

[Nick H]

I need to be sufficiently motivated to leave behind what has become my Sunday-solitude hermit day to get to Musiri-house concerts, but that has happened quite often, and will happen again.

Yes, their standards are high, but, as well as presenting established and elder vidwans they do also encourage younger, upcoming talent.

I know that SuperRasika Rajesh has other responsibilities these days that mean no longer being able to attend daily concerts, but I'm surprised that he has never been to Musiri House concet! Rajesh, do watch The Hindu on Sundays, for their announcement, and come and experience the house.

Once a month, most months of the year.

[rajeshnat]

I'm surprised that he has never been to Musiri House concet! Rajesh, do watch The Hindu on Sundays, for their announcement, and come and experience the house.

Once a month, most months of the year.

NickH
I have seen a lot of times the announcement in The Hindu . They say their start time quite uniquely at 04:01 Pm and they say 2 hours concert . While I am atleast happy they announce upfront 2 hours , as many of them in mylapore/t nagar donot tell that . The difficulty is being there at musiri home at 04:01 pm , you have lunch on sunday and then you decide not to sleep but neelAmbari at times just takes you over . You suddenly look at the watch it is 04:35 pm - musiri house concert with submain just got over .

[rajeshnat]

Gautam
Gentle reminder on #33(2 parts) and #34.

[Nick H]

Rajesh, you are, I can't help noticing, looking more, ahem... prosperous these days. I prescribe fasting on one Sunday every month!

In fact, you can break the fast at the house itself. I am confident that the family will make you welcome to do so

[rshankar]

Rajesh, you are, I can't help noticing, looking more, ahem... prosperous these days. I prescribe fasting on one Sunday every month!

You are being a very good friend!

[GautamTejasGaneshan]

Can you please share that link again, sorry I lost it.

https://youtu.be/HxORYCP8RXE

Also may i know your fathers full name - ganeshan is what i know but that is just not enough. Is your father a violinst or vocalist?

He sang, I played violin. Check this out - the first is me, and the second is Dr. L. Subramaniam, from a recent NYTimes article about the Brooklyn Raga Massive, with whom I'm performing in SF on Sun. Apr. 24th:



Eerily similar, no?
Twelve years apart, & mine first!

The one of me was taken in a photoshoot in a university music practice room (suggested by me as my natural habitat) for a 2004 article about me in "Life & Letters," the magazine of the College of Liberal Arts - University of Texas at Austin. (I was the student speaker at that year's honors convocation.)

And then the photo resurfaced in this concert review by SF Classical Voice:

"Ganeshan shared five of his alluring sets of lyrics [with] vocal ornamentations, involving trills and glissandos... Ganeshan's instrument was neither strong nor showy, but rather eminently lyrical and supple, its dramatic impact bolstered by the singer's expressive use of his arms and hands. A unique act... "

- SF Classical Voice: "Spirited Indian Sounds Spice Classical Revolution"

https://www.sfcv.org/reviews/classical- ... revolution

[rajeshnat]

Also may i know your fathers full name - ganeshan is what i know but that is just not enough. Is your father a violinst or vocalist?
.....
He sang, I played violin.

Gautam
who is your appa? Is he there in one of the below links

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDLugSV0UHM

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/vocal ... 1080626385

If he is not one of the above , push a picture and his music please.

I am still waiting for LOFOHEAT.(by private mail as suggested before)

[vasanthakokilam]

Just for fun, hope Gautam does not mind, based on the few clues given by Gautam and some Google searches, my guess is Gautam is the great grandson of of Sri. Lakshminarayana and grandson of Sri. L. Vaidyanathan or an elder sister.

[rajeshnat]

Just for fun, hope Gautam does not mind, based on the few clues given by Gautam and some Google searches, my guess is Gautam is the great grandson of of Sri. Lakshminarayana and grandson of Sri. L. Vaidyanathan or an elder sister.

Spring Cuckoo
I am assuming with the angle that L subramaniam is slated to perform with Gautam Tejas, u may be deducing that way.L Vaidyanathan who expired when he was 65 in 2007 has a son LV Ganeshan.

http://www.lakshmansruthi.com/news/apri ... nathan.asp
Check this photo , he is a keyboard artist and also a music director for few tamil movies . Will that person be invited by Nanaganallur Anjaneya koil to perform a vadamala concert . I am assuming one of the two guesses that I made is more likely and Gautam Tejas father may not be LV Ganeshan . I can still be wrong

Gautam Tejas,
EngE theduvEn ganeshanai Enge Theduven
Ella kovililum ella flatilum ganeshan irukkirAr
But where is your appa ganeshan.
I competed with you in writing a 3 liner but It fell flat

Time to reveal the answer and just not smile and sleep with this post.

Chitravenu KickBoxer
You may have the answer and I am not sure if you are reading this post. You already have only 30 minutes for a bangalore concert and that indeed will be stress For you-.You can also reveal vocalist vidwan ganesan - appa of Gautam Tejas.

[rajeshnat]

my guess is Gautam is the great grandson of of Sri. Lakshminarayana and grandson of Sri. L. Vaidyanathan or an elder sister.

VK
Gautam can be maternal great grand grandson of Lakshminarayana- still possible where Ganeshan amma is Lakshminarayana daughter. We will wait for Gautam Tejas to clarify. Googling Lakshminarayana I see Ganam is the composer daughter fo Lakshminarayana
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V._Lakshminarayana

[uday_shankar]

Yes, that's rasikas.org's own "Chitravenu" @uday_shankar generously pumping the sruti petti

Hi Gautam, nice to see you actively engaged in this forum. Some broad thoughts some of the things discussed here, I am so swamped for time that I haven't had a chance to participate:

1) English Lyrics: I balked at the idea at first and then it simply grew on me. I would be more than dishonest if I claim that I am moved by any kind of sahitya/lyrics. Only sounds do it for me...this is probably my loss (like a certain kind of deafness). So it quickly dawned on me that all was well with your English lyrics and only a residual prejudice was holding me back. Then the floodgates were opened. However, I still listen to your beautiful singing rather than try to follow the meaning of lyrics. In fact after listening to one of your "modifications", say Evarani, I catch myself mentally humming the tune with completely random english lyrics but in your voice !!!

2) The use of purely acoustic sources of sound: Here you're preaching to the choir of choirs.

3) Live vs recorded: Both have their place. Recorded music is the single entity that has enriched my life more than anything else, apart from family, love, nature, etc...

Best wishes and keep em coming. I am thunder-stuck by the extent of your output. How/when do you get time to compose, practice and put together all these songs ?! R E S P E C T !

Rajesh, sorry no clue about Gautam's ancestry.

[Pratyaksham Bala]

.
(GAUTAM TEJAS GANESHAN, b. 1983, Sugar Land, TX)

rajeshnat:

Hope you have read this !
http://gautamtejasganeshan.com/writings.html

"A musical family?
Yes, but not professionals.
Amateur, meaning "lover".

"Now about my father. My father is a titan in my musical life, and not by design. My father is a burster into song. A veteran of this. In our homelife, at any time, incidental to any activity, would come forth strains of alapana - free "unfolding" extempore in carnatic music - and of no mean conception. My father has a grip on ragam in carnatic music that is unquestionably my most valuable inheritance. This steady stream of melody into my life has been the glacial influence in the development of any musical depth in me. I don't know what would be the direction of my musical compass without it. ...

"My mother was the predominant chaperone of my early musical life. She had the kind of motherly patience that supported attending weekly classes with me of this and that, and overseeing a practice regimen ...

"My sister had played the violin, and by way of comparisons a decade apart I was reminded that "her fingers came down like hammers". My mother had also learned to play at that time, and did so again along with me and also continuing afterwards of her own accord ...

"my mother did have some affinity for carnatic music as well. But as for her own musical enjoyment, on Saturday mornings she would listen to a weekly radio program of Bollywood classics, broadcast in the suburbs of Houston, TX, where I grew up ...

"At this time my father was profiting from retirement by undertaking an annual concert tour in India. This was a respectable endeavor, in my opinion, and one year I traveled with him and accompanied many of the concerts. We played at the Thyagaraja Vidwat Samajam in Mylapore (Chennai), the temple in Nanganallur with the idol of Anjaneya so big that the priests do abhishekam by elevator (and the immense vada-mala would feed an army - of monkeys) ..."