Beyond...

Theory or vidwat might appeal to the intellect, but it is what you experience that will touch the heart..no one can form any rule for the arts.

Guess who said this. Keep guessing even as you read the post. No, this is not a ‘whodunit’ puzzle or a conundrum and it is better that we focus more on the content for the time being. I shall reveal the name of the author of this quote only at the end. 

If you are that kind of a person who sees the last page of a mystery novel and then reads the novel, I would suggest that you set aside your curiosity for some time and there is a reason for me to say this. This post is precisely for people who are more into specifics and are less into details.

Not very infrequently, most of us get into a trap while listening to a musical piece. Take a typical concert goer for example, especially in a place like Chennai. The moment the musician starts the aalapana, this person would get restless. One can feel his restlessness in his body language. A grimace on the face, the shifting of legs, swaying of the upper body, taking the arm up and striking the forehead with one or more fingers, furtive glances at the neighbours- either some of these or all these can be witnessed..Reason for the discomposure and disquietude?

It is nothing but the quest for finding the raga being sung. Let us assume that he/she succeeds in identifying the raga. If you assume that the restlessness in all likelihood would stop now, you are in for a disappointment. Next on the agenda would be the name of the kriti. Guess work would start again and if there is a ‘companion’, the two will start debating on the kriti which would be sung by the musician. Here, the past experience with the musician, the amount of time the ‘rasika’ has spent listening to that particular musician -and for that matter any musician- will all play a huge role. A pocket-sized handbook would also come handy(in fact, this notorious book will also be referred if the ‘rasika’ fails to identify the raga during the aalapana stage and the moment the musician starts singing the first line).

Now, there are various categories here- privileged rasikas who can identify most of the ragas at the drop of a hat, rasikas who take time but finally succeed after a few tries or minutes, rasikas who seek the counsel of the neighbour..and many more too. Since I am not here to take samples and plot them in a graph or open an excel sheet and divide the categories and calculate using a formula(is it pie r square or 2 pie r?) and finally hand it over to a market research company for them to advise their clients on the right kind of product to be designed and marketed during the next ‘Music Season’, I shall stop here, move on and say the objective of my narrating all this.

Music is for appreciation. But is knowledge of raga a sine quo non for music appreciation? Does the lack of knowledge make a person a lesser Rasika?

 Not for a moment I am saying that one need not know the ragas. No doubt, Raga identification is also part of appreciation as the Indian music’s uniqueness is the raga system. However, isn’t this just a tool? Can it come in the way of appreciating the beauty of music? If it does, doesn’t it defeat the purpose? Aren’t we missing the larger picture? Aren’t we missing the woods for the trees?

If one knows the raga, well and good. If one doesn’t know it, still it is well and good.

In the case of film music, it is even worse. It is not necessary for a film song to follow a particular raga. In fact, the film music composer has a great liberty. Though I have written about this aspect in one of my posts in a forum, I shall touch upon this aspect again but in one of my future posts.

There are songs which follow the structure of ragas to a tee. There are songs in which the notes of a raga are used just as a scale. There are songs in which the accidental notes occur frequently though the base follows a raga pattern. There are also songs which do not follow a particular pattern –that is pattern in the strictest sense of Indian music.

What runs as a common thread in all such compositions is the musicality..What one experiences while listening to such compositions cannot be explained and can be experienced only by/through the heart. Intellect is involved too to a certain extent and if one strikes a balance between the two, one can have a good experience. If one lets the heart dominate the intellect, one can have a great experience.

‘OrmagaLai’ from the Malayalam film ‘Oomakkuyil’(1983) falls in the category of songs which do not follow a particular pattern which can make us say with certainty that it is based on ‘so and so raga’, and therefore is an ideal composition for enjoying with the heart dominating the brain.

The prelude itself has a unique melodic charm with the keys striking softly, lingering tenderly and repeating the brief melody even as the guitar intrudes and moves with felicity. The two sets of strings take us through some unknown alleys giving us a feeling of uncertainty, certainty, joy and nostalgia.

The Pallavi in the voices of Yesudass and Janaki continues to give us same kind of feelings in addition to some unknown and indefinable feelings.

Indefinable again is the melange of sounds from the piano keys, the flute and a host of guitars in the first segment of the first interlude. Suffice to say the instruments indulge in a conversation in a language called music!  But how beautifully this conversation strikes a chord with us, warming the cockles of our heart in the process..

The strings backed by the double bass with the flute appearing towards the end, make us feel as if we are in swing swaying back and forth, a swing hanging from the heavens.

The first half of the CharaNams is tenderly textured and move with sobriety while the second half moves with buoyancy and kindle a feeling of romance. There is of course that spiritual radiance too.

Talking of radiance and spirituality, the second interlude has both in abundance. How would you define the way the piano sounds in the beginning with the brass flute responding with the strings backing subtly, the same pattern getting repeated with some minute variations and all these happening sans percussion? Or the way the guitar joins suddenly, playing from where the piano left with the strings entering at will and flowing like a steady stream? Isn’t this meditative?

How about the guitar vamping in the end with the flute giving a melody which can be called as plaintive and also as joyful?

Even if one doesn’t know the difference between piano and the guitar or doesn’t know what stringed instruments are or for that matter can’t even make out what a flute is, does it matter? Does it come in the way of appreciating the beauty or the niceties?

Does minor or major scale or the shift from one to another matter? Or are names like KiravaNi, Natabhairavi,  ShankarabharaNam, KalyaNi important?

‘Theory or vidwat might appeal to the intellect, but it is what you experience that will touch the heart..no one can form any rule for the arts’.

Let me tell you the name of the person who said that. His name is ILaiyaraaja, who also happens to be the gentleman who composed this song and thousands of immortal songs which have many intricate details.

He knows better, doesn’t he?

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