Wikispaces for Veena

Ever since I heard about this, I always refer to myself as an Air Vainika. My theoritical fascination with the Veena probably started due to the charismatic figure of Dhanammal. Dhanammal to me represents all that the Madras Carnatic Patriarchy was not. I find it gleefully satisfying that there was someone who did not pander to the egos of the head honchos. Ironically Dhanam did have certain proscribed rigid gender views as to how women should sing without sounding the tala loudly. Despite this, she seems to me a woman who led her life the way she wanted it. My practical fascination of course started with this incredible lady.She brought to life several compositions that existed only as notations in my mind. When I listen to her render Dikshitar's compositions in ragas Navroj or Neelambari I have a feeling that this was how the composer intended it to be.The way she weaves vocal and veena alternating with the right stuff to be highlighted is remarkable.

So finally in 2000 I took upon myself to learn the veena. As it so happened, at the end of the first day of my class I ended up having an intricate argument about Veena, Dhanammal and Banis and depth of gamakas with my music teacher who was from the Mysore School. Thus ended my tryst with attempting to learn the veena.Some people say that as a student learning the Sarali Varisai the above argument was uncalled for but I disagree with them.

Now I recently had an opportunity to work on making a Wikispaces for the Veena.My lesson learnt after building this wiki is that wikis are addictive.

Making Allies of Ragas

A recent revisit of two compositions of Dikshitar in Darbar.There is more to this raga than meets the eyeapart from the obviously stated and restated issue that this raga in the South Indian system as an allied raga to Nayaki.There is even a standing joke attributed to various musicians that when someone told them that their Darbar had traces of Nayaki, the musician retorted saying that 'A Darbar (court) ought to have a Nayaki'

An old school musician of the Dikshitar school once told me that Dikshitar's Darbar ought to have traces of Kanada.Recently someone pointed out an interesting fact to me - Why does Dikshitar's Darbar not have any G G R Sprayogas which are usually stressed as its typified distinguishing prayoga.When I say distinguishing prayogaI mean in the context of today's South Indian musicians trying to distinguish it from Raga Nayaki. with its elongated Nishadha. So the South Indian Darbar at one point of time was closer to the Kanada constellation. Interestingly one compositionof Tyagaraja Nityaroopa which was supposedly sung originally in raga Karnataka Kapi is now sung in Darbar.(Karnataka Kapi is again another raga whose name keeps cropping up everywhere but not much detail is known of its identity - which is today conveniently placed closer to Kanada than Kapi) .

My guess is that Dikshitar and Tyagaraja had composed in a certain older flavor of Darbar.This Darbar probably had an older flavor similar to the North indian Kanada group.Dr.Harold Powers in one of his papers , mentions that at some point of time this Darbar usurped musical material from Nayaki thus weakening Nayaki in the process. This seems to be the perfect explanation for this phenomenon.Raga X arrives on the scene and in its form very different from Raga Y.,Some enterprising musician/composer mixes in some Y with this X , making a modified X. Now this Raga X begins to slowly sound more and more like Y so now we have Y's existence questioned. To combat this situation they add additional distinguishing characteristics to X, so X now morphs into a complete Z and now in the new world this Z and Y become related. So when this Darbar acquired new features from Nayaki there needed a way then to distinguish it from the other raga and thus this new set of phraseologies such as GGRS was invented. It would be interesting to see a study on the supposedly distinguishing characteristics of some of the Carnatic allied ragas in vogue today andtrace them historically.I would like to think that several of these distinguishing prayogas would be relatively newer additions to these ragas added specifically for this process of grouping,regrouping and reinventing.

Whose ethnomusicology?

I had mentioned the insider-outsider conflict with regards to Indian Philosophy from an abstraction point of view.Again when it comes to music, the word ethnomusicology would always cause a distinct discomfort in my mind.It somehow used to make me feel that it is used from the perspective that the West alone has a classical tradition and other music systems are essentially ethnic as in primitive, folksy, tribal etc.I have read statements from the late Prof.T.Viswanathan talking of similar reactions The primary problem here was the assumption of Western musicology as "Musicology" and other systems as "Ethnomusiclogy".Today most scholars and researchers have come to terms with the idea that Western musicology is Western ethnomusicology as is Chinese ethnomusicology or South Indian ethnomusicology.Leaving alone the problems and politics of etymology aside, what does ethnomusicology have to offer for indigenous practitioners and researchers? Lawrence Witzleben in a paper titled 'Whose ethnomusicology?' discusses the two fundamental questions ,Is ethnomusicology as understood and practiced in the US and Europe suitable for the needs of non-Euroamerican scholars ? How can we reconcile the universalistic ideals of ethnomusicology as an academic discipline with the specialized needs,established scholarly conventions of a particular culture and its musics? He adds a beautiful dimension to the insider-outsider perspective normally understood as unidimensional.

What is all too easily forgotten is that "insider" and "outsider" are multiplex and relative perspectives. Every researcher is an insider in some respects and an outsider inothers: a "cultural insider" exists at many levels of specificity (ethnicity, language, dialect; country, region, village, or neighborhood of one's origin),as does a "musical insider" (general music knowledge, performer or theorist, knowledge of a specific instrument or tradition, level of performanceskill). In addition, each individual has a unique combination of attributes which connect them to or distance them from a particular topic, group,or individual: these include gender, age, religion, economic or class background,education, and political orientation. Even in an ethnomusicologyprogram whose purpose is to train "emic" researchers (in the broad sense of "Chinese people studying Chinese music"), insider/outsider issues are still highly relevant, as the people and traditions studied are in some respects inevitably "the other."

Again when it comes to articles on musicology I find this cultural acclimatization a difficult barrier to cross.For instance, if you read an article by a typical South Indian performing musician/ scholar in the age range between (50-80) say on some compositional aspect of Tyagaraja's music you will soon be reading a huge paragraph on the 9 kinds of bhakti and the emotional states of Tyagaraja.This inherent esotericism would certainly baffle an outsider (in the country/cultural sense).Similarly there are brilliant articles by indigenous North Indian musicologists who frequently indulge in polemics.I have read an article on Dhrupad where in the middle of nowehere a huge diatribe against Pandit Bhatkhande and his That classification was launched. This is not to say that the scholarship of the West is all propriety and sobriety but there is an academic discipline which prevents these.Of course the situation in Indian universities today might be different but I am talking about the pool of research articlescurrently available across journals and publications.