http://epaper.navhindtimes.in/NewsDetail.aspx?storyid=12515&date=2016-09-25&pageid=1
Alaaps, Raagas & Riyaaz
AR
Rahman’s concert at UN General
Assembly in New York on 15th August marked the centenary celebration of the great
Carnatic singer MS Subbulakshmi. It took place 50 years after the latter performed
there in 1966, on invitation by the then Secretary General U Thant. Why do
certain Indian musicians become legends? What magical sounds do they render to
have a diehard following over continents, irrespective of language and
nationalities? Welcome to the
fascinating world of ‘alaaps, raagas and riyaaz’!
‘Kausalya Supraja
Rama’ is the first rendition of the day at sunrise in every south Indian home. They
would affirm that this classical enunciation of the mantra by MS evokes
celestial vibrations in the environment and connects a devotee to the divine.
It’s a demonstration of a simple raga in a voice of perfect pitch and that's why
“Venkateshwara Suprabatham" album still peaks in the market. MS demonstrates
the bhakti rasa here.
The rasa is derived
from ragas made up of notes and srutis. Swara
or note (Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni) is not just a particular musical frequency that
can be found by hitting the right key but in the case of a great musician, it is
an utterance that comes from deep within the soul. The singer may have the
perfect pitch and yet not get to the next level. Iconic singers indulge in a
seductive foreplay and approach the swara tenderly and lovingly and arrive at
it from below or above, caressing that hidden half note that hovers next to it,
and this is what makes their notes really shine forth.
People throng to
hear a great musician sing or play an instrument. For the adroit performer, ragas
are not abstract aesthetic constructs made up of notes, but are connected to
emotions, events and even seasons. With ragas, the musician paints a beautiful
sound-painting resulting in an emotional reaction. Ragas, played to perfection
with alankars and taans (embellishments), can create rasa of love, bhakti,
playfulness and also thunder, lightning and hailstorms. Crescendos of such colour
and emotion are the result of years of meditation on musical notes - and on
life itself.
If the celebrity
musician is in the right mode, they unfold and lay out the raga in the ‘alaap’.
The languorous lovemaking continues in the ‘jor’, awakening each note to the
seductive drone of a tanpura. Progressing gradually, the ardour increases and
the percussion joins in to imbue the music with a vigour, keeping pace with the
rising tempo of emotional fervor. The crescendo arrives with the ‘jala’ - the
pitch of union and fulfillment personified by unending reverberations of
exhilaration.
Namita Devidayal, in
her book “The Music Room”, writes, “Merely mastering the notes is not enough.
You have to reflect on the human condition, on life itself. Every time a
musician sings a raga, it unfolds and expands, revealing new insights and
pathways. That is why they say that a musician really becomes a musician at the
end of his life. When a veteran musician uses notes to tell a greater story, he
attains celestial heights and his art then breaks free from material grounding.
The note ma in Raga Yaman lies in the uppermost sruti, the one closet to pa. It
is only when you start hitting the precise sruti of the raga that the raga will
open up to you and say “Aah! Now you may enter me ….”
Riyaaz is a musician’s
hours of sadhana stretched endlessly.
Lost
in sounds of cascading music, trying to achieve the perfect note, they lose all
sense of time. Devidayal writes, “One
evening a man on his way to an all-night theatre, passed the maestro’s house
after dinner and heard him practicing a particularly complicated taan- a piece
that shot up, did a number of stunning trapeze swings and twirled its way down
a spiral, all in one breath. He did it over and over, but one note kept
slipping. The man listened for a while and then went his way. It was close to
four in the morning when the man intoxicated with sleeplessness, returned back.
When he passed by the great singer’s window, he heard him practicing the same
taan. It was now perfect.”
Bombay Jayasri,
carnatic musician from South, is famous for her soothing and sober style of
rendering. Voice culture and breath control are techniques that singers master very
early in their vocation, and keep stretching it more and more over time. Kesarbai Kerkar, one of the most noted Khayal
singers of the last century, had a strong will and determination. She had long
stopped learning from her guru Alladiya Khan, the founder of the Jaipur
gharana. But then, just before he passed away, he gave a few private concerts
where she heard him sing ‘Samporana Malkauns’ – a rare raga that uses all the
seven notes. She marched to his house determinedly the next day and asked him
to teach her the raga. The two got together every morning and once again the
jewels of music were passed on from guru to shishiya. Alladiya Khan at that time was ninety and
Kesarbai fifty years old.
Lastly, there is no saying about ‘The Rahman
Effect’. With his unparalleled capacity
for work, AR Rahman creates exceptional ‘sound designs’ fostering team-play of
talented musicians in India and abroad. His imagination has synthesized and
tapped sound patterns unheard of before. Humility in the face of his prodigious
talent combines to form a potent package. He says, “Every time I sit for a song, I feel I am finished. It's like
a beggar sitting waiting for God to fill your bowl with the right thought. In
every song, I ask help from Him. Everybody around is so good, so to create
music that will connect with so many people is not humanly possible without
inspiration.”
I would like to end
with words from Vikram Seth’s book, ‘An Equal Music’- “Music, such music, is a
sufficient gift. Why ask for happiness, why hope not to grieve? It is enough,
it is to be blessed enough, to live from day to day and to hear such music- not
too much, or the soul could not sustain it- from time to time.”
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