India New England - Arts &
Entertainment
Issue: 5/1/04
Even without lyrics, Lalgudis evoke
emotion in their music
By
CHAMPA BILWAKESH
ANDOVER,
Mass. - Equipped with no tangible musical notations, the master of the Carnatic
tradition creates his pieces with only the musical map in his head.
In
the first of a two-day lecture demonstration, Lalgudi Krishnan and his sister
Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi presented the methodology by which a student of the
Carnatic system may attain this level of proficiency.
The April 7 event
was sponsored by the Chinmaya Maruti Center and LearnQuest Academy.
The
purpose of all music is to appeal to human emotions. Masters of the violin, the
Lalgudi siblings demonstrated how their music - without lyrics to express
meaning - can still evoke emotion in the listener, transcending language,
ethnicity, religion and all such artificial borders.
This was first
demonstrated with the elemental sound of the mridangam by Pravin Sitaram. The
joyful and vibrant beat produced by expert fingering on the surface of the drum
immediately set the audience's legs swinging.
This was followed by a
dissonant and dirge-like beat that transformed the mood instantly. Thus the
mridangam adds an important dimension to Carnatic music, Krishnan said, by not
only providing rhythm but also an emotive quality.
Combination and
placement of the notes in a ragam create bhava, or attitude. Thus each ragam has
an inherent personality that speaks to the listener. With only a difference of
one note in the same scale, Krishnan selected the ragams "Mohanam" and
"Vaasanthi" to demonstrate this.
Enhanced by pauses and different
tempos, and accompanied by Sitaram's mridangam, Krishnan evoked two different
emotions, one of lilting joy and another of melancholic pathos.
The
Lalgudi siblings took turns explaining to the young students the system of
exercises used to attain mastery and skill. Refined and tested through
centuries, the system provides for voice training and memorization of not only
musical notes, but a whole "encyclopedia of ragams" which includes 72 major and
countless minor ones.
Layered upon this is the technique of alankarams,
or flourishes and graces, that personalizes the particular piece. Along with it,
the student learns a whole system of beats made up of 35 rhythmic
patterns.
Armed with these skills, the student approaches compositions
created by master musicians, many of which are quite complex. The student is now
prepared to make his own music, improvising spontaneously.
What the
teacher cannot impart, Krishnan said, is the life force that animates the music,
separating the genius from the merely excellent. This, he said, can only come
from the practitioner's inner space, rooted in her passion, in her very
soul.
The following day, April 8, Krishnan and Vijayalakshmi presented a
workshop at the Parish Center for the Arts in Westford for those who perform and
study Western music. The audience consisted of about 40 professional musicians
and music professors from the Berklee College of Music, who came with various
instruments - violins, flutes, guitars and keyboards.
The sold-out event
was organized by three professional musicians and teachers: violinists Jody
Harmon of Westford and Paul Leider of Maynard, and veena player Durga Krishnan
of Marlborough.
The workshop culminated in a concert where the Western
musicians played "Shri Parthsarathy," a composition by Muthuswamy Dikshidar, in
the ragam "Sudha Dhanyasi," set to "Rupakam Talam," led by Krishnan and
Vijayalakshmi on violin, accompanied by Sri Mali on the mridangam.
Harmon
translated the Carnatic notation into the more familiar Western staff notation
for the participants.
Krishnan and Vijayalakshmi conducted the workshop
explaining the basics of technical terms used in this tradition, such as
Sangathi (variations in the melody), Gamakas (ornamentation), and Korvai (tail
piece at the end of improvisation).
The composition was taught without
any ornamentation at first, and once the students grasped the basic concepts,
they moved on with great enthusiasm to all the other more difficult but exciting
techniques.
At the conclusion of the workshop the students extracted a
promise from Krishnan and Vijayalakshmi that they would return for more
workshops like this on a regular basis.
The siblings wrapped up the
evening with a thillana composed by their father and guru, Sri Lalgudi Jayaraman
in the raga "Mohana Kalyani" set to "Adi Tala."