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Extract from the forthcoming book ‘108 Divya Ragams’ By S.Parthasarathy
The book ‘108 Divya Ragams’ By S.Parthasarathy is expected to be released on 11th September 2004
What are the types of listeners?
Listeners of music can be classified depending on their knowledge, expectations and behaviour. I classify them into 5-S types of listeners.
· S-1 – Super Listeners. People who just enjoy the tranquility, melody and beauty of carnatic music.
· S-2 – Sing-Along Listeners – People who are interested, but tend to distract the rest of the audience.
· S-3 – Showing Off Listeners - People who attend the concert for extraneous reasons like wanting to be seen in all their finery, for exchanging pleasantries and ‘showing off’ their power and importance.
· S-4 – Silly Listeners – People who keep talking or people who bring plastic bags and keep tinkering with them or people who think they are in a Railway station and keep walking up and down and so on. (Once when Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer found some Mylapore advocates chatting in the last row he asked them: "Would you let me talk in your courtroom?" And he had no more trouble! But present-day disturbers are made of sterner stuff)
· S-5 – Sleeping Listeners – People who are perhaps unable to sleep at home and find the concert atmosphere congenial to sleep.
Knowledge does make a good audience. However, there are rasikas with little or no knowledge who come forward with the much needed money to foster the music. A bad audience is one that neither cares about the music nor pays for its sustenance Even if one does not have technical knowledge, he/she should respect the musician and enjoy the music silently and unobtrusively. We must remember that classical artists are "different" from the rest. That's why they are given the center stage honors. And therefore they ought to be listened to with due respect. Even a sleeping listener is preferable to a silly or a bad listener.
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