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First lesson in carnatic music

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Maya malava koula raga is used in the basic lesson in carnatic music. Then one is taught, talas, degrees etc.etc. And the first songs are usually in sanskrit or in telugu which could not be understand by this region. Why not introduction of music lessons, like how the music comes, what are the nodes and all that be taught in the regional language as any other subject before attempting other languages. I have great regards for the classical music. Instead of working out the theorem and then proving in actual circumstances in the mathematics, why the problems are given and then the solutions
 
Dear Shri raju14554,

Carnatic Music (CM) as we know it today is a somewhat pompous and bombastic bundle of "unwanted theory". I don't know whether the Hindustani and CM were one and the same at some point of time in the past, but if and when they parted ways, I think CM has been unnecessarily complicated. Mainly there are two such things; one is the so-called "Melakartha" and "janya" raaga concepts. Before the latest set of Melakarthas which, incidentally, none of the trimurtis of CM seem to have followed, the Melakartha could be any raaga with even less than the six in aarohana or avarohana or even both. One Govindacharya is credited with formulating the present sampoorna melakartha system. But this helps only in teaching music theory in colleges and music academies, nothing more imo.

All good music is ultimately composed of good musical phrases and that is the essence of music. But instead of acknowledging and accepting this truth, our CM is trying to touch the nose going round the head. Though much talk is made of the fixed swarasthanas, melaragas and so on, I have heard from musicians themselves that particular swarams for particular ragas are unique and if someone were to test the frequencies of such special swaras, it will be found that they fall outside the recognised 12 notes.

The Carnatic Thaala system is yet another unnecessarily complicated affair. Though Hindustani music also has a lot of complicated taals, they use only one or two, but in CM we still try to use complicated thaalas at times.

Anyway, CM has not been the common man's music even in the southern states and I do not think anybody today has any notion that CM can be a full time occupation and only means of livelihood.
 
Sangom Ji,

I do feel thats a very harsh view of Carnantic music. Perhaps i am somewhat biased towards CM having a number of relatives who practise it more for the love of it rather than making a living out of it! Admitedly it is definitely harder than Hindustani. Hindustani music heyday was probably the Mughal period and in their patronage if i'm not mistaken and thus highly "Islamised" or is it Persianised. Not that, thats a complaint. CM was never organised in the way it was until Purandaradasa came along.
 
i have read somewhere, the esence of hindustani music is intact, over time, through the passage of muslim india and beyond.

the mughals, and other muslim rulers, got to like the music, but sans its hindu devotional aspect. so the music was stripped of its bhakti, and in a way, made purely secular. hence we have morning raga, evening raga, and such in hindustani music.

on the other hand, we have thyagaraja here, quoted as 'no music is worth its salt, if it does not tend towards divinity', and which is the soul of carnatic music. the 50s 60s music of certain film directors, blended modernity with carnatic tunes, but these to have been felled by today's kuthu and rap oriented tamil pop.

personally, i felt, mainly due to its exclusivity and (in chennai atleast) a snob appeal, i shunned it. though my sister, who used to play the violin pretty well, used to say, that in times of trouble, playing carnatic tunes, was a great source of solace.

today, singers like bombay jayashree, and sudha raghunathan, have made great efforts to step off the pedestal of sanskrit/telugu domination of CM and i welcome this. if more of this happens, and 'tamil isai' itself is made a full concert concept, there is hope, that CM can become more populistic.

i doubt that would happen. even in the west, classical music has patronage of only a few, and there, the gulf between pop and classical, is even wider than the policies of iran and israel.

i have always wondered if thyagayya, who was equally adept in tamil, had chosen tamil as his medium of writing the music. what would have happened?
 
hi
i think...may be all trimurthis belong to brahmin communities....patronised by sanskrit...even the kings/queens patronised...

sometime i like SWATHI THIRUNAAL KIRTANAIS OF GREAT TRAVANCORE KINGDOM.....even many palakkad pattars patronised...

i was in particular agraharam of palakkad ....there every body interested in carnatic....chembai agraharam was very

close to us...but i likr KB sundarabal music sometimes....when i was 5 years old...i attened her programme in our

agraharam in palakkad...still remember this.....
 
I think at the time of Tyagaraja Swami, Tanjore was ruled by the Telugu or perhaps Kannada Nayaks and so patronage was given to Telugu and Sanskrit. Tamil probably never got a look in even? My history is a bit shaky so apologies if mistaken. My family had probably been domiciled in Thiruvaiyaru for centuries and even though our Telugu is not Andhra perfect, the fact that we (and relatives in TN) still speak some form of it probably goes to show that those times in that area Telugu was probably the lingua franca of the populace with special royal patronage. Otherwise how come we still know some Telugu?!

At least Tyagaraja Swami composed in his matrubhasha, unlike his co trinity who were both Tambrahms but mostly composed in Sanskrit and Telugu no less. If we don't love our own mother tongue who else will, right?
 
hi amala garu,
i visited thiruvaiyaru many times....i visited tyagayyas samadhi tooo...my distant relatives are doing daily puja there...we all

speak broken telugu with tamil mixed....its in the banks of cauvery river...thillai stanam has many telugu brahmin families are there...

im very familiar with thiruvaiyaru....
 
Hi, All revered veterans, The essence of my discussion is not found in the above discussion. In puthia thalaimurai, there was a discussion on ner pada pesu, which made me think and wrote my points. If i had been taught in tamil the beginning lessons in , before being exposed to others then it would have surely be understood what is what in the music. As reverred musicians say music is something eternal bliss and any music, be it folk or rock every body enjoy the rhythm. Then also in mathematics one is first taught about therom then given problems . My view is if problem is given first, and then the theorem then it will be better understand. I am immensely pleased with the replies. Whatever be the argument, i am a carnatic music lover. And my point of discussion is only on these lines.
 

Dear Sangom Sir,

To learn a fine arts is a real task. People can easily find fault that the art is too complicated!

Without a strong basement, a building can not be strong. We need the basic training of swarams, if the classic nature of the music

is to be maintained. There are only 12 basic notes but there are 22 sruthis which means that there are 10 inbetween notes. A rAgam


is perfect only when the sruthis of all the swarams are perfect. The swarams which are supposed to be same - beginners say it as

small swaram and big swaram (
சின்ன ஸ்வரம்; பெரிய ஸ்வரம்) but the gamakams will differ from one rAgam to the other. You may

please go through the thread
RAgam, ThAnam, Pallavi for some more details, if time permits.

P.S: A rose plant needs lot of care but some other plants do not need it!
 
Maya malava koula raga is used in the basic lesson in carnatic music. Then one is taught, talas, degrees etc.etc. And the first songs are usually in sanskrit or in telugu which could not be understand by this region. Why not introduction of music lessons, like how the music comes, what are the nodes and all that be taught in the regional language as any other subject before attempting other languages. I have great regards for the classical music. Instead of working out the theorem and then proving in actual circumstances in the mathematics, why the problems are given and then the solutions
Dear Sir,

There is a reason for learning the preliminary lessons of Carnatic music in MAyAmALavagowLa. Shall write about it in another post.

Sri. Purandara
Dasa composed easy-to-sing Geethams in his mother tongue and hence most of the teachers are following it. F Y I, there

exists 'Papanasam Sivan Academy', where they have published a book of Tamil Geethams composed by Sri. Sivan. The children who

learn in that school learn Tamil Geethams.

There is another method of teaching which I follow. If the student is able to sing exactly what I teach, then I teach easy songs right

away! Then teach the theory portion of each rAgam. But I find that those who have good foundation of preliminary lessons do much

better that those without foundation!

Once Sri. T M Soundararajan told in an interview that if a person is NOT able to sing Sa Pa Sa' correctly, he can never learn good music!!
 
.......... i have always wondered if thyagayya, who was equally adept in tamil, had chosen tamil as his medium of writing the music. what would have happened?
Dear Kunjuppu Sir,

Sri. Papanasam Sivan is fondly called 'Tamizh ThyAgayyA'. :)
 
Dear RR,

What Sangom Sir has said represents a view among the public. It is a fact that the entry load is quite formidable for any new entrant to get in and enjoy CM. But I know how beautiful and nice is that experience once you get in. To make it simple for our members here, I suggest that you start a class here in this forum. To start with you can take a simple raga, analyse it, tell its special characteristics as different from another raga, give examples of kritis or film songs with explanations as to how they are set to that particular raga. It may help the members here to get more familiar with CM. Just a suggestion. If time is a constraint please excuse me.

Cheers.
 
Kum. Amala, Smt. Raji Ram, Sri Kunjuppu, Sri tbs,

I did not want to boast that I have some appreciable knowledge of CM, mostly because my younger brother (who is now a retired Physics Professor) had an inborn taste for CM and he practised Veena and also learnt under a teacher for some years. (He gave up his Veena playing after the demise of his wife.) We brothers discuss about CM and my non-conformist views were originally not agreed to by my brother. It was then (1960's) that I chanced to stumble upon the book titled "A Grammar of South Indian Music" by one Dr. Subrahmonya Iyer. This book brings out not only the fallacy in the notion (held by the elites who think that they alone know CM and their words in the matter are final) held viz., that CM is something like a dainty rose plant to be very carefully tended, etc.

Not only is the case that there are 20 sruthis (why should these be sruthis, a term which has been much misused in the history of music?) fallacious, but not agreed to by many stalwarts also. I give below an extract from Shruti (music) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The term shruti in current practice of Carnatic music, has several meanings.[SUP][2][/SUP] It is used by musicians in several contexts. For instance, the Tamil term "Oru kattai sruti" would mean that the tonic is set to the pitch C or the first key. The Telugu term "Sruti chesuko (శ్రుతి చేసుకో)" is a way to correspond with the accompanying artists to tune their instruments.
The term has also undergone a gross misunderstanding. In certain ragas, due to inflexions or gamakas on few of those 12 notes, listeners perceive a sharpened or flattened version of an existing note.[SUP][3][/SUP] Some scholars have attempted to fit such perceived new tones into the non-contextual Bharata's 22 shrutis, which lead to confusion and controversy over 22 shrutis. It was also wrongly attributed to Bharata, who proposed shruti in a completely different context.
There is scientific evidence that shows that these intermediate tones perceived in the contemporary rendition of a raga does not hint at the existence of 22 shrutis. The number 22 is of no practical significance in the current performance of Carnatic and Hindustani music traditions, partly because different musicians use slightly different "shrutis" when performing the same raga."

Theoretically, there can be any number (even infinite) of srutis between two octaves; the actual number will depend upon what definition is taken for "minimum sruthi interval".

So much for the "scientific" justification of swaras which fall outside the defined 12 notes (swaras) interval. Any diligent hearer of CM will realize that each Bhagavathar sings the same raga differently, but also the singing of a raga changes with time. That is the reason why I hold the view that much is made up of CM theory by the so-called elite classes or cognoscenti, whereas, in truth, we should put more emphasis on the musical phrases which are the more appropriate Lakshanas of any raga. It is also a truth that the most popular and "janaranjaka" raagas have emanated out of the ancient folk-, harvest-, etc., tunes or tunes of the illiterate masses which then came to be called "Panns" during the times of the saivite saints.

Coming to the present Melakartha system, many giants of CM did not support the 72 melakartha scheme. Kindly see the attachments. Again, there was controversy in the matter of deciding the parent raaga of a janya raaga when it could belong to more than one melakarta raaga. But I think there is now some unity of opinions in this matter.

The taala system as I said in my earlier post has also been unnecessarily complicated in its theory part although even Thyagaraja composed mostly in Aadi taala and today not many percussionists may know more than the two or three basic, simple Taalas.

Thus CM today has a very imposing and bombastic payload which it cannot deliver.
 

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The F A Q: Why the first rAgam taught is MAyAmALavagowLa (M M G)?

The easy notation of swarams in one octave is: S R1 R2 G1 G2 M1 M2 P D1 D2 N1 N2 S'


M M G has the swarams S R1 - - G2 M1 - P D1 - - N2 S'

This rAgam has symmetric pattern between Sa - Ma and P - S'. That is, the patterns of S R G M and P D N S' are the same.

The gamakams are simple. They are very easy to follow even by the beginners. The swarams oscillate like this:

S is a plain note; R1 oscillates between S and R1; G2 oscillates between G2 and M1; M1 is a plain note.

Similarly,
P is a plain note; D1 oscillates between P and D1; N2 oscillates between N2 and S'; S' is a plain note.

Plain, gamakam, gamakam, plain - first half; plain, gamakam, gamakam, plain - second half. Easy to follow.

There are other rAgams like Thodi, KaraharapriyA, SankarAbharaNam with suddha Madhyamam and BhavapriyA, PanthuvarALi

(also known as KAmavardhani), HEmavathi, and KalyANi with prathi Madhyamam which have symmetric pattern of swarams.

There are a four more vivAdhi rAgams KanakAngi, Chala NAttai, SAlagam and RasikapriyA
which also have symmetric swarams.

But, the gamakams in these rAgams are more complicated and also are not symmetric.

So, M M G is the one and only rAgam for beginners! :thumb:
 
.......... To make it simple for our members here, I suggest that you start a class here in this forum. To start with you can take a simple raga, analyse it, tell its special characteristics as different from another raga, give examples of kritis or film songs with explanations as to how they are set to that particular raga. It may help the members here to get more familiar with CM. ......
Dear Sir,

So nice of you to give this suggestion. Prof. M S K Moorthy and I have posted pairs of many film songs and carnatic songs in the

same rAgams in the thread "Thullatha manamum thullum'. I am trying to give the glimpses of rAgam, thAnam, pallavi is another

thread I started recently. I thought they are good enough!

Regards....... :)
 

Dear Sangom Sir,

For your kind information, I have not entered this thread to boast. I want to share whatever little I know in the ocean of CM.

I would like to point out three errors in this page:

2487d1358236738-first-lesson-carnatic-music-raaga-marapu-2.jpg


1. Bhairavi and Natabhairavi are different. Bhairavi has chathusruthi Daivadham in its ArOhaNam whereas, Natabhairavi

has suddha Daivadham.

2. KAmbOdhi is a janya rAgam of HarikAmbOdhi and its ArOhaNam is S R2 G2 M1 P D2 S' in the two number system of swarams.

3. PanthuvarALis MELa chakram name is KAmavardhani and not SubhapanthuvarALi.

 

The mELa chakram is just the mathematical calculation of the plain twelve swarams which become sixteen by taking into

consideration the four vivAdhi swarams which are

1. Shatsruthi Rishabham which is same as SAdhAraNa GhAndhAram;

2. Suddha GAndhAram
which is same as chathusruthi Rishabham;

3. S
hatsruthi Daivadham which is same as Kaisiki NishAdham and

4. Suddha NishAdham which is same as
chathusruthi Daivadham.

This is how the three number system of swarams came into existence.

The Carnatic rAgams can not be sung just by learning the plain notes. The rAgams are phrase oriented and by extensive

listening and learning the mastery can be achieved.



MOhanam is called the janya rAgam of HarikAmbOji. But it can also be considered as the janya rAgam of these mELa rAgams:

SankarAbharaNam, VAchaspathi and KalyANi which also have the same notes. The gamakams of MOhanam are more like

those of HarikAmbOdhi and hence becomes its janya rAgam. Another fascinating rAgam is BEgada. Though the prayOgam

of kAkali NishAdham is rare, the other gamakams are nearer to SankarAbharaNam. 'P D N.... D D P' appears often with kaisiki

NishAdham but it is janya rAgam of SankarAbharaNam!

 
According to me, the carnatic music must have come to TN during the rule of Vijayanagara empire. We are aware that during Vijayanagara rule and subsequent Naik kings' rule, Telugu and Sanskrit gained prominence at the cost of Tamil. Consequently composing in Telugu became the trend. As a corollary, Tamil paNs also vanished or relegated to the backround though some carnatic ragas had the influence of paN. U Ve Swaminatha Iyer writes in his autobiography that even in 19th century carnatic musicians had to learn Telugu. He was told by his father to learn Telugu so that he could become a CM musician. Appaiya Dikshitar had written his treatise on CM in Telugu.

I agree that the absence of CM's appeal to masses is due to the language barrier. For example, in my younger days I used to listen to Sirkazhi Govindarajan, who used to sing only Tamil kirtanas, at Koniamman Temple, Coimbatore. I was amazed to see thousands of people gather to listen to him. People used to sit in the footpaths outside the temple and listen to his concert. At one point of time popular Tamil film music was completely based CM ragas which shows that unless people understand the kritis they would not listen.

Even musicians like Sudha Raghunathan used to maintain that CM cannot be for the masses. But now many of them specially Sanjay Subramaniam sing Tamil kritis to attract the audience. I feel that we should thank Jaya TV's Margazhi Mahotsavam in this regard.
 
Smt. Raji Ram,

I agree that there are inaccuracies in the attachments I provided. It is an old book and I wanted to provide some evidence for dissonant opinions regarding the melakartha scheme.

Bhairavi and Natabhairavi are, of course, different. But I think Bhairavi is considered as a Bhaashaanga raagam, with both dhaivatams being used. It was considered as a janya of Naari reetigowla in Dikshitar's asampoorna mela scheme (of Venkatamakhin) and thereafter the 20th. Melakarta was changed to Natabhairavi, a sampoorna raga. The addition of "naTa" to the name of an already existing raga viz., bhairavi was there, as the book says, although his reference to Venkatamakhin and equating bhairavi with natabhairavi are not right. But, on the same point, is it correct to hold that bhairavi with its D2 in aarohana is a janya of Natabhairavi? Secondly Natabhairavi is not as popular as its janya bhairavi, and, to the extent I have heard the first raga, there seems to be no similarity between the two, except at the purely theoretical level of the six swaras which are common in both aarohana & avarohana. Thus imho, this is a case of unwanted theory having no significance to the practice of music.

(I am told that Swaramela kalanidhi lists bhairavi as one of the 19 melaragas. Since I don't have a copy of that book, I am not sure of this. Is this book available in Chennai or for free download?)

Similarly, Kambhoji which is considered to be a very ancient raga and also a bhaashaanga raga at that, being made into a "janya" of Harikambhoji which has not been used by two of the trinities, is also an example of "unnecessary theorization" which does not benefit either the performer or the audience.

I agree with your observation —

The Carnatic rAgams can not be sung just by learning the plain notes. The rAgams are phrase oriented and by extensive

listening and learning the mastery can be achieved.


Even in the case of instruments the above holds good and so the so-called melakarta theory, etc., is an unnecessary embellishment, is my opinion.
 
This is an explanation of TM Krishna between nAri rItigowla and nata bhairavi (you may like to read the comments here http://youtu.be/mKn_DH9inWE - this is probably the origin of these questions in this thread - One can view these as purely axiomatic framework about the numbering scheme etc if one wishes - ) One can enjoy the music with out any numbers. (Of course one can always improvise )

T.M.Krishna - 8.1 - sri neelOtpala nAyikE - nAri reetigowLA - mArgazhi mahA utsavam 2008 - YouTube

One has to be open to dissonant views - I certainly do not know the "truth"
 
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This is an explanation of TM Krishna between nAri rItigowla and nata bhairavi (you may like to read the comments here T.M.Krishna - 8.0 - What is nAri reetigowLA? - mArgazhi mahA utsavam 2008 - YouTube - this is probably the origin of these questions in this thread - One can view these as purely axiomatic framework about the numbering scheme etc if one wishes - ) One can enjoy the music with out any numbers. (Of course one can always improvise )

T.M.Krishna - 8.1 - sri neelOtpala nAyikE - nAri reetigowLA - mArgazhi mahA utsavam 2008 - YouTube

One has to be open to dissonant views - I certainly do not know the "truth"

Dear Prof. Moorthy,

Thank you very much. My comment about the theory part of CM is also similar. If prayogams allowed in one octave are disallowed in the next octave (whatever may be the reason, we need not go into that now) and a particular swara is allowed in some phrases but not in some other phrases and so on, what is the relevance of saying on another side about melakartha, janya, aarohana, avatohana etc., as though we are having something equivalent to the Periodic Table of Elements?

This is what I feel is the "unwanted theory baggage of CM". In Hindustani Music, a person is first given voice culture. Ustad Bismillah Khan said once that his guru will teach one particular swarasthaana one day and the student has to sing the shadjam and then directly go to the particular swara taught on that day (vocal, not in the Shehnai) and stand on that swara as long as possible. But if the student failed any time to 'catch' the correct swara then the guru used to tie the student to a tree and lash him crudely till the swara came automatically. Even today, the Hindustani musicians have generally a better voice culture, ability to 'catch' one swara from another, etc., whereas our CM maestros even (you may know the names) usually slide up or down and then 'grab' the required swara which at times goes wrong. But since they have already established themselves in the firmament of the CM sky, the audience claps even for such gaffes, sometimes.

Prof., you may know about the present day 'fad' of ending swaraprastaara with the mandatory "GaRRiSSaNiDha, RiSSaNNiDhapa, etc." I have not heard this in the performances of olden days. And, sometimes the vocalist seems to be going roound and round trying to arrive at the LCM of his beats and the percussionists' taala. When did this enter into CM performances and what way does it enhance the hearer's pleasure?
 
According to me, the carnatic music must have come to TN during the rule of Vijayanagara empire. We are aware that during Vijayanagara rule and subsequent Naik kings' rule, Telugu and Sanskrit gained prominence at the cost of Tamil. Consequently composing in Telugu became the trend. As a corollary, Tamil paNs also vanished or relegated to the backround though some carnatic ragas had the influence of paN. U Ve Swaminatha Iyer writes in his autobiography that even in 19th century carnatic musicians had to learn Telugu. He was told by his father to learn Telugu so that he could become a CM musician. Appaiya Dikshitar had written his treatise on CM in Telugu.

I agree that the absence of CM's appeal to masses is due to the language barrier. For example, in my younger days I used to listen to Sirkazhi Govindarajan, who used to sing only Tamil kirtanas, at Koniamman Temple, Coimbatore. I was amazed to see thousands of people gather to listen to him. People used to sit in the footpaths outside the temple and listen to his concert. At one point of time popular Tamil film music was completely based CM ragas which shows that unless people understand the kritis they would not listen.

Even musicians like Sudha Raghunathan used to maintain that CM cannot be for the masses. But now many of them specially Sanjay Subramaniam sing Tamil kritis to attract the audience. I feel that we should thank Jaya TV's Margazhi Mahotsavam in this regard.

Dear Shri subbu sir,

As you know, the Vijayanagara Empire collapsed completely by the middle of the 17th. century, whereas our CM trinity came much later. Annamacharya, Purandara dasa and their contemporaries might have flourished during the heydays of the Vijayanagara Empire. These people might have benefited also from royal patronage but our received history does not indicate so. Therefore, it may be more realistic to conclude that CM revived under the Mahratta rulers of Tanjore. Thyagaraja's grandfather was employed in the court.

The lack of mass appeal of CM depends, imo, also on the fact that much the most of CM is built upon "bhakti" as the basic layer and the common man just does not want too much of this bhakti; after a day's hard toil, and a little drink to soothen the nerves, what the "aam aadmi" prefers more, is something more sensual and ephemeral, like the "item number" songs and/or "kutthu PaaTTu" of the cinema. And, to be frank even I do not like some of the numbers of Oothukkadu with the Kaliya Narthanam song being the most lousy, imo.

MKT, Seergazhi, Dandapani Desikar were some of the stalwarts who could have made Tamil CM more popular among the masses but unfortunately, CM continues to be a preserve of vested interests (now, it is the Sabha Secretaries, I am told) and the film music which has the highest mass appeal has veered off good CM long back.

I don't think Jaya TV's MM will make any impact outside the tabra and foreign audience because, for the non-cognoscenti, it is something without head or tail, and the Q&A makes it more weird.
 
Maya malava koula raga is used in the basic lesson in carnatic music. Then one is taught, talas, degrees etc.etc. And the first songs are usually in sanskrit or in telugu which could not be understand by this region. Why not introduction of music lessons, like how the music comes, what are the nodes and all that be taught in the regional language as any other subject before attempting other languages. I have great regards for the classical music. Instead of working out the theorem and then proving in actual circumstances in the mathematics, why the problems are given and then the solutions

Dear Shri raju,

The discussions in the thread have veered off. So, back to the topic.

You have not indicated which region you are in. In Kerala, where I live, the first lessons are not in exotic language except that the common terms like raga, the names of the swaras (like shadjam, rishabham, etc.) are in sanskrit. Even the names of the swaras are not normally used by the primary level teachers; instead they say "paa" should be little higher and so on.

Coming to the elementary compositions like 'varaveenaa' I think it is not a very difficult sanskrit. But in case some student feels difficulty, you can always make a small song on the same lines.

For example,

வண்டியிலெ போயி வந்தான்
வடக்குத் தெரு வரதன்

can serve as the first two lines. Any one more conversant with Tamil will be able to compose and teach in the same tune (மெட்டு) and raagam, I suppose.
 
Dear Kunjuppu Sir,

Sri. Papanasam Sivan is fondly called 'Tamizh ThyAgayyA'. :)

Dear raji,

i love papanasam sivan. too bad he got no money for all the songs that he created. such is the respect and enforcement (if any) of royalty fees in india :(

when i was a teen, i read in vikatan i think, that when music academy conferred sangeetha kalanidhi pattam for sivan, he came walking and left the hall, in rain, getting wet. not one of the biggies with their cars even offered a lift.

his grandson, who lives in canada, concurs with this story.

i am not here to judge or condemn, but bring to light, a reality. a man of letters may have fame. but no money. that still holds true in tamil nadu today. i read a lot of authors, but barring a few, like jeyamohan esra or charu, others have to have another job (or depend on their wife's earnings) to put food on the table.

even there, jeyamohan or esra, get bulk of their money, not from book sales, but through writing cinema scripts.

one exception is indian english writers, who if street smartwise, can build not only a pan india, but an international audience as well.
 
MaM RR, I am fully aware of your level in CM. but I myself was regretting to learn CM in telugu and Sanskrit for a long time until recently. although my solace was that I am an instrumentalist. there are 2 ways of looking at it. firstly u can keep on singing telugu sounds without knowing the meaning like what I do, just concentrating on few gods words and thygaraja in the end of thyagaraja kritis. in fact this is what I am planning to do life long. that way I am doing justice to the quote " music knows no language " and one fine day will not have to go beyond few kritis ( I mean learning to sing point of view ). secondly, learning behavior changes as a learner matures. initially he reacts in a jerk but progressively matures :[h=2]kirkpatrick's four levels of evaluation model[/h]The four levels of Kirkpatrick's evaluation model essentially measure:

  • reaction of student - what they thought and felt about the training
  • learning - the resulting increase in knowledge or capability
  • behaviour - extent of behaviour and capability improvement and implementation/application
  • results - the effects on the business or environment resulting from the trainee's performance
 
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