Sangom Sir really I had no idea you knew so much of the technical aspects of CM! Do you teach as well like Raji mami?
I guess everyones entitled to their opinion however odious it may be and there is no accounting for taste. But still i don't see the point (however philistine) in deliberately being provocative just because one is bored. Its kinda sad really.
Kum. Amala,
Though I said, in an earlier post, that
"I did not want to boast that I have some appreciable knowledge of CM" the truth is I don't know much. My knowledge about CM arose when my son once brought a book on sound and hearing from his (Bombay) IIT library and I happened to read it, cover to cover. One of the points in the book which I still remember is that, for a normal human ear to recognize a violin's sound with double its decibel energy, it will require 20 violins to play simultaneously, the same tune (no electronic amplification intended). I happened to get the condition of "Tinnitus" as a result of malaria attack and this caused me to take more interest in audio, ear, music, etc. The process of human hearing itself is so majestic and awesome, perhaps even an agnostic like myself sometimes marvels at the wonders of nature/creation and of that God, if there is one.
My sister had studied two years in the TVM music academy and left it half way since she got married and left for Bombay. My younger sister completed the 4-year course in veena and passed out with some first class. My younger brother has a very abiding interest in CM. He used to have the Sruthi magazine for a number of years and I used to go through those old issues whenever I visited him, till finally the white ants got all the music therein!
In this way, I have been having a good association with the theory part of CM. Even Semmangudi was of the view that vivAdi ragas should not be sung. You see, the vivadi swaras are nothing but other accepted swaras called by another name. For example, Suddha gāndhāraṃ (G1) is the same swaram as catuśśruti riṣabhaṃ : ṣaṭśruti riṣabhaṃ (R3) is nothing but sādhāraṇa gāndhāraṃ (G2) by another name: śuddha niṣādaṃ (N1) == catuśśruti dhaivataṃ (D2), and ṣaṭśruti dhaivataṃ (D3) occupies the same position as kaiśiki niṣādaṃ (N2)
Hence if we take Kanakaangi, for example, its swaras are, in reality sa ri Ri ma pa dha DHa sa, so to say (i.e., denote the suddha Ga by its existing, accepted swara which is Catussruti Ri and same for the suddha ni. The only supporting argument for this misnomer sampradaayam is that Venkata makhin found out that a new raga (one of emerges by "tonal shift" or graha bhedam/sruti bhedam. But this also not true in all the cases.
As I said in one of my earlier posts there are in reality infinite frequencies between one pitch (frequency) and its octave (its double frequency); we define a sruti interval as the minimum pitch ratio which can be detected by a normal, healthy human ear as a different sound or pitch. If, say, this ratio is r%, then we will have 100/r sruthi sthaanas between two octaves. Even now there are people who swear that there can be 24 sruthis though the accepted number seems to be 22. The curious thing is that in many ragas the musicians do not use any of the 12 recognized swaras but something outside of these and no systematic research has been made AFAIK to determine the exact sruti which is so used. (I am told that only the vichitra veena can play all the 22 sruthis correctly; even human voice cannot do that.) This leads us into a situation in which the theory is very very different from actual practice.
That is why I hold the view that this whole theorization about 72 Melakarthas, Mela chakras and giving kaTapayAdi names to ragas/chakras etc., are like ஏட்டுச்சுரைக்காய் (picture of gourd in the text-book) which does not really help the singers or instrumentalists (கறிக்கு உதவாது - will not be useful in cooking). Of course if we consider graha bhedam or tonal shifting to be the end purpose of CM, by all means these theories may be of some use. But that is exactly what the OP complains about and which keeps the common man away from CM.
