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RAgam, ThAnam, Pallavi - fascinating facts!


Smt. Jayanthi Kumaresh is one of the leading Veena artists. She renders PanthuvarALi rAgam, thAnam and the song

'Raghuvara' of Saint Thyagaraja, in detail. This song was one of the favorites of Sri. Chembai Vaidhyanatha bhagavathar.

Ms.Jayanthi Kumaresh-veena

This is the 51st rAgam in the mELa chakram, and hence has the name 'KAmavardhani'.

P.S: I shall start a thread on 'KatapayAdhi mELa chakram' soon! :)
 
Madame Raji Ram,

My knowledge of carnatic music is very limited as I do not have any training. Only keLvi gnanam. I have the following doubts and shall be happy if you can throw some light on them.

a) There are a number of melakarta ragas in which there are no kritis (except those composed in the recent past by Kotteeswara Iyer and Balamurali). How can a musician know the gruha, jeeva and nyasa swaras and other aspects of these ragas? Is there any musical treatise giving such information?

b) The Trinity of carnatic music must have learned kritis from their gurus. What happened to those kritis? Whether those kritis vanished with efflux of time? I understand that Ramasway Dikshitar, father of Muthuswami Dikshitar composed many kritis in Telugu but I have never heard these kritis being sung.

c) Are there alpa swaras in melakarta ragas?

Thanks.
 
Raji Ram said:

My mAnaseeka Guru is Sri. Chitti Babu. His style of playing is not very difficult to follow.

Sri. S. Balachander's style is very very tough to practice! Here is an excellent piece from Sri. S. B - appears to be a chamber

music recital. It is amazing to see how he controls nearly one octave of swaras in on fret of the veena. The portion of the string

below the frets is also used in an unbelievable manner. I just sit spell bound, whenever I 'SEE' and hear Sri. S. B. play on Veena!!

The line up of rAgams are Hamir KalyAni, Subha PanthuvarALi, BehAg, DarbAri KAnadA, Ranjani, KEdhAragowLa, NeelAmbari

and KApi. The Thyagaraja krithi, 'intha sowkamaninE' in Kapi follows. WOW rendering!
award_star.png


S Balachander veena
Click to expand...

I have heard Chitti babu live many years ago in a house concert, he never used to play in house concert but agreed to play at a grand event at Jamuna the yester year artist's home.. it was totally mesmerizing..

Balachandar had awarded the first prize to my chithi who played so well and I wish I had learned the Veena from her, I too did learn a little from a fine teacher who lived near the T.Nagar Bus stand and she was also Kamal hasan's teacher.. but due to studies and other pursuits I had to give up.. it is one of my favorite instrument..
 
vsubbu48 said:
...........
a) There are a number of melakarta ragas in which there are no kritis (except those composed in the recent past by Kotteeswara Iyer and Balamurali). How can a musician know the gruha, jeeva and nyasa swaras and other aspects of these ragas? Is there any musical treatise giving such information?

b) The Trinity of carnatic music must have learned kritis from their gurus. What happened to those kritis? Whether those kritis vanished with efflux of time? I understand that Ramasway Dikshitar, father of Muthuswami Dikshitar composed many kritis in Telugu but I have never heard these kritis being sung.

c) Are there alpa swaras in melakarta ragas? .........
Click to expand...
Dear Sir,

Let me try to answer you Qs.


a) Carnatic rAgams are all phrase oriented. A person can develop knowledge only by learning from a Guru or listening extensively.

I have seen a few persons who sing rAga AlApanais fairly well, just with kElvi gnAnam! Many mELa rAgams did not have krithis and

that is why Sri. Koteeswara Iyer made it a point to compose in all the 72 mELa rAgams. The grammar for the rAgams must be

available in books. But just with knowledge of theory, it is not possible to learn the delineation of a rAgam. My Guru used to say

that the rAgam could be sung extensively only if we learn at least five to six songs in that rAgam.


b) We hear that many of the composition of the trinity also were lost! Notations were not written those days and by gurukulavasam

the disciples learnt the songs. Many songs were lost by not being sung!


c) This is a very good question! The alpa swaras may not appear in mELa rAgams. The only advice our Guru gave was that when we

sing the vivAdhi rAgams the vivAdhi swarams should not be sung with the adjacent swaram above or below for a long time!

Just try it out Sir! It will be jarring!!
 

A good comparison with alpa swaram!

Thirumuruga Kripananda Variar learnt to sing carnatic rAgams towards the later part of his life and used to sing the verses too.

Once, he told that the fight between a couple should be like the GAndhAram of AbEri! Yes... AbEri GAndhAram is an alpa swaram

and does not have prominence. When we play it on the veena, 'm g R' should be played like 'm m R' and the touch of GAndhAram

in between 'm m' (as we play the Janta swarams) will show the 'Ga'. Never should play in the fret of 'Ga'!
 

In some rAgams, a swaram will appear rarely though it is in the ArOhaNam / avarOhaNam. The best example is the rAgam Sri.

S R2 M1 P N2 S' - S' N2 P D N2 P M1 R2 G2 R2 S, in the three number system. In each descend of swarams D is not sung / played.

In the Sri rAga varNam, Dhaivadham appears only twice; once in the first half and once in the second half. In the popular song

'Sri Varalakshmi', it appears once in the anupallavi. In the fifth pancharathna krithi, 'endharO', there is no Dhaivadham at all!
 
How can a musician know the gruha, jeeva and nyasa swaras and other aspects of these ragas? Is there any musical treatise giving such information?
c) Are there alpa swaras in melakarta ragas?

Dear Mr. V. Subbu,

Surely you can't be having only kelvi gnanam and asking such highly advanced questions as doubts.

I am sure you want to underplay your deep knowledge in Music!

I can answer your questions in Layman's language.

Most raagaas are user friendly while some are not. The user friendly raagaas have hundreds of kruthis composed in them.

People enjoy singing them and listening to them.
Their popularity will never dwindle down or disappear.

On the other hand the raagaas not user friendly are difficult to be sung except by the real experts. So less number of kruthis in them and less popularity.

Since all kinds of permutations and combinations are employed to list exhaustively the 72 mela kartas, this can not be really avoided!

Alpa swaraas must be treated as alpa swaraas. We all know what will be the consequence if an alpan is given more importance than his due, and develops pavishu!
 

The number of swarams in the ArOhaNam (ArO) and avarOhaNam (avrO) of a rAgam gives an adjective to it. If the number

of swarams is five in both the ArO and avrO then it is called 'owdava' rAgam. If both have six swarams, then it is 'shAdava'

rAgam. If both have all the seven it is 'sampoorNa' rAgam. Now, if ArO has five swarams and avrO has six, it is 'oWdava -

shAdava' rAgam and so on. If the swarams in ArO or avarO does not ascend or descend in order of the saptha swarams then

it is called vakra rAgam.


For example, BEgada. ArO: S G3 R2 G3 M1 P D2 P S' ; avrO: S N2* D2 P M1 G3 R2 S. This is vakra shAdava sampoorNa rAgam.

The beauty of this rAgam is that it is supposed to be the janya rAgam of SankarAbharaNam where as even in the avrO, it has

the anya swaram (N2*)! 'P d N .....d D P' is one of the prominent phrases of this rAgam. Actually N3 appears only as 'alpa'

swaram. I think, since the Madhyamam is similar to that of SankarAbharaNam, "S" becomes the janaka rAgam of BEgada!
 

There is a rule that if one of the ArO or avrO has only four swarams then the other should have at least six swarams! For example

the famous rAgam 'Navarasakannada'. ( S G3 M P S' - S' N2 D2 M1 G3 R2 S ) Thyagaraja swami's 'Ninnuvina' and Tamil Thyagayya

Papanasam Sivan's 'NAnoru viLaiyAttu bommaiyA' are the most popular songs in this rAgam. But it is nice to break the rule!

Sri. Balamuralikrishna created the rAgam Mahathi which goes S G3 P N2 S' - S' N2 P G3 S. The first rAgam that appears in the

film song 'athisaya rAgam Anandha rAgam' is Mahathi! :)
 
are there types in Raga alap? the raga should be evident within a few seconds, or few important swaras can wait till later so the raga is kept in suspense?
 

It is an unsaid rule that the rAgam should be known within the first few seconds. For example if g m n d m n n S' is shown in the

opening phrase of the rAgam, then ReethigowLa is established! Similarly, s m P P ... d n d n d p M s will establish 'KunthalavaraLi'

and so on. But some artists, just for fun, keep the audience guessing the rAgams! This happens if a few phrases are similar in

the rAgams. I can give two examples:

1. Bilahari and MOhana KalyANi which differ only in Madhyamam. So till the Madhyamam is shown it keeps the audience guessing.

2. LathAngi and KalyANi differ only in Dhaivadham. SanchAram between lower NishAdham to madhyama sthAyi Panchamam is

sure to confuse!

P.S: One of my students asked me why Bilahari is not named 'MOhanAbharaNam'!! :cool:
 
Visalakshi Ramani said:
The talent is well advanced and highly appreciated if the raagaa becomes recognizable the moment the aalaapanaa starts!
Click to expand...
To be frank, the artist needs very advanced knowledge even to confuse the audience because the rAgams with similar phrases

and one or two different swarams should be chosen and elaborated with precision! :laser:
 
Visalakshi Ramani said:
Dear Mr. V. Subbu,

Surely you can't be having only kelvi gnanam and asking such highly advanced questions as doubts.

I am sure you want to underplay your deep knowledge in Music!
Click to expand...

Madam,

Thanks for your comments.

My formal training is restricted to a few varnams and kritis. Because of my abiding interest in carnatic music I read a lot of music reviews, interviews by musicians etc. One important source of information was Shruti channel of World Space Radio, which unfortunately wound up. (The people behind the channel have since started a website called radioweb.in though I am not a subscriber now.)

In the autobiography of U Ve Swaminatha Iyer he talks about the compositions by various composers whose kritis are not available now. Muthuswamy Dikshitar's life story also contains references to his father's composition. During this year's Margazhi Utsavam concerts, Sanjay Subramaniam sang kritis of good quality of an unknown composer. This made me ask the question about pre-Trinity queries. I strongly feel that some musicologist or musician should undertake a research in this regard and try to ferret out as many lost kritis as possible. If no notation is available, the kritis can always be set to appropritate ragas.
 
vsubbu48 said:
........
My formal training is restricted to a few varnams and kritis. Because of my abiding interest in carnatic music I read a lot of music reviews, interviews by musicians etc. One important source of information was Shruti channel of World Space Radio, which unfortunately wound up. (The people behind the channel have since started a website called radioweb.in though I am not a subscriber now.)........
Click to expand...
:yo: Sir!

I wish to mention about one of my uncles, who had no formal training in music and does not possess 'swara gnAnam' too!

But, he can play songs on any instrument given to him, without knowing the swaram! I used to wonder how it is possible! :thumb:
 

After the rAgam and thAnam comes the pallavi. As I mentioned earlier, pallavi is a one line composition which is repeated

several times with decorative sangathis and variation of nadais like 'thisram', 'kandam' etc. Usually 'thisram' is a must.

The pallavi is normally fit in one thAlam but in this 'four in one' pallavi, the length is two thALams. This was composed

by Sri. Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar. 'SankarAbharaNanai azhaithOdi vAdi KalyANi dharbArukku' is the pallavi in the four

rAgams, SankarAbharaNam, ThOdi, KalyANi and DurbAr.

Listen to this youngster rendering this:

RAGAM THANAM PALLAVI ............. :cool:
 

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