prasad1
Active member
I know nothing about music. This article was informative. I am sure people who live it will have different take on it.
The over obsession with religiosity, ritualism and the lyrical meaning of the compositions has been one of the reasons for a lack of an independent instrumental narrative. Everybody including the instrumentalist is unfortunately seeking to express religious meaning through re-creating in their instrument something of the effect of the words. And we know that the vocalist will naturally win that battle! The import of language in music has to be separated from linguistic meaning. Personal religious belief needs to be detached from Carnatic music.
On the social front, we think that we are very inclusive and that the Carnatic music world never discriminated against gender and caste that the blame squarely lies with external factors. Whenever I have raised the issue of caste it is the same old arguments that are thrown back, which includes the listing of the number of non-Brahmin artists who have been part of this world in the 20th century. While we hide behind these listings, we miss the truth of the discriminations they faced and we all know so many incidents. We brush aside the obvious brahminisation they had to undergo for acceptance. We don’t see that the majority of these names are only of those who emerged in the early 20th century, which means that for the last 40 years we have hardly any musician for other communities. There have been a few, and even in their cases, we need to look at how this acceptability happened. It is only from these investigations that we will realise that at the core of it Carnatic music is very upper-caste. This is not a purely Chennai phenomenon. It is seen in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and also in the music nurturing Brahmin population across the world. Internationally, we see another battle of inclusion and acceptability being played out between the high-brow Brahmin organisers and the only other community that supports Carnatic music: Sri Lankan Tamils. Kerala, to some extent, is different and that has got to do with its social structure. Anyone outside Carnatic music recognises that there is lack of nuance and sensitivity in the Carnatic community about how caste and gender operate in society. The fact that India has so many successful women and has in fact had a woman President and a woman Prime Minister does not mean we are a society that treats women equally. Leave alone the violence against women, even the most liberal men are subconsciously, and sometimes unconsciously, discriminatory. So when we talk about discrimination we have to look a little deeper as to how these notions operate. We in Carnatic music shift positions based on the compulsions of the context but always safeguard the core Brahminical identity of that music. The music should not be stuffed into one socio-aesthetic address.
I think there is a need to revisit the way we have practiced this art, articulated its form and also begin ways of reaching it to a larger population. Here I must add that this will only happen if we can be honest and introspect about ourselves and accept that we have held it back from the larger world beyond its patrons.
http://www.dnaindia.com/lifestyle/r...e-in-chennai-says-musician-tm-krishna-2124546
The over obsession with religiosity, ritualism and the lyrical meaning of the compositions has been one of the reasons for a lack of an independent instrumental narrative. Everybody including the instrumentalist is unfortunately seeking to express religious meaning through re-creating in their instrument something of the effect of the words. And we know that the vocalist will naturally win that battle! The import of language in music has to be separated from linguistic meaning. Personal religious belief needs to be detached from Carnatic music.
On the social front, we think that we are very inclusive and that the Carnatic music world never discriminated against gender and caste that the blame squarely lies with external factors. Whenever I have raised the issue of caste it is the same old arguments that are thrown back, which includes the listing of the number of non-Brahmin artists who have been part of this world in the 20th century. While we hide behind these listings, we miss the truth of the discriminations they faced and we all know so many incidents. We brush aside the obvious brahminisation they had to undergo for acceptance. We don’t see that the majority of these names are only of those who emerged in the early 20th century, which means that for the last 40 years we have hardly any musician for other communities. There have been a few, and even in their cases, we need to look at how this acceptability happened. It is only from these investigations that we will realise that at the core of it Carnatic music is very upper-caste. This is not a purely Chennai phenomenon. It is seen in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and also in the music nurturing Brahmin population across the world. Internationally, we see another battle of inclusion and acceptability being played out between the high-brow Brahmin organisers and the only other community that supports Carnatic music: Sri Lankan Tamils. Kerala, to some extent, is different and that has got to do with its social structure. Anyone outside Carnatic music recognises that there is lack of nuance and sensitivity in the Carnatic community about how caste and gender operate in society. The fact that India has so many successful women and has in fact had a woman President and a woman Prime Minister does not mean we are a society that treats women equally. Leave alone the violence against women, even the most liberal men are subconsciously, and sometimes unconsciously, discriminatory. So when we talk about discrimination we have to look a little deeper as to how these notions operate. We in Carnatic music shift positions based on the compulsions of the context but always safeguard the core Brahminical identity of that music. The music should not be stuffed into one socio-aesthetic address.
I think there is a need to revisit the way we have practiced this art, articulated its form and also begin ways of reaching it to a larger population. Here I must add that this will only happen if we can be honest and introspect about ourselves and accept that we have held it back from the larger world beyond its patrons.
http://www.dnaindia.com/lifestyle/r...e-in-chennai-says-musician-tm-krishna-2124546
