I was going through Zepplin’s blog on SPB and aha, found a good one to write today!!!! Right from the days of Ariakhudi Ramanujam Iyengar, often referred to the father of karnataka isai panthadhi, meaning the protocol for rendering the carnatic music. However, I feel he does not deserve the title. The prime reason being that he was instrumental for transforming most of the Thyagaraja keerthana’s meaningless or for that matter any foreign language compositions meaningless. (I refer to any other than Tamil as foreign language).
Take for instance
“Endharo mahanubhavulu Andharikki Vandhanamu”.
Meaning:- I respect all those great men.
An excellent composition by saint Thyagaraja. The sahithaym or the lyric has to be rendered the way it is mentioned above. Instead the way it is sung today, even by the most learned musicians is,
“Endharoma haanu baavu”
“loo andhari Ki Vandhanamu”.
This reminds me of an old Tamil saying “sukhumi Laghudhi ippili” for “ sukku miLagu thippili”
The only person, till very recently, who I have heard rendering the song without disturbing its meaning is BMK. I happened to listen to SPB sing the song like the past week, though not very carnatic, yet did not spoil its contents. This attribute of his is not only true with his mother tongue, Telugu. I have heard him sing in various languages including Hindi and never once have I felt that the meaning is lost. (Of course, within my knowledge bounds).
Yet another notorious singer of recent times is Udit Narayan. There is no contest about his voice. He has an excellent voice and one of the best singers in the Hindi Film music world. But when it comes to singing Tamil songs, man he is awful.
Not once has he even come close to singing a song without murdering its contents.
“thamizh ini mella chagum!!!!”
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6 comments:
dude,
good one man.... though I spoke to you about it, wanted to put something in it..
dont know much about Ariyakhudi, but Udit..oh yeah..absolutely..
idhenna Ariyakhudiyin Ariyaamaya ??
(bad one... i know...but oru korvaia irundhudhe nu... )
I have not listened to Ariyakudi's renderings a lot, atleast not analytically. But let me ask you this question. Not for second guessing you, but out of ignorance. Is it that important for musicians to follow the lyric placement in a sentence ? I mean to ask, don't you lose some creativity by not being able to play around with it a little ? The reason I am saying this is that I have listened to some thamizh songs where you finish the saranam and go to the pallavi and the 1 st word tof the pallavi is sung at the end of the saranam itself and the pallavi kind of starts incomplete. I thought it was a nice change and the completeness was achieved by singing the saranam end and the pallavi together ? Isn't your endharo mahanubhavulu example similar to that ?
I agree with you. Reminded of a saying in English where "Hang Him Not, Leave Him" got misinterpreted as "Hang Him, Not Leave Him" because of a punctuation error of the Judge!
Dinesh, what you say may perhaps be alright with Cine music. As far as Carnatic music goes, the composers wrote those songs primarily out of bhakthi to the Divine. The ultimate goal of Carnatic Music is realization of the divine. That being the purpose, it doesn't make sense to be creative at the expense of the point being conveyed. Of course, to leave room for creativity, we have the alaapanaas.
dinesh, Subha,
I agree with Subha totally. I just wanted to add that it need not even be related to divinity. oru pattu na paNNum(thamizh) mettum servadhu dhan pattu.
Hmmmm... Udit Narayan...
NaaaaaYellam Kalakura Aala,
Poaai solla koodadhe!
Idhu onnuke avanukku thooku dhandanai kudukanum!
Rahman pannina thappugalil mannika mudiyadha oru thapppu, Udit Narayan and Sukhwinder a thamizh paatu paada sonnadhu!
Nice blog on here.. will be back..
Anti,
thanks for stopping by. vango, vango appo appo vandhu parungo :-)
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