Monday, December 31, 2012
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Sunday, December 23, 2012
U Ve Saa
Musical side of ‘Tamil Thathaa’
As a teacher, U.V. Swaminatha Iyer would sing Tamil verses in one raaga or other
For Tamil lovers, he was the grand old man — ‘Tamil Thathaa’ — who rescued palm leaf manuscripts containing ancient Tamil literature from the marauding army of hungry termites and published them. U.V. Swaminatha Iyer had another face. Formally trained in classical music, a family vocation, he even had the privilege of learning directly from Gopalakrishna Bharathiar, the author of Nandan Charithiram. He, however, had to quit learning music because his Tamil teacher Meenakshi Sundaram Pillai was against it.
As a Tamil teacher, he would sing verses in one raaga or other, before explaining them to students.
In fact, the first part of En Charithiram, his autobiography, Swaminatha Iyer talks more about music than Tamil. Besides, giving a lot of details of outstanding musicians of his time, he penned biographies of Ganam Krishna Iyer, his grandmother’s uncle, and Gopalakrishna Bharathiar. In his book, he eloquently describes the popularity of Nandan Charithiram.
His father Venkatasubramania Iyer and his younger brother Chinnasamy Iyer were accomplished musicians, eking out a livelihood by giving kathakalakshebam on the Ramayana across the State. Chinnasamy Iyer was a veena player.
Both Swaminatha Iyer and his father had learnt from Gopalakrishna Bharathiar and his father made it a point to sing Nandan Charithira Keerthanas in his kalakshebam. He had a copy of the book presented to him by Gopalakrishna Bharathiar and Swaminatha Iyer kept the book till his last days.
Incidentally, Ganam Krishna Iyer, famous for singing “ganam” and was the asthana vidwan of Thanjavur, Tiruvidai Maruthur and Udayarpalayam, had taught Gopalakrishna Bharathiar. Krishna Iyer composed a keerthana in atanaraga “summa summa varumo sugam” on the advice of Saint Thiyagaraja.
Swaminatha Iyer’s father actually wanted him to pursue a career in music and was satisfied with his talent when he had a chance to listen to him singing a Nanda Charithira keerthana, “theeyil moozhginar thirunalay povar” in kaanada.
He also wanted him to learn Sanskrit and Telugu, a prerequisite of all musicians of his period. Iyer turned his back on Telugu.
Swaminatha Iyer’s first encounter with Gopalakrishna Bharathiar, who he saw walking with a bamboo stick for support, on the streets of Mayiladuthurai was vividly described in his autobiography.
“I was surprised by his unkempt figure. I wondered whether it was this man who penned Nandan Charithiram? Though his work was high in my estimation, his body structure did not appeal to me,” recalled Swaminatha Iyer, who was angry with Bharathiyar, for criticising Meenakshi Sundaram Pillai for not having an ear for music.
But his estimation of Bharathiar changed after he started learning under him.
“As I moved closer with him, I realised he was a genius. Since his voice was not good, he learnt the violin and used to play it when he was alone. I learnt many songs from him,” said Iyer.
Swaminatha Iyer also had the opportunity of listening to Mahavaidhyanatha Iyer and his brother Ramasamy Iyer.
His autobiography is a delight not just to a lover of Tamil, but also to music buffs. His love for Tamil music comes out clearly in the book.
“There are a lot of Tamil keerthanas penned by those whose expertise in music was matched by their talent for composing. But they disappeared for lack of patronage. Thousands of Tamil keerthanas existed in the county. They perfectly suited the Carnatic ragas. Now, people do not hesitate to say there are no keerthanas in Tamil. All this happened in a period of sixty years,” apparently referring to the trend created by the popularity of the songs of Carnatic Trinity.
Friday, December 21, 2012
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Virtual Gurukulam
Logging on to the virtual gurukulam
ROHAN KRISHNAMURTHY
To briefly rehash a standard historical narrative, Carnatic music is one of the world’s oldest and most complex musical traditions, its provenance dating back nearly 4,000-years. This divine, unbroken tradition has been passed down, for generations, from teacherto student in a traditional apprentice system calledgurukulavasa. Gurukulava
Almost all Carnatic music aficionados would have come across this concise history of the musical form at some point. Yet, even a cursory examination of Carnatic music as it is practised today reveals how much the tradition has changed from its venerated past. Perhaps there is no better example of the changing landscape of Carnatic music than the phenomenon of online training, where teachers and students, often separated by thousands of miles, exchange complex musical information through audio and video-conferencing programmes such as Skype and Google Talk.
Virtual gurukulavasa, as I dub the new online pedagogical system, might appear to be a hard sell for an ancient, guru-centred tradition. Yet, online teaching has become so widespread today — lessons are offered for everything from Carnatic vocal to morsing — that virtually anyone who can teach online does teach online. I became fascinated with this radically new system of techno-pedagogy and chose to pursue it as the topic of my PhD dissertation, focusing on the realm of Carnatic percussion (mridangam, ghatam, kanjira, and konnakol vocal percussion). I arrived in Chennai in August to conduct ethnographic fieldwork to study the musical, social, and cultural impact of virtual music lessons in Carnatic percussion.
My research collaborators include some of the most distinguished performer-teachers in Chennai who have endorsed online teaching. I will share a few interesting points from my research that are of general interest to anyone interested in online education and, especially, online music education.
The main demand for online teaching, as of now, comes from the Indian diaspora — Indian immigrants in America who settled thousands of miles from their homeland for professional advancement. The appeal of online teaching for this diasporic community is apparent. Parents can encourage their second-generation Indian-American children to receive musical training from popular performers in Chennai and, in turn, stay connected to their cultural heritage from the comfort of their own homes.
In spite of the serious challenges in virtual music education, such as audio/video lag (which prevents teacher and student from performing tasks simultaneously), substandard audio and video quality, call drops, and limited musical and social interaction between teacher and student, virtual lessons are undeniably convenient for both parties. And after all, the technology, when fully operational, appears to simulate face-to-face training.
But why would online performer-teachers in Chennai take time out of their hectic, international performance schedules to teach beginner-and-intermediate-
The immigrant appeal
In this technology-driven, global cultural and economic exchange, I speculate that immigrant parents are the essential cultural and economic link that actively connects Indian-American students (who represent “western culture”) with Chennai teachers (who represent authentic “Indian culture”). There is, thus, no mystery as to why online teaching in Carnatic music is as popular as it is: the technology is available, there is a clear cultural demand from the Indian immigrant population and Chennai teachers are ready to supply their artistic expertise, so long as the price is right.
Many Indian immigrant parents that I have spoken to are concerned that online teaching might simply be a profitable business venture for teachers based in Chennai. Hesitant to log on to the virtual bandwagon, they ask me whether online training is “as effective” or “as good” as in-person training. It appears that the two systems of pedagogy are so different that teachers do not even compare one with the other; to do so is “like comparing apples and oranges” or, more aptly, “like comparing virtual and real-life experiences.”
There is no denying that virtual lessons can be an effective way to transmit knowledge, as the rise of distance learning in all walks of education suggests. And for the majority of Indian-American students of Carnatic music who are pre-college music hobbyists, online lessons can provide a reasonable quality of musical education as they pursue their goal of gaining admission to top U.S. colleges to pursue “serious”, non-music-related degrees.
Nevertheless, some important questions remain as this techno-pedagogy reaches its ten-year anniversary. What does the popularity of virtual music lessons today mean for the Carnatic music tradition? Is online education merely a new, transnational tool for disseminating an ancient tradition or is this the beginning of a new, virtual tradition of virtual performers and audiences, virtual instruments, and virtual payment? Just as virtual lessons simulate real-life teaching, does a virtual tradition only simulate a real-life tradition? How far can a student progress online without face-to-face training? Can a shishya ever become a guru having only undergone virtual gurukulavasa?
These are serious questions to ponder this month as Chennai celebrates one of the largest (and, as of yet, live and real-life) music festivals in the world.
(The author is an international percussion performer, researcher, and entrepreneur and a PhD candidate in musicology at the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester, New York, as a Provost’s Fellow.)
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)