Shuddha Kalyan is a popular, though difficult, raga of the Kalyan parent scale. The raga is pentatonic in the ascent and heptatonic in the descent.
Ascent: SRGPDS'
Descent: S'NDPM^GRS
The ascent is identical to Bhoop/Bhupali, while the descent is identical to Yaman/Kalyan. This is why the raga is also occasionally referred to as Bhoop Kalyan. But, there is more confusion surrounding the raga’s nomenclature because some gharana-s refer to Bhoop/Bhupali (pentatonic) as Bhoop Kalyan. And, some refer to Shuddha Kalyan (heptatonic in the descent) as Shuddha Bhoopal. Although varying nomenclatures are a good indication of the two-faced character of the raga, we can stick to Shuddha Kalyan as the most widely used name, with a good chance of identifying the melodic entity beyond reasonable doubt.
According to Manikbuwa Thakurdas (Raga Darshan), this raga can be performed in either of its two distinct variants -- a Bhoop-biased treatment, and a Kalyan-biased treatment. In a Bhoop-biased treatment, the use of the Ni/Ma swaras in the descent should be subtle enough to be "apratyaksha" (subliminal/ implicit/ imperceptible). This is normally achieved by using the two swaras only in a meend (glissando) as grace swaras in the transition from Sa to (Ni) Dh and Pa to (Ma) Ga. When presented in the Kalyan-biased treatment, the Ni/Ma swaras can be "pratyaksha" (explicit) or "apratyaksha" (implicit), and therefore not limited to being treated as grace swaras.
Subba Rao (Raga Nidhi, Vol.IV) points out a third interpretation of the raga which omits the Ma/Ni swaras altogether. In such a treatment, distinguishing the resulting music from Bhoop/Bhupali requires great skill. This version was heard occasionally until the 1960s, and is virtually extinct now.
According to Kalyan Mukherjea (his e-mail of June 25,1999), an eminent disciple of Pandit Radhika Mohan Maitra, his Guru resolved this multiplicity of views as only great creative minds can -- by a poetic description. According to him, Ni/Ma are "astamita", like rays of the setting sun, which has already sunken below the horizon. This description permits the subliminal as well as the explicit use of the Ni/Ma swaras in the descent, as long as they claim no more than a subtle presence in the totality of the aural experience.
The raga permits phrases to culminate only on Sa, Re, Ga, and Pa. None of the other swaras are permitted the status of “nyasa swaras” [resting points] for phrasing. The primary melodic region of this raga is the region between the lower-octave Pa and the middle-octave Pa. This also happens to be the primary melodic region of Bhoop/Bhupali. Hence the exposure of Shuddha Kalyan to the risk of confusion with Bhoop.
Shuddha Kalyan avoids the confusion with Bhoop/Bhupali by its phrases P.D.P.S and S N. R, which rule out Bhoop/ Bhupali categorically. In addition, Shuddha Kalyan utilizes the Re swara as one of special emphasis, as against the Ga-dominance of Bhoop/Bhupali. Shuddha Kalyan prefers to use the Ga swara as a transitional swara in its journey towards Pa in a loop phrase RGPM^G as distinct from the direct DSRG or RPG characteristic of Bhoop/Bhupali.
The various views on Shuddha Kalyan appear to converge on one point - that, despite its heptatonic descent, the aural experience of the raga is intended to be near-pentatonic. On the basis of modern and contemporary practice, the raga appears to be anchored in the lower half of the melodic canvas, with a notional scale from the lower-Pa to the middle-Pa. Some musicians have chosen to locate the raga’s epicentre in the uttaranga [upper tetrachord] of the lower octave, while others have opted for the poorvanga [lower tetrachord] of the middle octave. Because the raga’s tonal/ melodic differentiation from Bhoop/ Bhupali and Deshkar is most explicit in the descent, the raga may be considered avaroha-pradhan [descent dominant]. This is the raga’s esthetic grammar, which refines its melodic grammar, and drives it towards literature.
A survey of available recordings of this raga reveals some interesting patterns. To begin with, Suddha Kalyan appears to have been performed only by musicians of considerable stature. Even these musicians appear to have performed them primarily at concerts, and rarely on commercial recordings. These facts suggest that the raga is regarded as a considerable aesthetic challenge, and those who do perform it do so after they have ascertained the receptivity potential of their audiences to the raga’s melodic subtleties. These subtleties of raga grammar might explain why vocalists have remained far more faithful to the near-pentatonic aural experience of the raga than instrumentalists performing on the plucked lutes - sitar and sarod.
But, there appears also to be a generational angle to the diversity in the handling of the raga’s near-pentatonic character, especially with respect to sitar and sarod renditions. Evidence of recordings by three generations of sitar/sarod players suggests that the ergonomic and acoustic aspects of music making have encouraged a steady drift towards a bolder expression of the raga’s heptatonic character and, by implication, a dilution of the near-pentatonic aural experience.
This tendency could partially also reflect the growing audience-friendliness amongst the younger Hindustani musicians. They are a part of the new “in-the-face” culture, which makes them abandon the subtleties and nuances of ragas in favour of the more explicit expression, which also happens to be less demanding in melodic execution.
By way of support for these observations, I rely on recordings of the raga by Ustad Ameer Khan [Vocal: HMV:STC:851005], Roshanara Beghum [Vocal: HMV:STC: 04B: 7702], Ashwini Bhide-Deshpande [Vocal: Music Today:A-92060], Shrafat Hussain Khan [Vocal: Concert: Unpublished] Ustad Vilayat Khan [Sitar: Concert at National Centre for Performing Arts, Bombay, February 8, 1998. Unpublished], Kalyan Mukherjea [Sarod: India Archive Music, NY], and a recording by Shujaat Khan [India Archive Music, NY].
The issue of maintaining the near-pentatonic aural experience of a raga with a heptatonic scale revolves primarily around the subliminal use of [tivra] Ma in the descent from Pa to Ga, and the equally imperceptible use of [shuddha] Ni in the descent from Sa to Dh. Since the ergonomic and generational issues stand out in bolder relief in the instrumental renditions, a detailed look at the sitar/ sarod recordings is revealing.
Ustad Vilayat Khan [born: 1928], the seniormost of the instrumentalists surveyed, remains remarkably close to the near-pentatonic experience of the raga throughout the concert. In the low-density melodic movements, he hardly ever executes the Ma/Ni swaras on the frets, always using the meend [string deflection] technique to approximate the vocalist’s subtlety. In the high-density movements, the Ustad sparingly uses the Ni fret supported with a plectrum stroke, but almost never the Ma fret. The dilution of the raga’s near-pentatonic character in Vilayat Khan’s Shuddha Kalyan, if any, [Example: S’NDPGRS] does not go beyond a near-hexatonic experience.
Sarodist Kalyan Mukherjea [born:1943] is more explicit in the use of the Ma/ Ni swaras, including supporting them with plectrum strokes. His interpretation of the raga permits medium density passages such as SN/ ND/ DP/ PM^ /M^G with gamak execution, which allow the Ma/Ni swaras as much weightage as other swaras. Despite its explicitness, this usage remains broadly “apratyaksha” [subtle/ imperceptible] because swaras taken in pairs do not constitute a phrase, and stop short of defining an explicit melodic contour.
Therefore, while Mukherjea treats the raga as being pentatonic in the ascent, and heptatonic in the descent, the experience of the Ma/ Ni swaras remains- as described by his Guru -- akin to the rays of the setting sun, after it has dipped below the horizon. Because the fretless sarod is a more hospitable instrument with respect to the Ma/Ni subtlety than the sitar, the liberality of Mukherjea’s treatment -- relative to Ustad Vilayat Khan’s -- may, therefore, have an element of generational preference.
The generational issue acquires some merit because, Shujaat Khan [Born: 1960] goes beyond Mukherjea in permitting the Ma/Ni swaras a presence in the raga. Shujaat’s deployment of these swaras is perhaps more prominent than even the “pratyaksha” treatment envisaged by Thakurdas [Ibid]. Shujat freely deploys phrases such as RGM^GR and PDNDP which can be interpreted as using Ma and Ni in the ascent as well as descent. Shujaat also feels free to construct descending alankar tans which define melodic contours with Ma and Ni as nyasa swaras [Example: GGRS/ RRSN/ SSND/ NNDP/ DDPM^/ PPM^G/ M^M^GR/ GGRS].
He therefore appears to treat the Ma/Ni swaras as permissible for sparing deployment, but not necessarily only in the descent, and not merely as incidentals to phrasing. Contextually, however, Shujaat’s usage hardly creates dissonance except for the abnormally critical ear. Despite the magnitude of his deviations, the aural experience of his Shuddha Kalyan remains within the recognisable boundaries of the raga.
This discussion could invite the argument that sitarists and sarod players should refrain from performing ragas like Shuddha Kalyan, whose subtleties their instruments cannot handle. But, this is an irrelevant line of reasoning in Hindustani music tradition, built on the assumptions of continuity within change. It accepts that ragas can, and do, alter their melodic grammar over time, even in the vocal expression. The motivation for these alterations is either greater ease of melodic execution or responding to changing aesthetic values.
Instrumentalists alter the raga form with the same motivation. Their alterations are merely more obvious than those of vocalists because of the perceptible mechanics of sound activation and melodic execution. And, to the extent that instruments increasingly dominate society’s experience of Hindustani music, their melodic-acoustic features reflect contemporary aesthetic values, while also altering our melodic experience of ragas and, indeed, our notions of raga-ness.
This perspective is easier to appreciate by visualising Shuddha Kalyan being attempted on the santoor, the Indian dulcimer, a staccato instrument. Even in the hands of the greatest santoor maestro, the instrument would be severely limited in its ability to deliver the micro-tonal subtleties of Shuddha Kalyan as hitherto prescribed. Unlike western classical music, which composes music uniquely for individual instruments, the Hindustani tradition accepts Shuddha Kalyan on the santoor with all its limitations, and will judge the results by the same fundamental yardstick - whether the melodic experience remains within the recognisable boundaries of the raga, as currently understood.
The operative phrase in this proposition is “the raga as currently understood”. Audiences acquire their notions of raga-ness from the mix of aural experiences to which they are exposed.
As long as the subtle and the not-so-subtle interpretations of Shuddha Kalyan are both in circulation, listeners hearing the less subtle versions will tend to mentally “fill in” the subtleties which they were supposed to hear, but do not actually hear in the music being performed. This great ability of the human aural mechanism constitutes some protection against the dilution of an exquisitely subtle melodic entity.
But, the music-scape of society is dynamic in nature. If the santoor should ever dominate our society’s musical experience, the ergonomic and acoustic uniqueness of the instrument will reshape the experience of Shuddha Kalyan, along with every other “raga as currently understood”.
If such an event comes to pass, nobody needs lose sleep over it because it will not happen either for the first time, or the last. The Hindustani tradition is robust enough to accommodate different notions of a “raga as currently understood” for vocal music, and for as many categories of instruments as are in vogue.
Deepak S. Raja
© India Archive Music Ltd. New York
The finest recordings of raga Shuddha Kalyan have been produced by India Archive Music Ltd. [email protected]
Monday, October 29, 2007
Raga Shuddha Kalyan: How and why it is changing
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Sunday, October 21, 2007
Nancy Lesh (Kulkarni): “Dhrupad is the music for me. India is the place for me.”
I spent the first month in Bombay, playing the Bach suites for solo cello in parks and hotel lobbies, and listening to concerts of Hindustani classical music every evening. I was amazed by all the new sounds was hearing: sitar, sarangi, surbahar, bansuri, tanpura,tabla, pakhawaj. Growing up in the West, I had assumed that Indian music was of the “folk” category. I was thrilled to hear so many styles of classical music, and an amazing array of ragas. I was aching to learn some of this music on my cello. But where to start? With whom to study?
Fortunately I made the acquaintance of the noted scholar Dr. Narayana Menon, that time Director of the National Center of Performing Arts. He gave me some advice which I have always cherished. He said that Imust not be in a hurry to choose a teacher and begin studying. He advised me to spend my entire 3-month holiday listening to as many concerts as possible. From this, I will naturally find an attraction for a particular style or instrument. Then in my next trip to India, I can pursue a formal study with a chosen master.
I did as he said. The next day, I left for a music-listening tour of the major cities of Northern India, cello strapped to my back. Everywhere I went, I played Bach for locals in parks and hotel lobbies by day, and attended concerts at night. After a month of travel, I came to my favorite city, Banaras. I gave a recital for the Banaras Hindu University’s School of Music, playing the famous Fifth Suite for Solo Cello by Bach. At that time, Dean of Music Dr. Ranga Naiki, and musicologist Dr. Premlata Sharma were present in the audience. After my recital, Dr. Sharma came to see me, saying, “It always amazes us how you Westerners are able to play note-by-note memorized pieces forhours.” I replied, “Its even more amazing how you Indian musicians are able to go on improvising in a single raga for hours, always fresh, and never repeating a phrase!” I asked Dr. Sharma her advice about pursuing a study of Indian music. “This instrument is perfect for Dhrupad,” was her reply. Only many years later, I came to know the wisdom in her statement. “We have one fine teacher of Dhrupad here at BHU, Dr. Ritwik Sanyal. I will introduce you to him.”
The next day, I went to Dr. Sanyal’s home for my first Dhrupad lesson, not having any idea what is Dhrupad! In all my travels, I hadn’t even one opportunity to hear this wonderful musical genre. As soon as I heard Dr. Sanyal’s alap in Bhim Palasi, I knew this was the music for me. The low ringing tones of his voice, the timeless un-measured movements of his alap, the poignant melody, all had me mesmerized. But what was even more thrilling, was when I found that I could somewhat reproduce those phrases on my cello. Hearing the familiar sound of my cello take on a new exotic expression, I could hardly contain my excitement! I came daily for lessons with Dr. Sanyal until it was time for me to return to Florence.
But, when the time came, I just couldn’t do it. In those days, public telephones were a rarity in Banaras, and after a many-hour wait, the connection was often so bad as to be useless. So I sent a telegram to Maestro RichardoMutti, Director of the orchestra in Florence, to please fill my post , I had to stay in India. I remained in India for seven years, studying two years with Dr. Sanyal, and five years with his guru, the Dhrupad veena master, Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar. I was joined my husband and son, and my daughter was born in Panvel on the outskirts of Bombay.
Along with Dhrupad cello, I studied Hindi and Marathi. Those were wonderful years, and I will always cherish the memories of the Ustad and his celestial music. After the untimely demise of my Ustad in 1990, I visited India every year to continue my Dhrupad cello study with his brother, the eminent vocalist Ustad Zia Fariduddin Dagar of Bombay.
During these last 25 years of playing Dhrupad on my cello, I have tried all kinds of modifications to my cello, with the guidance of my guru. This has been an interesting adventure in itself. I currently have two extra strings, which are plucked in the chikari style of the rudra veena. My four melodic strings pass over a sloping elkhorn nut, modeled after the veena to produce a ringing tone. One can see from my photo that I have adopted the Indian posture, holding the cello while seated on a carpet. I have eliminated the vibrato, which I had so carefully groomed in my Western classical training, so that the subtle ornaments of Dhrupad are clearly articulated.
The rest is just the life of a striving musican. I can only thank my Gurus for the inspiration and guidance they have given me, which was so strong as to last all these years. I am looking forward to shifting myresidence permanently to Pune in 2008. India is the place for me!
(c) Nancy Kulkarni
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Zia Fareeduddin Dagar -- “The university system has done damage to the artistic traditions”
Ustad Zia Fareeduddin Dagar spoke to Deepak Raja about the Dhrupad Kendra, Bhopal, on October 6, 1998
By 1980, I had virtually settled down in Austria. I was running Dhrupad classes in Austria and France. Once, during a visit to India, one of my disciples, the filmmaker, Mani Kaul came to me and pleaded with me to provide the background score for a film he was making on Madhya Pradesh. I was reluctant initially, but I could not refuse Mani Kaul. So, I got involved.
During the making of the film, we spent over two months in Madhya Pradesh, a lot of time in Bhopal In those days, Shri Arjun Singh was the Chief Minister of MP. Cultural development was one of his passions. It is because of him that the magnificent Bharat Bhavan cultural center developed in Bhopal. At that time, the Secretary to the Department of Culture in MP was Shri Ashok Vajpayee, who later went to Delhi as Jt. Secretary, Department of Culture in the Central Government. I spent a lot of time with Vajpayeeji during those days, and we developed a great deal of respect for each other. Thereafter, I returned to Paris to resume my teaching there.
A few months later, I got an offer from Shri Vajpayee to start a government-supported Dhrupad School in Bhopal. By that time, I had become sufficiently cynical about the value of government patronage to the kind of work a serious musician wishes to do. I brushed the proposal aside as just one more of those well-meaning ideas.
By co-incidence, I was visiting the Cannes Film Festival, and there I happened to meet up with Ashok Vajpayee and Mani Kaul, and some other leading figures in the field of art. During the days we spent together, Ashok Vajpayee prevailed upon me to accept the invitation to move back to India and set up the Dhrupad Kendra in Bhopal. Immediately upon his return to India, Vajpayee announced the formation of the Dhrupad Kendra.
We formed a committee to supervise the activities of the Kendra. It had Dr. Premlata Sharma, Pandit Kumar Gandharva, Mani Kaul, my elder brother (the Late Ustad Zia Moiuddin Dagar) and others.
We decided on a training period of four years. Some committee members were skeptical. They thought it was too short. I told them that it was my responsibility to produce first-class performing musicians, and I knew what I was doing. The results are there for everyone to see. In post-independence India, no other institution, with government or corporate funding, has been able to produce comparable results under a Gurukul type institution.
We had a heated debate over the stipend for the disciples. I argued that we are not giving fellowships to mature musicians. We are giving pocket money to students. I insisted that, during their training, we do not pay amounts which permit them to seek distractions. We got the first batch for a stipend of Rs. 350 per month in 1981. Recently, it has been enhanced to Rs. 700, which is reasonable considering the inflationary pressures. Higher stipends could have been obtained from the Academy’s budget; but we might have failed in our mission. I think our tight-fisted policy on stipends has made a major contribution to the success of the institution.
Our selection of students is also unorthodox. We do not limit our selection to people who have a good grounding in music. We have our share of such students, of course. But, we have also accepted students who could not tunefully deliver a film-song on the day of the interview. After a year of training, such students are not doing very much worse than those who came with degrees in music. We are looking for dedication more than anything else, and that spark of creativity. Shaping the raw material is my task, and I know how to do it.
There is also another angle to this. Students, who come to us after maturing in the training of other gharanas, find it difficult to re-orient themselves to our style. Therefore, we try to ensure that the background of our students does not interfere with the process of shaping them into competent Dhrupad musicians.
My students reside in their hostelry, and report for taleem at 4.30 in the morning every day of the year. They go back around 11.00 at night, and return the next morning, again at 4.30. We started the institution with five students in each batch of 4-years duration. Recently, the number of students has been increased to eight, four from families domiciled in Madhya Pradesh, and four from outside the state. We are now into the fifth batch.
We do not have any rigid rules about age at the time of admission. Most students come to us around the age of eighteen. We accept students even upto the age of twenty-eight or thirty, if we feel that they will be able to absorb the taleem.
In a significant departure from the past pattern, we have recently accepted Ph.D. graduates from Benares Hindu University. In this case, the consideration was that, at BHU, they have been trained by Prof. Ritwik Sanyal, one of my disciples. Therefore, the gharana orientation is not a major issue. These students are seeking further training because their earlier education has been governed by the academic prescriptions of the university environment. The performing art belongs to a different world altogether.
The majority of our students are boys. We also accept girls. We have produced some very fine singers amongst ladies. However, the Indian social environment does not normally permit ladies from cultured families to pursue a career in music after marriage. Therefore, considering our mission, this is one part of our success, which is mixed with regret.
My institution has a big name: Dhrupad Kendra, under the Ustad Allauddin Khan Music Academy. But, it is not an institution in the conventional sense. By way of staff, there is me, a sweeper, and a gardener. And, then there are students. That is all. The administrative work is handled by the Music Academy. Establishment expenses, and stipends for students are paid out directly from the Academy. I think we have achieved something because we are not run either like a university, or a government institution or a music academy.
I firmly believe that the university system has done damage to the artistic traditions - not only in music, but also in the other fine and performing arts. Take for instance, painting. Our universities have turned out a lot of very good painters in the oil paint medium. But, they are all functioning without roots in an artistic tradition, because India has no oil-painting tradition. Therefore, I say that, in the university system, you may promote technique, but not tradition. Tradition requires a firm grounding in the past. University education in the fine arts cannot fulfil this requirement.
I am not arguing that government funding for the arts is worthless. Nevertheless, I will argue that if it forces art education to divorce itself from the living tradition, it is achieving nothing worthwhile. In fact, on a national scale, the investment that is being made in art education is producing nothing by way of perpetuating the living traditions. In stark contrast to the university system, the Dhrupad Kendra has proved that it is possible to make government support productive, when it works within the traditional system of art education. I am sure even the Dhrupad Kendra model can be refined and improved. But, the basics must remain rooted in the living tradition.
If this Dhrupad Kendra idea had not taken shape, I and my elder brother, Ustad Zia Moiuddin Dagar, would have continued to train students anyway. So, our work as trainers was not made totally dependent on government funding. Because of government support, I started doing in Bhopal what I would have otherwise been doing in Bombay or Paris or Vienna. And, partly because of government scholarships, we attracted some very promising students. However, I am not sure that equally promising students might not have gravitated towards our training, even without the meager stipends government is paying them. .
In the ultimate analysis, what you need most is an Ustad wanting to teach, and disciples keen to learn. These are the factors which enable a performing art tradition to perpetuate itself.
In a government-supported system, there is a permanent danger of political and bureaucratic processes interfering with the momentum of the efforts. So far, the Dhrupad Kendra has been able to protect itself from this danger. I must, however, confess that I have had my share of frustrations, and have even come close to resigning. I have stayed because I could demand the freedom to do my work, and fulfil my obligations.
As long as the present equation between the Dhrupad Kendra and the government remains, the work we have started will continue. When I am no longer on the scene, I am sure that one of my own students will take over the Guru’s position. After all, that is the way the Parampara has always worked.
I know that Dhrupad musicians will, henceforth, find it more difficult to sacrifice full-time performing careers for a Guru’s position. There is also a non-commercial aspect to a Guru’s self-denial. All the hours that he spends in teaching, are denying to him the satisfaction of his own musical needs - of singing for his own pleasure, and working on his own development as a musician. For an accomplished musician, these are not small sacrifices. Yet, I nurture the fond hope that one of my better students will be willing to give at least half as much of himself to this Gurukul as I have done for over 16 years.
Reproduced, with the publisher’s consent, from “Perspectives on Dhrupad”, edited by Deepak Raja, and Suvarnalata Rao, published by the Indian Musicological Society, Baroda/ Bombay. 1999
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Monday, October 15, 2007
Shujaat Khan -- “Success and growth as a musician are different things”
Success and growth as a musician are different things. But, they are connected. If success is of the right kind, comes in good time, and one has the ability to digest it, it can be a great aid to achieving growth as a musician. On all counts, I cannot complain.
I have heard it said that an Indian musician does not achieve any credibility amongst Western audiences until he also commands a considerable presence and stature amongst audiences at home. This is not the way it has worked for me. US and European audiences opened up to me before the Indian market acquired serious interest in my music. Even today, when I am well established in India, almost seventy percent of my work is abroad.
There is a good reason for my exceptional success abroad. In the West, nobody cares about whose son you are, or whether your father is still around and whether you are still considered a “promising artist”. The market is willing to give you an opening if you deliver the goods, appeal to the imagination of audiences, and make people happy. Every decent musician can do this. But, the Western market also expects you to conduct yourself professionally - and this, every Indian musician cannot do. I have made a better headway abroad not because I am a great musician, but because I am a no-fuss, easy-to-deal-with guy who also delivers musical value. I don’t expect to be treated either like a king or God; I handle all my travel arrangements on my own, arrive at the venue in time, do my thing, collect my cheque, and disappear until the next time. It has taken me more than fifteen years to arrive at a situation of people valuing my music, independently of my professionalism.
Having achieved prior success abroad has helped me immensely in dealing with the Indian market. Whatever success I have in India today has been achieved with my self-esteem intact -- without the crawling, maneuvering, networking, and deal-making that dominates the world of professional Hindustani music. Because of my success abroad, I can command my price in India. It is not as if I do not do small concerts, subsidized concerts or even free concerts, in India. But, I have the freedom to do them when I so wish and for my own reasons. I don’t have to do them either because I am desperate enough to accept peanuts, or because I fear the consequences of poor visibility.
Having done well abroad has also helped me musically -- allowed me the time to liberate my Indian presence from the towering shadow of Ustad Vilayat Khan’s music. Had I been more dependent on Indian audiences for my livelihood, the market may have forced me to become a Vilayat Khan clone. You and I know what Ustad Vilayat Khan means to me musically. I cannot cease to be Vilayat Khan’s son and disciple any more than I can cease to be myself. I also love doing some of Ustad Vilayat Khan’s stuff - even willfully in addition to doing it unconsciously. But, I don’t want to be coerced into reaffirming my lineage at every concert, and in every raga.
By now, when India is taking me seriously, I am past forty -- no longer a kid. Nobody in his right mind can expect me to be a replica of Vilayat Khan at this stage in my life. I am not saying that the chain of expectations has been entirely broken. I can still hear orgasmic sighs and moans piercing the silence when, once in a while, I resort to a Vilayat Khan cliché. But, nobody feels cheated if I don’t do it.
With the passage of time, of course, an entirely new generation of listeners has emerged. To them, Ustad Vilayat Khan or Pandit Ravi Shankar or Ustad Ali Akbar Khan - though they are all alive - are only as real as Mahatma Gandhi or Jawaharlal Nehru. These audiences are willing to accept me for what I am. So, from every angle, my prior success abroad has worked well for me. Of course, every gain demands a price. The price I have to pay for this is that I am away from my family for almost six months in a year.
I have often been asked how different the content of my music abroad is from the music I perform in India. Today - and increasingly over the last three or four years - there is no difference. But, I am a very situation-to-situation musician, and the environment affects me. Under ideal conditions, I deliver superlative music. Under less-than-ideal conditions, I deliver only competent music. The West provides me with ideal conditions far more consistently than India does.
By conditions, I mean the concert halls, the sound systems, the professionalism of the concert hosts, and the conduct of the audiences. Amongst these factors, the acoustic environment is the most important. I agree that in my grandfather’s time, great sitar music was performed without acoustically engineered concert halls and without electronic amplification. In those days, the audiences were small - 100/150 people - the sitars were designed to address these audiences effectively without amplification, and the music was appropriate for those conditions. Unfortunately, my music is a product of the microphone era and I play an instrument designed for electronically manipulated delivery of output. I have been pampered by the opportunity of performing at the finest concert halls in the US and Europe. The contrast hurts.
Audiences abroad will not allow me to stagnate
With the success and financial comfort I have achieved by now, my music could easily have stagnated. But, I am not satisfied with the music I am playing and, as I grow, my musical perceptions are also changing. Also, fortunately for me, the quality of my audiences, especially in the US and Europe, will not allow me to stagnate. I do not have any strategy for change at each stage. Nor do I - as a rule - analyze my music. But, when queried about it, I can look back and decipher some patterns of experimentation I have been through. The residue of each stage has probably remained in my music.
The early days were of playing the true Vilayat Khan music. Then came the stage of western influences. Both these faded away. Then I was on a simplification and relief trip. Vilayat Khan’s exploration of the melodic potential within a small region of the melodic canvas was so dense and rich that the listener got tired of it. It worked for him. But, I wanted to introduce some relief. So, after an intense phase of melodic exploration, I started introducing lighter passages, less dense in melodic content. Sometimes, I went so far in this direction that the profundity of the music got diluted. Similarly, I started simplifying bandish-es. That effort also went so far that the bandish virtually lost its contours, and almost became a scale rendering to percussion accompaniment. Both these fads passed. Then, at one stage, I started working on introducing the unexpected in my phrasing strategy - the kaleidoscopic juxtaposition of notes and phrases, Ustad Ameer Khan’s gift to Hindustani music. Even in this direction, I went so far that, sometimes, that I lost a grip over the expected. This too passed.
As a practitioner of an improvisation-dominant art form, I have persistently crusaded - through my music - against the dominance of sitar music by “Tihai-s”. If you are a master of the rhythmic element, and have a melodic imagination, you don’t need tihai-s. It is not as if I don’t use them. But, I am ashamed and even apologetic when I do. What is so musical about an expression which, everyone knows, you have practiced and perfected a thousand times at home, and will culminate with unfailing mathematical accuracy? There is something so childish about it! I never stop marveling at musicians who deliver pre-composed tihai-s, and look around for the applause. A small occasional tihai, which almost composes itself, and surprises even the musician, is a musical delight. That is the real role of the tihai in instrumental music.
I am attracted by the prospect of charging the atmosphere with the music - of saturating the air with the character of a movement. In this direction, I often find myself unearthing and reliving memories of my father’s music of the 1960s, and how he handled the exploration of melody. This is why, increasingly, I play fewer movements, and explore each of them in a sustained manner over a certain minimum duration without a break. You can see this most clearly in my jhala. My percussionist has been instructed to refrain from clever playing once I begin the jhala. In the jhala, I like taking up themes, and weaving my improvisations around them. With the constant acoustic-rhythmic experience of the jhala, like prayers being sung in a temple to the accompaniment of the temple gong or the bells, one can have the audience swaying in the seats in response to the music - put them in a trance. That’s why they are there, to begin with.
And, finally, my current fad. Bandish-es - vocal and instrumental - have traditionally been composed to begin on certain beats of the rhythmic cycle. I am now working on composing and playing bandish-es, which commence on unconventional beats of the rhythmic cycle. Their beauty is highlighted when I take an amad tan and dovetail it smoothly into the mukhda. The subtle interplay of melody and rhythm in such dovetailing fascinates me for now. So, if you are looking for something special in my music at the moment, look for what I am doing now in the medium-to-fast tempo bandish-es.
I am embarrassed by my success
By any conventional yardstick, I am a successful musician. I must be the only Indian musician to have had an Income Tax Department raid at home. I have and can buy everything I want. I even have a Grammy nomination to my credit, a hard-core dollars-and-cents testimony to musicianship, which cannot be bought, influenced, or lobbied for. I am secure enough in my profession to do all my experimentation with new directions in the concert hall, under the flood lights, in public gaze. But, when I study the music of the greats of my era, I am embarrassed by my success. I don’t deserve it. I have no desire to become a Page 3 celebrity. Unlike Ustad Vilayat Khan, I am not driven by the conviction of being born for a place in history. I am satiated with what I have. All I want now is to play the music that I am happy playing, and enjoy the love and warmth of my family and friends - all those who are not here only because I am Ustad Shujaat Khan.
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Monday, October 1, 2007
Defining the Khayal genre
“Among all Hindustani vocal genres, the Khayala provides its performers the greatest opportunity and challenge to display the depth and breadth of musical knowledge and skills. Its essence lies in the manner in which artists take the characteristics that distinguish Khayala as a genre, make the choices that lie within their group traditions, summon their own creative individuality, and create a unique Khayala at each performace.” (Emphasis mine)
Interestingly, Prof. Wade has left the issue of defining the distinguishing characteristics of the various genres for other authors to attempt. I put forth the following definition of the Khayal genre in the backgrounder on Khayal included in my earlier book - “Hindustani Music: A tradition in transition”. (DK Printworld, New Delhi, 2005).
“The Khayala genre is distinguished from other major genres of Hindustani vocal music - Dhrupada and Thumree - by a linear (progressive) intensification of melodic and rhythmic densities and complexities, and a cyclical treatment of melodic and rhythmic elements within the central linearity of rendition”
Unfortunately, musicians do not typically hold conferences and pass resolutions to adopt norms for their art. The defining characteristics of the Khayal have, therefore, to be inferred. I proposed this definition as a faithful representation of the genre, as performed by a wide stylistic spectrum of musicianship, spread over a period of almost a century.
Non-architectural facets (sculpture and ornamentation) have occasionally been suggested as defining characteristics of the Khayal genre. But, the practice of these facets varies far too widely between stylistic traditions and individual musicians to justify inclusion in a definition. At least for the present, architecture appears to be the only feature that establishes the identity of the genre beyond reasonable doubt.
There is sufficient evidence in archival recordings to suggest that the Khayal has drifted steadily towards linearity of architecture, thus according to it the status of a consensus. This is not surprising because, structure (architecture) and function (delivery of specific categories of aesthetic satisfaction) are inseparably and causally related. We have a variety of genres in Hindustani music because society requires them to deliver different aesthetic satisfactions. Linearity of architecture distinguishes a Khayal most categorically from other genres. By moving towards a sharpening of linearity, its distinguishing feature, the Khayal has also progressively sharpened its ability to deliver the aesthetic satisfactions that the genre was designed, intended, and uniquely equipped to deliver.
It is widely believed -- perhaps with justification but without conclusive evidence -- that linearity of architecture is the gift of the Kairana gharana to Khayal vocalism. Between the 1940’s and the mid-1970’s, however, it became standard presentation protocol in all the major stylistic traditions of Khayal vocalism. Even Gwalior, Agra, and Jaipur-Atrauli traditions, which followed a less formalistic approach to Khayal architecture around the middle of the 20th century, have thereafter gradually fallen in line with linearity. The linearity of architecture can now be accepted as the direction which all Khayal gharana-s/ stylistic traditions have collectively and cumulatively given to it in order to impart to it a distinctive identity.
It is fair to recognize that, even today, the adherence to architectural linearity varies substantially between musicians. This reality does not, however, appear to incapacitate the definition I have proposed. The defining characteristic of the Khayal, or of any other genre, does not need to be mechanistically observed by every musician of every stylistic lineage in every rendition. Linearity, like any defining characteristic, is a yardstick by which to identify degrees of compliance or deviance. Musicians do have and, indeed, do exercise the freedom to sequence movements either informally, or in an overlapping configuration. The yardstick stands validated by the fact that all musicians preserve even a semblance of linearity. The yardstick is also validated by the fact that the “establishment” frowns upon willful and habitual breaches of linearity.
Since I have chosen to deploy a metaphor from the plastic arts to define the Khayal genre, the metaphor itself deserves some discussion.
The plastic arts metaphor
I have discussed the use of the plastic arts metaphor in the context of Hindustani music in a paper titled “Architecture in Modern Hindustani Music” published in Sangeet Natak (Journal of the Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi, Volume XXXVI, November 1, 2001). The paper was reproduced in my book “Hindustani music: a tradition in transition” (Ibid,2005). It will suffice here to reiterate the salient features of the analogy, as it affects the Khayal genre.
Every artifact can be seen to have an architectural facet, a sculptural facet, and an ornamental facet. The architectural facet relates to the structural and functional relationship between the components. The sculptural facet deals with the contours it defines. The ornamental facet concerns itself with features that endear the artifact to the viewer. Stated differently, architecture deals with the manner in which the artifact functions, sculpture with the way it looks, and ornamentation, with the way it pleases.
Metaphors are inadequate but, unfortunately, unavoidable for dealing with the description of artistic endeavour. It is observed that the plastic arts appear to provide the largest number of concepts for dealing with music, which are also most frequently used in conversations and writings on music. If a metaphor is the only way to handle art through language, and if the concepts and terminology of the plastic arts make the most sense to most people, it becomes advisable to systematize the metaphor and deploy it as a conceptual framework for an organized study of music.
The plastic arts metaphor is not only useful for interpreting the different facets of a piece of music, but also for classifying the aesthetic intent of different genres of music, different stylistic legacies in music, and even different vocalists. It is possible, for instance, to describe genres of music as architecture-dominant, or sculpture-dominant, or ornamentation-dominant. Likewise, it is possible to classify individual musicians, or stylistic lineages (gharanas) as being architecture-oriented, sculpture-oriented, or ornamentation-oriented.
Deployment of musical energies
While every major genre is distinguished from others by its architecture, and requires an appropriate management of all the facets, genres differ in terms of the primary deployment of musical energies in performance.
The mediaeval Dhrupad genre requires musical energies to be deployed primarily towards preservation of its architectural integrity. Khayal, on the other hand, demands the sculptural facet of performance to be the primary focus of musical energies. The Thumree (the Bol-banav variety) differs from Dhrupad as well as Khayal by demanding musical energies to be concentrated on the ornamental facets.
Allied to this is the relative importance of the elements that constitute vocal music - poetry, rhythm, and melody. In this respect, the Dhrupad genre accords the highest sanctity to its poetic element, followed by its melodic element. The Khayal genre accords great importance to the melodic element, followed by the rhythmic element. The Thumree genre(the Bol-banav variety) is, once again a poetry dominant genre, though with melody almost competing with poetry for importance.
Manipulation of musical variables
Every genre of vocal music requires the manipulation of three musical variables - poetry, rhythm, and melody, but not in the same manner.
Dhrupad requires the isolated manipulation of melody in the alap, which constitutes the durational bulk of the performance, and is performed generally without percussion accompaniment. There is, indeed, a pulsation/beat involved in the second and third stages of alap rendition, but mere pulsation does not constitute rhythm. In the rendition of the Pada, the relatively shorter part of Dhrupad rendition which is accompanied by percussion, the musician undertakes the simultaneous manipulation of poetry, melody, and rhythm.
Khayal begins with a very short alap (called an Aochar) which is pure melody, and is unaccompanied by percussion. Thereafter, Khayal rendition is accompanied by percussion throughout. From the beginning of the Bada/Vilambit Khayal, to the end of the Chhota/Drut Khayal, the Khayal genre requires the simultaneous manipulation of poetic, melodic, and rhythmic variables.
The Thumree genre (the Bol-banav variety) demands the simultaneous manipulation of poetic and melodic variables, with only negligible manipulation - if at all - of the rhythmic variable.
Demeanour
In his book, “The Great Masters” (Harper Collins, New Delhi, 1999), Mohan Nadkarni refers to recent deviations from the “Formal aloofness” of the Khayal genre. Since “aloofness” belongs to the territory of demeanour, it presumably refers to the sculptural and ornamentational predilections as practiced in the Khayal genre. The implication that the Khayal could be defined by its demeanour in addition to its architecture (Formalism), deserves discussion in the context of attempts by some scholars, notably Prof. Peter Manuel of the City University of New York, to relate the rise and decline of genres in Hindustani music to socio-economic processes.
The mediaeval Dhrupad genre, which achieved its highest stature and excellence between the 15th and 18th centuries, has been interpreted as reflecting the authority and majesty of the Mughal Empire at its zenith. The ascendancy of the modern Khayal, as well as the Thumree (both varieties), is synchronous with the decline of feudalism and the rise of bourgeois capitalism, which sought more effective vehicles for sentimental musical ideas. Manuel equates Dhrupad with the feudal values of heroism and the Khayal and Thumree with the relaxed mores of bourgeois society.
If the Khayal and the Thumree are products of the same socio-cultural process, it should not surprise us if the two genres, interacting as contemporaries, create - at some stage of socio-cultural evolution - a blurring of the distinctions between them. Glimpses of this tendency were observed early in the 20th century. In recent years, however, it has taken the shape of a significant movement. By the last quarter of the century, there has emerged an influential romanticist movement spearheaded by Kumar Gandharva, Jasraj, and Kishori Amonkar. These luminaries have shed the “aloofness” characteristic of the Khayal genre, and admitted sculpture and ornamentation practices hitherto considered appropriate to the Thumree and other semi-classical genres.
Although this movement is, in parts, also revolting against “formalism”, it is primarily a revolt against “aloofness”. The breach of formalism (architectural values) has not attained any degree of acceptability within the music “establishment”. But, the breach of “aloofness” has been fully accepted. Romanticism is now on the march, virtually threatening the very survival of classicism.
On these considerations, it appears more than reasonable to exclude issues of demeanour from a definition of the Khayal genre, and restrict the definition to architectural linearity. But if, and when, the “establishment” is forced to reckon with the post-structuralist/ post-modernist revolt against architecture, the present definition of the genre will require a review.
(c) Deepak S. Raja 2007
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Friday, September 28, 2007
Purnima Sen - “I could easily have become a knowledgeable musician nobody wanted to hear”
Purnima Sen spoke to Deepak Raja on January 6, 2003.
My father was an Economist, and headed the Economics faculty at the Baroda University from 1939 to 1944. That was towards the end of Ustad Faiyyaz Khan’s life. During that period, he heard the great Ustad on several occasions, and no wonder, developed a love for the Agra style. From my childhood, I was very keen on learning music, and my parents were most encouraging. But, when I was very young, my family moved to New York. During our stay abroad, my father made it a point -- whenever we came to India - to send me to a music teacher to learn music. When I graduated from Hunter College, New York, I had scholarships to study further. But, instead, I decided to return to India with my parents and study music. That was 1957, and I was 19 then.
My father took me to Ustad Vilayat Hussain Khan, and requested him to teach me. The Ustad was a towering figure in the music world. He was the seniormost vocalist of the Agra gharana, and an adviser to All India Radio. He could boast of a galaxy of distinguished disciples. Teaching a near-beginner could not have been an easy proposition for him. But, my father persisted. Khansaheb auditioned me, and despite his reservations, agreed to teach. My father wanted the best available teacher, but also had apprehensions about the suitability of the masculine Agra style for me. Though the issue was not immediate - I knew so little then! -- Khansaheb was sensitive to it. He assured my father that I would learn to sing like myself, and not like him. Thus, I became a Ganda-bandh shagird (a ceremonially initiated disciple) of Ustad Vilayat Hussain Khan.
He was very enthusiastic about teaching me. One day he landed up at our house, without notice, at three in the afternoon, and asked me to sing Multani. I was stumped by the suddenness of this test. But, I sang. He was very pleased, and asked me what I would like to learn next. This was an unusual situation. A disciple dare not suggest what should be taught next; the Ustad always knows best what to teach at each stage of progress. I had just heard Kesarbai Kerkar’s Lalit recording at that time, and loved it. I wanted to learn the raga. So, very hesitantly, I suggested Lalit. He hummed and hawed for a while, and said: “Lalit is very complicated. But, you can manage”. So, he taught me Lalit. Thereafter, he also taught me Desh and Basant. I learnt six ragas with him in about 18 months, before I got married, and moved to Calcutta in 1958. I did not realize how much he had taught me in so short a time. But, by the time I moved, I could perform a raga passably for 30 to 45 minutes.
Vilayat Hussain gave me a letter of recommendation to his cousin, Ata Hussain Khan, who lived in Calcutta. Ata Hussain was reserved initially - I was only 21 then. After auditioning me, he accepted me as a disciple. On the very first day, he took up Desi Todi - a raga I did not know - and asked me to follow him - to merely reproduce what he sang. He unleashed his sparkling tans, which left me stunned. He said: “Never mind; try whatever you can manage”. He was testing my grasping power. By the fourth session, I could reproduce his tans. Thereafter, my training settled down to an even keel. He was a very good teacher, who never lost his temper. He taught me most of the ragas I know. I studied with him for twenty years - from 1960 to 1980.
While Ata Hussain Khan was teaching me, his nephew (and Vilayat Hussain’s son-in-law), Sharafat Hussain started accompanying him to our house, whenever he visited Calcutta. On those occasions, Ata Hussain would ask Sharafat to teach me. Gradually, Ata Hussain encouraged Sharafat to initiate me into the more advanced aspects of Agra vocalism as, by now, his own health had started failing. From 1974-75, Sharafat Hussain started staying with us on his visits, and got more intensely involved with my progress. This association continued for almost ten years -- until he succumbed to a cancer. That brought to an end almost 30 years of my apprenticeship with Ustads of Agra-Atrauli gharana.
I have never looked at music as a career. It is as much a part of my life as is my family. I was empanelled with All India Radio in 1976, and am now a top-grade artiste. My concert appearances have been limited largely to Calcutta and Delhi, the two cities where we have homes, with an occasional concert in Bangalore. I have not promoted myself actively. I have made four CDs abroad, and they have happened on their own. I do teach music in Calcutta. This, too, is very limited because I and my husband divide our time between two cities. This can make unreasonable demands on my students.
All my Ustads, starting from Vilayat Hussain, were sensitive to the masculinity of the Agra style. This was important because the forcefulness of vocalization and intonation determines everything else. Ata Hussain, who taught me for the longest period, accepted that just as a woman speaks differently, and walks differently, she would also sing differently. If she did otherwise, she would sound ridiculous. So, they allowed me to interpret Agra vocalism in a way that suited my voice and personality. The issue became more pronounced in the tans department where the typical four-stroke tans of Agra-Atrauli style exposed me to the risk of harsher expressions. Sharafat Hussain worked very hard with me on this, and made it possible for me to sing them without sounding unmusical.
The same was true of Dhrupad-Dhamar. According to the convention in the Agra gharana, the Nom-tom alap and Dhrupad-Dhamar compositions were an essential part of my training. But, I was instructed not to perform them because they were too aggressive for me. I was fortunate in having this sensitivity amongst my Ustads. Without it, I could easily have become a knowledgeable musician, whom nobody wanted to hear.
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Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Benares: Culture? Yes. Gharana of vocalism? Doubtful.
The semi-classical genres of Hindustani music, the Thumree being the principal amongst them, evolved in late 18th century Lucknow followed thereafter by Benares. In the early stages, the Thumree accompanied Kathak (North Indian classical dance), later to acquire independent status as a vocal art form. The link with Kathak, however, remains strong as ever. As a performing tradition, the Thumree of Benares got associated with several folk-derived genres from the neighbouring districts of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Collectively, these semi-classical genres represent an attempt by classical musicians to raise folk genres to a level of sophistication worthy of genteel society. The resultant musical forms retain a reference point in art-music through raga-s, compositional formats, and tala-s. However, they lack the architectural imperatives characteristic of the classicist genres.
Prof. Peter Manuel of the City University of New York, an authority on the Thumree, regards them as a romanticist reaction to the feudal values, triggered off by the rise of bourgeois capitalism. Though Lucknow withered as a centre of the semi-classical genres in the 19th century, Benares remained vibrant until the early years of the 20th century. By the time India gained independence, the way of life, which supported these genres, faded into history, taking the music with it.
Vocalists, instrumentalists, and even Kathak dancers are known to claim membership of the “Benares gharana”. The term “gharana” is, however, inappropriate in this context. The so-called Benares gharana is an entire culture that revolved around the salons of the courtesans supported by the aristocracy of the region during the 18th and 19th centuries. Its performing arts were Kathak dance, and the semi-classical genres of vocal music. Its accompaniment arts were those of the Sarangi and the Tabla. These were supported by a group of composers, choreographers, and teachers. The culture of the salons required all performers to study dance as well as music, irrespective of their profession. Teachers, choreographers and composers also cultivated a similar versatility.
The offerings of the courtesans had to be responsive to the profiles of a diverse clientele. Heredity, though a factor, played only a small part in populating the courtesan districts. The courtesans, enlisted for their talent as well as personality, came from different backgrounds, and brought with them their respective folk traditions and stylistic orientations. Each salon had teachers affiliated to it to groom the recruits into polished performers. They were first trained in Khayal vocalism as the foundation and then taught semi-classical genres - Thumree, Tappa, and Dadra - and the folk-derived genres such as Hori, Chaiti, Kajri, Jhoola, Savan etc. The diversity of the repertoire required them to study with a multiplicity of teachers who, in turn, came from different cultural backgrounds, and could be vocalists, Kathak dancers or even Sarangi players.
Neither the grooming of courtesans, nor the nature of their relationship with their clients, could have permitted the crucial ingredient of the gharana concept -- stylistic continuity over several generations of a well-defined lineage of tutelage. The notion of a "gharana" in the music of Benares may be valid for lineages of Tabla exponents, and even Kathak dancers. The semi-classical genres of vocal music, or even Khayal vocalism, however, have evolved primarily as an individualistic art form within a very broad stylistic identity defined by the Kathak-Thumree culture of Benares. This is not to deny the formidable quality of musicianship these art forms have delivered with great consistency over several generations. It is, however, proper that the notion of a "gharana" be approrpiately understood and applied.
(c) Deepak S. Raja, 2004
The finest contemporary recordings of the Benares tradition of vocal and instrumental music have been produced by India Archive Music Ltd., New York. [email protected]
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Friday, September 14, 2007
The Alladiya Khan-Kesarbai legacy: in sepia tones
An extract from:
The Music Room
By Namita Devidayal
Dhondutai is the keeper of all the gharana’s secrets and of their rarest compositions. And yet, after a lifetime of training with the best teachers, Dhondutai found fame and recognition miserly towards her. Namita begins to learn singing from Dhondutai, at first reluctantly and then, as the years pass, with growing passion. Dhondutai sees in her a second Kesar, but does Namita have the dedication to give herself up completely to the discipline, like her teacher?
The Music Room is the story of Namita and her teacher, of the charismatic Alladiya Khan who was unable to pass on all his skill and knowledge to his sons, and of the foul-mouthed and bewitching Kesarbai. At its heart is Dhondutai, a character half tragic, half victorious; diffident yet full of single-minded determination. The Music Room is beautifully written, full of anecdotes, gossip and legend.
Namita Devidayal was born in 1968. She graduated from Princeton University and is a journalist with The Times of India. She lives in Mumbai. This is her first book.
The Vikramaditya Music Conference (1944)
It was the musical event of the century. There had been nothing like that before and there hasn’t been anything as grand since. For seven days, the air reverberated with music. Afternoon concerts merged into evening sessions, and late night ragas heralded the dawn, while the sun’s first rays would start filtering in through the glass windows along the hall. People reportedly fell sick from sleep deprivation in their eagerness to grab as many performances as they could. The week-long festival took place at the monumental Cowasji Jehangir hall—which has since been resurrected as a modern art gallery.
A vast private home next to Bombay’s opera house—a fifteen minute carriage-ride away from the venue—was converted into a day-and-night mess where food was cooked in gigantic vessels and served all through the day and night for the artistes and their ensembles. Some preferred eating before they performed, some after the show. There was no sense of time as they drifted from performance to rehearsal to performance. A humungous cauldron of steaming tea was perpetually on the fire.
It was at this festival that unknown musicians became overnight stars. A young man from Punjab with a gourdlike stomach and black twirling moustache stole the show with his brilliant renditions of khayal and thumri, and Ghulam Ali Khan became Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, though some suggest that the preface of Bade or ‘big’ may have had more to do with his physical size rather than his musical stature. A young sitar player from Calcutta, Vilayat Khan, shot to fame and went on to become one of the all-time great musicians of the century. A startlingly unassuming tabla player took the audiences by surprise with his virtuosity. He was Ahmadjan Thirakwa. But it was the vocalists who were applauded the most.
The conference was like a snapshot of all that had happened in the music world in the last fifty years. Great artistes performed and then, the following day, put aside their egos and accompanied their gurus on stage. Backstage, the harmony was countered by personality clashes and ego battles. The best known fight was the one that took place between Faiyaz Khan and Omkarnath Thakur, both famous singers, who argued over who would sing last, for the chronology of performances was a reflection of seniority and stature. The best always sang last.The decision of who went before whom had led to legendary quarrels which sometimes lingered on for generations, and was carried on by the artistes’ students.
One musician had left his position as court singer out of fear that the whimsical ruler would make him sing before a lesser musician. In this particular case, Omkarnath finally won—and established his position as arguably one of the finest singers of his generation.
An intriguing couple sat in the front row through most of the performances: an old man with white whiskers, and a pretty girl in her late teens. She wore a traditional nine-yard sari and a blouse with short puffed sleeves. Every one knew who he was—the great Alladiya Khan, but they could not place the girl who sat next to him, attentively listening to the music, her hands neatly folded on her lap. When anyone asked him who she was, he would laugh and say,‘My granddaughter!’ But they knew she couldn’t be. She wore a bindi—the mark of a Hindu. Some would then whisper among themselves, ‘She must be Manji Khan’s daughter. He’s so modern, he is the only one who will let his girl come out in public.’ And if Dhondutai and the big Khansahib heard this, they would just smile at each other.
Dhondutai later told me how Alladiya Khan was able to sneak her into the best seats in the house, which were a thousand rupees each, a princely sum in those days. These front rows of red velvet-lined sofas were reserved for wealthy connoisseurs and maharajas. Many of them bought the tickets because it was the thing to do, but didn’t show up.
Alladiya Khan could get Dhondutai to sit next to him because there were inevitably empty seats all around. ‘Because of his age, he couldn’t sit for long stretches. He would make me sit there, go away, and then come back, and I would report every thing that went on,’ she said. She dutifully sat there, concert after concert. She described who sang and what ragas they sang. There was one musician who was so restless as a stage artiste, that he started his performance on one end of the stage and by the end of it, had shifted to the other end, she recalled with a laugh.
‘There was a singer, Karamat Khan, who was supposedly one hundred and twenty-two years old. I asked the big Khansahib whether he was really more than a hundred years old, and he said, “Yes beta. I don’t know his precise age, but I do know he’s much older than me.’’’ ‘There were very few people Alladiya Khan wanted to spend time with, so he would chat with me a lot. Of course, it was always only about music. He would tell me of the days he tried to become a teacher of Pharsi (Persian) to earn a living right after his father, a reputed singer, died. That was before he joined the family ‘business.’ After that, he started training seriously under his uncle who would tell him, there should be no relationship between an artiste and a clock and taught him from midnight onward. Until you can translate what your mind wants into your voice, you shouldn’t get up from your practice…’
Dhondutai’s voice trembled slightly as she remembered her days as a pretty young thing who had the blessings of the greats. I couldn’t help the thoughts that passed through me. She had it all—the training, the exposure, the life-long commitment. What had gone wrong? Why hadn’t they recognized her as the real heiress of this music? It didn’t make sense, and these questions troubled me for years.
The last to perform at the Vikramaditya Conference, in deference to his stature, was Alladiya Khan. ‘When he started singing, his voice was slightly shaky, and I remember my heart sinking slightly out of concern that he would falter,’ said Dhondutai. He was over ninety years old. Would he be able to sustain an entire concert? A few seconds later, without blinking, he shot off a taan like a lightening bolt. You could almost sense the wave of electricity go through the audience. That was the last time Alladiya Khan sang in public.
© Namita Devidayal
Reproduced from: The Music Room, with the kind permission of the publishers, Random House India.
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Monday, September 10, 2007
Arti Anklikar Tikekar -- “It is the mind that sings, and not the voice”
Arti spoke to Deepak Raja on December 20, 2003
In the last few years, I find that my definition of the beautiful in music is changing. When I look back on my youth - 20 years ago, when I entered the profession - I realize that I had very strong ideas about what is good music. Everything that did not fit this notion did not seem to even qualify as music. I went through several years of believing that Kishori Amonkar’s music was the only music that qualified as music. And, yes, I also studied with her for a few years.
The stages through which I have passed are necessary stages of evolution. The world of music is so vast that it is impossible to enter it - in the early stages -- without wearing the blinkers of the gharana-s or models. It is only when we have absorbed one model well that we can start looking for our musical selves in a larger universe of musical ideas. The search for our musical selves is also a natural stage of evolution in life. At some stage, the reliance on borrowed ideas induces a feeling of hollowness within us. We feel the need to immerse ourselves so totally in our music, that we lose consciousness of our selves. This is a difficult stage for audiences to handle.
I am not belittling the tricky aspects of the transition in terms of audience expectations and their fulfilment. Yes, there is some dissonance amongst some sections of the audience. Yes, my audience profile seems to be changing without any shrinkage of numbers. I am probably no longer making too much sense to the younger crowd, but drawing the more mature audiences. But, I now have to be honest to myself, sing with conviction and total involvement, and let the audience factor recede from my consciousness.
For helping me along in this direction, I am indebted to my current guru, Dinkar Kaikini. It is not easy to guide a musician at my stage of evolution. I have been around, and fairly busy for 20 years now. By objective standards, I have no compelling reason to undertake a major overhaul of my music. But, what I do have is the inner urge - a spiritual urge, if you like - to grow as a musician, and through my music, as a human being. At this stage, my Guru’s inputs are no longer a matter of imparting knowledge of raga-s, or bandish-es or techniques of melodic execution. These are incidental.
Kaikiniji has made me realize that it is the mind that sings and not the voice. He has begun to untangle the cobwebs in my mind so that I might discover my musical self. He has made me sense the emotional charge inherent in every swara, and demonstrated to me the means of expressing it. He has helped free my mind from the reference points that had orientated my music so far. He has set me off on the path of self-discovery. I cannot say that I have got there. But, knowing where you have to go, and being on the path is a good beginning. At least I have a good chance of getting there if I persevere. If the audiences accept the results of this journey, well and good! If they don’t, I have to be prepared for the consequences.
© Deepak S. Raja. 2003
The finest recordings of Arti Anklikar-Tikekar have been produced by India Archive Music Ltd., New York. [email protected]
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Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Raga Basant Mukhari - A Carnatic raga seeking a Hindustani identity
The import of Vakulabharanam from the Carnatic tradition was, in fact, more like a second coming for this melodic entity. The first is a mature raga called Hijaz, apparently a melody of Persian origin, documented by VN Bhatkhande in the 1930s. We do not know how long ago it was that Hijaz entered Hindustani music.
The basic grammar of Basant Mukhari is near identical to Hijaz . Even their "Chalan" [skeletal phraseology], as documented by authorities, differs only in minor detail. Unless the musician himself tells you whether he was taught Hijaz or Basant Mukhari, you really have no indication about its possible source. There are very few musicians today who have been taught Hijaz. Hijaz was almost extinct when, in the mid-1950's, Basant Mukhari gained currency. What is heard most commonly today is Basant Mukhari, the Hindustani (North Indian) adaptation of the Carnatic Raga (Bhairav ke Prakar: Jaisukhlal Shah: 1991)
Although Ratanjankar, a great scholar and a disciple of Bhatkhande, certainly knew the Hijaz connection, he gave it a new name -- Basant Mukhari. This nomenclature suggests a melodic affinity to the raga Basant, or Shuddha Basant/ Adi Basant or Malti Basant, the other ragas with similar names. None of these suggestions has much support in the melodic personality of the raga.
The tonal structure of Basant Mukhari comes into being by replacing the Shuddha (Natural) Ni swara of Raga Bhairav with a Komal (flat) Ni. Another way of looking at the same scale is that it replaces the Komal (flat) Ga swara of Raga Bhairavi with a Shuddha (Natural) Ga.
Because of the lower tetrachord dominance of Bhairav, and the mid-octave region dominance of Bhairavi, the Bhairav character tends to dominate Basant Mukhari, thus qualifying it as a variety of Bhairav. A common departure from the Bhairav dominant character of this Raga is a tilt towards Raga Jogia, also a member of the Bhairav family. Some musicians try to emphasise the Bhairavi facet of Basant Mukhari by focusing more of their melodic development in the upper tetrachord.
Survey of recordings
The recent and contemporary practice of Basant Mukhari suggests frequent, and qualitatively divergent, departures from the Raga's description in the authoritative texts.
Vocalist, Ustad Ameer Khan (Bada Khayal.1969) treats Basant Mukhari squarely as a variety of Bhairav, virtually ignoring the Bhairavi facet in the upper tetrachord. He appears to adopt an Ahir Bhairav bias in the treatment of the raga in the lower tetrachord, and allows Malkauns to influence his treatment of the upper tetrachord, thus imparting an almost melancholy quality to the Raga.
Pt. Ravi Shankar has been performing Basant Mukhari since the late 1950's, and has consistently favoured the Bhairav oriented approach to this Raga. In a recent recording, his interpretation (BRI,1991) is predominantly Ahir Bhairav oriented, with a touch of Jogia. The Raga form is well integrated, with no overt effort at isolating the Bhairavi facet of the Raga for special attention.
Basant Mukhari is also a long-time favourite with Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. In his most recent recording (Chhanda Dhara: SNCD:3386), the Ustad has presented this Raga explicitly as a Jogia variant. Because of the strong Jogia orientation of the recording, the Bhairavi facet is almost missing. The sombre quality of the Bhairav facet is replaced by the "Viraha rasa" character of Jogia.
In one of his published concerts, Pt. Hari Prasad Chaurasiya (EMI: STC: 851041) has opted for a treatment which is more light than classical, ignoring the explicit influence of both, Bhairav, and Bhairavi. One can see shades of Raga Jogia and Raga Jaunpuri/Asavari in the phrasing. But, the kaleidoscopic melodic patterns woven around the basic theme, which are appropriate for a semi-classical treatment, prevent any of these aural images from stabilising in the listener's mind.
The earliest record of Ustad Vilayat Khan performance of Basant Mukhari is a concert of 1963 (unpublished). The recording reflects a serious, and balanced treatment of the Bhairav and Bhairavi facets of this Raga. However, in a later recording of the same raga for India Archive Music (late 1990's), Ustad Vilayat Khan has allowed the raga to tilt towards its Bhairavi facet, especially in the faster movements.
After recording this raga for India Archive Music in 2001, the sarangi maestro, Ustad Abdul Lateef Khan told me that, in his youth, he was taught this raga as Hijaz Bhairav. But, since nobody today knew the raga by its original name, he decided to announce it as Basant Mukhari whenever he performed it. His rendering of it adopts a serious, Bhairav-biased approach to the raga form. The interpretation makes no attempt at the isolation of the Bhairavi and Bhairav elements in the two tetrachords. Basant Mukhari is presented as an independent raga, and comes through as one of the many cousins of Bhairav.
In its totality, Abdul Lateef’s treatment of the raga is close to that of vocalist Ustad Ameer Khan. Interestingly, Abdul Lateef hailed from Bhopal, and Ameer Khan from culturally contiguous Indore. Is it, then, possible that the musical culture of the Central Provinces had somehow kept the old raga, Hijaz Bhairav alive? This would explain not only the similarity of the two interpretations, but also the aesthetic coherence and maturity of their melodic entities, compared to the divergent interpretations of the Carnatic raga.
It appears that the majority view favours a Bhairav family bias in the treatment, with shades of Jogia and Ahir Bhairav being considered permissible. Within this consensus, however, the handling of this raga in the Hindustani tradition exhibits a wide range -- from the very solemn pure Bhairav orientation to a light-classical treatment going well beyond the melodic liberalism of the contemporary Bhairavi. Since the maturity of the Hijaz Bhairav source has been lost, its reinvention as Basant Mukhari appears still to be in search of a stable Hindustani identity.
Basant Mukhari is not unique in this respect. It is true that some Carnatic ragas, like Kalavati, Hansadhwani and Abhogi, have by now acquired a stable melodic character in Hindustani music. But, there are several others -- such as Vachaspati, Saraswati, Salagvarali, Jansammohini, Kirwani and Charukeshi - which can only be considered at an exploratory stage of adaptation by the Hindustani tradition.
An interesting question arises here. What is the yardstick for determining when, and if, the Hindustani interpretation of a Carnatic raga is “satisfactory”? Is it sufficient for the interpretation to acquire a reasonable stability of melodic grammar in the Hindustani tradition? Or is it also important that Carnatic Vidwans should scrutinise and validate the Hindustani effort? The issue is debatable.
Deepak S. Raja
© India Archive Music Ltd., New York. Producers of the finest recordings of Raga Basant Mukhari. [email protected]
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