The thought and inspiration of life without “emotions” is a sheer spiritless. Time and again we make use of terms and language to articulate feelings. We use sugar coated words so wonderfully, nevertheless every now and then we disappoint to convey the accurate feelings. Art being a channel of communicating emotions on the road to accomplishment. The single distinct component that is prevalent amongst all performing arts is their aptitude to articulate the emotions which builds up diversified segments of living. An emotion portrays life as well as the art.
Music with lack of emotions is insensible and an emotion deficient of music is scarce. Navarasayutha krithiche …A illustrious turn of phrase from Thyagaraja’s “Sogasuga mridhanga thalamu” expresses to facilitate the nine emotions “Rasas” remain extremely vital feature of a krithi. We take the privilege of sharing our thoughts and spotlight on the emotive power of music and the science in the wake of emotions.
As per the hypothesis, a vivid philosophy or active brain thesis proves that the laws of idea are symbolic, not logical. This means that the fact would be formed from symbolic analysis and is not a trait of realism. The truth would be an result of feelings of certain situation, not credited to facts, science or religion., For example the tweet of birds, cry of a child….There is no science written from where these emotions or feelings are derived, but they raise from situation. Each time we hear a piece of music, we are actually re-experiencing the emotion which we would have experienced earlier. So, the statement “Music brings out emotions” is wrongly termed. The correct way of stating this is- we reflect emotions on hearing to a piece of music. The first time when an emotion is aroused, it creates a pattern in certain part of the brain and each time a similar emotion is felt, this pattern/template is invoked.
Source Of Emotions
Emotions in music need not be related to phrases and words that make the song. Pure music i.e. music without words can bring emotions. To site a fine case, the tone of a person on the other end of the phone can make us get a feel of his/her mood. Whether it is a face to face converse or a phone chat, gesture and tone build around 90% of what is being expressed. Similarly tone & its quality form a main part of what is being expressed in music. Certainly the brain detects and grasps the gestures engaged in music; gestures here being referred to the aural gestures and not the body language. On identify the gestures, the brain tends to visualize if it were to bring out these gestures, what would its emotional state be? That explains how music creates emotions.
As we reckon on disseminating Carnatic music, latest inclinations have been a fortunate thing. Since the age-old guru-sishya gurukula tutoring, Carnatic music has indeed adapted itself to modern technology. In the present trend, we have various channels like Visual Media, Print media, Digital and Internet media, e-mail, skype, audio and videos recorded in the form of cassettes and CDs and numerous linking the gap between the tutor and Carnatic music aspirants
When we imagine the present times arrangements of Carnatic Katcheris, we sense improper balance. Olden days Carnatic katcheris had a enchanting and classic arrangement wherein, the recital would begin by means of a “varnam” then the main krithi ( core part of the recital ) of the concert would be in the same ragam as that of the varnam. This calibrates the artist in a confined shield and may perhaps be solicitously bound to his collections. The choice of the kritis would be exceptionally gifted, a prathi madyamam ragam followed by a shudda madyamam. Connecting varieties of thalams. Such intellectual diversity would formulate the recital a sensation. We should not label this as a connotation of contemporary drift, nevertheless it’s unquestionably a rationale of not adhering to customary style.
Balancing the main kritis and thukudas is also an art. But in these days concerts, there is a greater emphasis on thukudas. This is an easier trend to win audience. Select a very famous thukda and the crowd would start tapping with the stage; say people choose “kurai ondrum illa” when in Tamil Nadu, “Bhagyadha lakshmi baramma” in Karnataka and something like “Hariharathmajam” in Kerala. These thukudas would please the audience for the moment, but imagine the effect of an expansive RTP and the impact it would leave on the crowd. I would say we are customizing and commercializing music for popularity sake. This would definitely dilute the purity in Carnatic music.
But we would say, the love for music, the analysis of music science…..Exploring music beyond music…….has been deeply imprinted in the young minds. People have developed more awareness for Music. Its just that we need to selectively adopt our trends, but analyze the traditional trends and follow them, for traditional methods would always be based on some reasoning. By our carelessness to traditional trends, we would be digging in a deeper hole and create a greater delta between our future music families and the traditional stalwarts.
Raga Chintamani is a simple book which contains all ragas of Karnatic music listed in alphabetical order. Arohana and Avarohana (Ascend and descend) of each raga is listed, along with any interesting/useful information related to the said raga. After this all tamil movie songs, composed using this particular raga are listed along with their movie name. The collection of tamil movie songs is pretty exhaustive, some 1800+. But I couldn’t make much sense out of it, as my knowledge/interest in tamil movies is near zero, except few whose Hindi versions have been popular. The book also has music related quiz in each page, some introduction to various types of ragas in the beginning and a comprehensive appendix of all tamil movie songs and their ragas at the end, as well as a quick biography of few doyens of Tamil film music.
“If people can recognize the raga of a cine song, they can also appreciate the classical music in the same raga. If they are able to listen to 10 cine songs in Kalyani, they can easily identify many classical songs that are set in Kalyani…” Author writes, explaining the purpose of the book.
Would have been great if someone could bring out a similar book in other languages-Kannada, Telugu etc.Some key information/observations from my side (from this book and in general)
1 Gopala Gopala song of Humse Hain Muqabula (Errani Gorrani Gopala of Kadalan) Kuchi Kuchi Rakamma of Bombay. Roja Jaaneman (Kadhal Rojave) of Roja are all composed in kapi raga
2. Madhyamavathi raga is believed to have powers of washing away your sins attained by singing apaswaras (singing improperly)- If you sing a song of madhyamavati raga at the end of the concert, all your sins will be destroyed. So after irritating your audience for hours and forcing them to stuff cotton into their ears, be sure to sing a song in Madhyamavathi raga.
3. Amritha Varshini raga is believed to be the one that can cause rains. It is not clear which raga can be used to stop rains (and Bihar flood may be)5. Madhyamavathi raga consists of only black reeds of keyboard- Sa ri ma pa ni sa- Sa ni pa ma ri sa.
4. Tu hi re-Tu hi re song of Bombay is composed in Hari Kambhoji. The song- Telephone dun main hasne vaali of Hindustani (Telephone Manipol of Indian in Tamil) looks kind of modern, but sung in good old Anandha Bhairavi
Images from 3rd party websites. Also visit Author’s Blog