"It is not the grammar to be strictly followed, but a style adopted according to the artiste's personal taste," explained vocalist Dr. S. Sundar at a recent session held by the Music Forum in Chennai.
This Forum meets every month with a different topic to discuss with musicians as well as rasikas.
In the session held in late June, Dr. Sundar set the stage for the instrumentalists with an introduction of different styles in vocal singing.
He played samples of the veteran Ariyakudi's style of giving the concert a shape by beginning it with a varnam, G. N. Balasubramanian's brigha sangeetam and Tanjavur S. Kalyanaraman's innovative raga delineation through the recordings he had on his laptop.
He also showed how a tillana generally sung in a fast pace took a beautiful shape in M. D. Ramanathan's slow pattern of singing a tillana in kapi raga.
Sundar and his disciples - J. B. Shruthi Sagar on the flute and Keerthana on the vocal - presented a kriti popularised by D. K. Jayaraman, guru of Dr. Sundar to show how the style percolates through the generations.
Veena vidushi Kalyani Ganesan's experience
Tracing the origin of veena playing from the days of Veda, Kalyani Ganesan, a senior veena vidushi, brought out the differences between playing the instrument with swara oriented phrases and the presenting the sahitya through the instrument.
She said that whatever the style that is adopted, the ultimate aim of presenting the composition is to bring out the feeling of vocal singing through the instrument - she did by presenting the kriti Sobillu saptaswara on the veena.
She talked about how Thanjavur bani, Mysore bani, Trivandrum bani and Karaikudi bani have come to stay with each artiste adopting a style of their own.
Mala Chandrasekhar on 'Sikkil style'
Sikkil Mala Chandrasekhar had brought Devarajan, another flutist, along with her to demonstrate the different patterns of playing the flute.
She explained how much the 'thuthukaram' ( the technique of using the tongue while blowing the air simultaneously) matters to bring out the lyrics in any sahitya.
She said her gurus, mother and aunt - Neela and Kunjumani - had their training mainly through vocal singing, after learning the basics of playing the flute and so their style strictly conforms to playing the song and not the notes.
Also, Mala said that the Sikkil style uses only one flute throughout the concert and does not employ differently-sized flutes for different octaves and this was purely their choice and it is not a rule or law.
After her marriage into the family of the doyen M. S. Subbulakshmi, the effect of bhakthi sangeetham got on to her unconsciously, she said.
"The use of violin in Carnatic music is more recent when compared to veena and flute, which have references in the epics," began Mullaivasal Chandramouli tracing the origin and explaining the components of the instrument through his PowerPoint presentation.
Perhaps a similar instrument by the name 'Ravanastram' brought violin to Carnatic music, which is now an important part of any concert, said Chandramouli.
Referring to his guru V. V. Subramaniam's style of playing the instrument, he showed the audience different types of bowing - swara vil, sahitya vil and taana vil.
Music students also interact
Music Forum in its attempt to encourage youngsters to know the different styles, invited students of music to share their experience of learning from their gurus in their styles.
Anahita Ravindran, who started her initial training from her grandmother and later from musicians Sethalapathy Balasubramanian and Neyveli Santhana Gopalan and is currently training under 'Chitravina' Ravikiran was one such speaker - she presented sample pieces of the different styles of her gurus.
This Forum meets once a month with the aim of promoting and cultivating rasikas with knowledge about the music they listen to.
Dr. S. Sundar, organiser, can be contacted at e-mail : drsunder12@yahoo.com
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