The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Two-day music seminar

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jan 17, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Two-day music seminar

What makes a genre of music popular? Or even within a genre, what makes certain artistes' music more popular than that of others? These were questions asked at the international seminar organised by the Indian Music Department of Madras University.

Inaugurated on Wednesday, the two-day seminar was at aimed at exploring the `popularity' element in music. The inaugural session featured lectures on topics such as what determined popularity in the contemporary concert scenario, contribution of popular musicians of yesteryears and popular appeal in devotional music.

Samudra editor Radha Bhaskar, who spoke on contemporary concerts, said the crowd an artiste managed to pull and the gate collection determined an artiste's success in today's context. Historian V. Sriram gave an interesting account of stalwarts of yesteryears, including Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar who introduced the `kutcheri pattern' currently adhered to. Vocalist Rajkumar Bharati elaborated on `What makes devotional music popular'. Simplicity of the tune, repetitive nature and encouraging lyrics were often reasons for certain devotional numbers having greater appeal. In addition to these, the unique nature of the artiste's voice, as in the case of M.S. Subbulakshmi, added more power to compositions, he noted.

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