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With reference to Gowri Ramnarayan’s review of the concert “Colour of Rain” (“The colours of emotion,” MetroPlus, November 13), vocalist T. M. Krishna writes: “What caught my eye was the first paragraph and I quote
: ‘For some decades now, Carnatic music has not emphasised the quality of the voice. A myth has grown to ‘explain’ this neglect as a virtue!’ ‘A good voice is necessary in Hindustani music, but vidwat is enough for Carnatic. An M.S. Subbulakshmi is deemed an exception.’
“I take great exception to these statements. If anything is a myth here, it is what has been written by Gowri Ramnarayan. General usages such as ‘good voice’, ‘quality of voice’ make no sense; as all of us have our own interpretations of the same. A good voice or quality of voice for a specific genre of music is defined by its intrinsic attributes and how this is groomed and primed to be able to produce that music with all its nuances. Of course, being in sruti (pitch) is a basic necessity. A clean and smooth voice is not necessarily a great voice. A little crack in the timbre or some huskiness adds a dimension to the voice.
“Every leading Carnatic musician puts in unbelievable effort into both their music and their voice. Did not Vidwan K.V.Narayanaswamy have a good quality voice? What about Vidwan Madurai Mani Iyer? His voice production might have been different but his voice was of the quality that was required in our music. Unbelievable sruthi shudham! Did not Vidwan G.N.Balasubramaniam have a great voice? In his later years, he may have had problems but that does not take away from the quality of his voice. Unless he had great vocalisation he never could have produced those breathtaking phrases. Does not Vidwan T.V.Sankaranarayanan have an amazing voice? What about Vidwan Seshachary? These names are only examples and for want of space I stop here. We may have our own preferences about what a good voice is depending on our sense of aesthetics but we need to be very careful when we make generalisations.
“Even in Hindustani music there are voices like that of Ustad Aamir Khan, which was not a great voice in the normal sense, but was superb for the music he produced and hence in my mind a great voice.
“When musicians said that ‘vidwat was enough” we need to understand that it meant that quality of the music is the essential. This does not mean that the voice is to be neglected. This was a way of warning people from getting carried away by just pleasing melodious voices and to look for musical depth. This is how it should be interpreted.
“Yes, we can find people not using their voices in the proper manner in Carnatic music but this is there in every form of music. But this cannot lead to a blanket statement. This myth about Carnatic music has gone on and on for just too long and I think it’s time we stopped it.”
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