Retaining the roots amidst globalisation
GOWRI RAMNARAYAN
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Participants at The Hindu Friday Review Music Conference brought the strength of experience combined with distinct individual perspective.
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WITH A COMMON PERSPECTIVE: Musicians at the conference Photo: K. Pichumani.
The hall was packed with musicians, musicologists and music lovers who had braved the rains to attend the music conference organised by The Hindu as part of its Friday Review November Music Fest, at the Taj Connemara.
"Is Indian Music going Global? Challenges and Opportunities" was the theme of the morning, examined by participants who brought the strength of their own experience and distinct individual perspective to examine the issues under discussion. Every point was anchored to personal experience.
Mr. N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief, The Hindu, welcomed the gathering and outlined the subject under discussion. As performing artistes each panellist brought a pragmatic approach to evaluate his or her own place and practice in a rapidly changing world.
Sriram Parasuram, Sudha Ragunathan, Aruna Sairam, T. M. Krishna, Karaikkudi Subramanian, Shubha Mudgal and Fazal Qureshi represented a wide range of genres from Carnatic and Hindustani to Indipop, jazz, film and fusion. Christian Paulin and Dallas Smith of the fusion band Mynta added western perspectives.
Everyone spoke straight from the heart, but also in a reflective vein. They knew that reaching out was impossible without delving deep within. The conference focussed not only on the performing traditions, but also stressed the importance of nurturing the teaching traditions. These are the roots that strengthen the artiste to seize the opportunities, and meet the challenges of our times.
Sriram Parasuram
Music making is one of the most democratic rights of human beings. But for serious musicians, musicologists and teachers it is so valuable an element in their lives to be anything but personal and intimate. The premise of every Indian classical musician is based on the opportunity to do sadhana.
No great system of art comes as a capsule but along with a cultural background in which values are embedded. Therefore the basis of my musical development and personality is the overpowering need to keep learning. Going deeper into what you have already learnt is another kind of learning. This learning has to be substantial, it has to make me grow as a musician in terms of content, ideas, technique and expression. This pursuit is the subconscious reaching out for that elusive meaning of music, its soul.
When I attempt a crossover from my basic classical training, there is a need for me to understand and assimilate the musical framework and cultural context of that new field - film, jazz, fusion or jugalbandi. I must also maintain the structure, tone and aesthetic identities of the two systems, celebrate the musical identities they represent.
There is a common misconception that tradition is old and unchanging. But we know that Indian classical music has been sustained only by new ideas. The spirit of lifelong sadhana in the great musicians inspires me.
Aruna Sairam
Several years ago, I noticed a musician coming to many of my concerts in France. He was a pioneer in reviving medieval liturgical chants of the 12th to the 16th centuries. Like Indian music, this was linked to religion, and followed a single melody in each song.
I said here is a possible meeting place. When he said why don't we do a concert together and I jumped at the chance. We worked for 10 days before arriving at a repertoire.
In real life we always try to find some common ground to share a moment despite our differences. This is what Dominique Vellard and I tried to do. Medieval music did not have percussion.
Besides, we performed in old abbeys and churches where sound is multiplied nine times. Percussion would have been disastrous. Luckily, mine is a low female voice and his a high masculine tenor, so we could opt for F or F sharp.
We have now taken this experiment forward with an Algerian and a Moroccan singer. Four voices and a tambura for four hours! Each voice says something different. That is the beauty of vocal music. It is all about the soul and human expression. Every human being needs love, needs to love, and to be happy.
With music, we can converse with anybody in any part of the world. The music takes over and looks after itself. I used to think that I had to sing something simple for foreign audiences, usually pentatonic scales. It was my uneducated opinion.
But once I sang Todi in France. A listener told me, ``What you did today was the best I've heard from you. Because when you sang Todi it is not you who sings, it is your ancestors. They have developed this raga.''
Shubha Mudgal
Music is already global and universal in expression. But today the term global has certain economic and political connotations. The big challenge globalisation puts forward in the face of Indian music is the question of diversity. We can't isolate ourselves from other influences. Frankly, the only form of Indian music anywhere near global is Bollywood and indipop music. So the opportunities we are talking about are rare and come only to a few.
And can we share classical Indian music in the way we share film music? The length of our tracks itself makes it impossible. Can we say that the web and net can replace the guru-sishya parampara? No. Modern methods of communication can only aid, complement, not replace it. The process of sharing the music is governed by recording and event management companies. They decide this is what people like. To become contemporary a classical musician is told to remove tabla and tanpura and add drums and synthesisers. What are we saying? That the tabla and mridangam are antiquated? It is atrocious that people who govern the sharing of music are deciding the kind of music that is going to be played. They call press conferences, decide how to label it, what to call fusion. Fusion has always existed in India. When I sing thumri I'm borrowing from folk music. Qawwali has influenced the khayal.
To acknowledge the ethical source and ownership of what we use is not easy. When I record raag Yaman how can I give copyright to what I don't own? At best you can take rights for the particular sound track. Too much is demanded of the Indian musician. We are supposed to become agents, publishers, and record labels on our own. It is essential for us to have the parameters, rules, and systems to respect the diversity of Indian tradition and thereby share it with everyone.
N.Ram
I am greatly interested in this fascinating process — the tension between modernity and tradition, and also the tensions and apparent contradictions that underlie any attempt to interact across boundaries. You always find elements of modernity in tradition and vice-versa. The persistence of traditional features within modernisation meets the needs of the human condition.
In the field of music we have the wonderful contributions made by Ariyakkudi Ramanuja Iyengar to the modernisation of the concert form. Our genius of song, M. S. Subbulakshmi, did that magnificently, but also reaching out to the wider world, interacting with all that is diverse out there. They were very modern in their attempt to reach out and cross boundaries and barriers but always preserving this idea of purity in both content and form. On the world stage you have the magnificent contributions of Pt. Ravi Shankar. Indian music, it is clear, has always drawn influences from music in other parts of the world. In the past this was a slow process of exposure and assimilation. One realised that tradition had accommodated itself to change only after the change occurred almost unnoticed. Hence the surprise when you talk about the Trinity being so modern in their assimilation and absorption of what they thought was best. In the global village of today such transformations happen at accelerated speed. They become noticeable and give rise to speculation, and highly polarised debates (among) people who disapprove, people who even get depressed when they hear some of these experimental forms of music. Whether you succeed or fail is almost immaterial. The attempt is everything.
The Hindu wants to be true to this process of discovering modernity in tradition, and also celebrating diversity, attempting to find some unity and coherence in the midst of this unparalleled diversity. We want to be a partner in the evolution of this cultural process in our own times.
Karaikkudi Subramanian
My rigorous training in the basics from my grandfather Karaikkudi Sambasiva Iyer and sister Rajeswari, made me think about learning music along with the making of it. S. Balachander interested me with his ability to learn by himself, and his invention of pulling the veena strings to get gamakas. He once presented me with the volumes of compositions notated by Ranga Ramanuja Iyengar with the inscription ``Beware! Don't follow this notation unless you want to go mad.''
My mentor T. Viswanathan taught his own family tradition of the exacting Dhanammal School at Wesleyan University. He had resolved the confusions of Ranga Ramanuja Iyengar by giving descriptive details for every prescriptive note. I am a performing artiste but I decided to dedicate my life to teaching.
At Wesleyan University I had students taking a semester's course in the veena. So I made each student specialise in one area with an acceptable level of proficiency. To do this I developed the Emotional Graphic Representation (EGR), experimenting in various ways of universalising gamaka details for the global dissemination of Carnatic music, and to notate any type of mellismatic music folk, film or Carnatic. This swarasthana notation is usable on a computer keyboard. With it, students Indian and non-Indian, can discover for themselves the various gamaka movements in different stylistic contexts. Once the understanding is complete they no longer need the EGR.
Sudha Ragunathan
Is Carnatic music accessible to people beyond those who belong to its cultural milieu? Yes and no. Centuries of growth have given it given it depth, gravity, intricacy, complexity, grandeur and majesty. I think this scares a few people. They ask — why do you confine yourself to elite circles? Why can't you reach out to the masses?
The answer is subject to what can we do about the art form itself. It is so serious, scientific, raga-laya and compositions-based that we artistes are nervous that we may stray too far in simplifying it. As long as we stick to roots and are clear about authenticity, our experiments cannot go wrong. This may sound controversial but if we have to reach out to many in the world, especially non-Indians, we must step out of this small boundary.
Of course the renaissance must be created within the boundaries of tradition. The intellectual elements that loom larger than life in Carnatic music are stumbling blocks for the masses who want to get into this circle of listening.
How can we take a step forward to simplify this while retaining our roots with conviction? We have to be pure in our presentation, voice culture, adherence to sruti, taut in rhythm, lucid in expression. Melody and emotional content must reign supreme. Then Carnatic music will sound less cerebral. It will become more accessible than what it is today.
T. M. Krishna
Indian classical music is now totally different from what it was a hundred years ago. Its roots are not static. Todi, a most traditional raga, came into Carnatic music as a desya raga from the north. But the changes and developments in Todi have taken place on the basis of some constants that are still present in today's Todi.
I find a basic difference in the concept of innovation today.
People believe that if you are a classical musician your hands are tied. If you want to do something different you have to go out of the system. The urge and craze to perform has completely taken over the urge to learn. With the unprecedented pressures of performance and tours we think we must do something different, not be boring, give what the audience wants. But who gave it to them first? We did! As a musician you are the one who decides your brand equity. When we shirk that responsibility we lose our roots, and our audiences have no sense of those roots either. Many think that classical music must be made light for foreign audiences. A colonial hangover. This is loss of identity and disservice to your musical form.
There are wonderful cases of collaborative work with other genres. Is this really happening overall? No. Yes,
there are ways of doing something genuinely new. You can handshake with other systems if you have an understanding of the core values of your own. To be brutally honest, most of these things are all about money. I have no qualms about it if you admit it. Don't tell me that you are projecting classical music to the world representing Carnatic music and doing what pastmasters could not do.
I will finish with this. When a plant grows into a tree the roots get stronger, larger and deeper. Otherwise the tree will fall.
Fazal Qureshi
Indian classical music needs no introduction to the West. It has been performed for a long time by Pt. Ravi Shankar and my father (Alla Rakha) and others following.
But fusion... How do you go about it? For me it is like having a conversation. With my team members in Mynta I don't speak Swedish, they don't speak Hindi. We talk in English.
On the stage we do exactly the same thing. We convey ideas to each other, know each other's point of view.
Fusion is a long process of performance and understanding on the same wavelength.
``Shakti'' did this with my brother (Zakir Hussain), John McLaughlin, and Vikku Vinayakram.
They interacted for two years before going on stage. Genuine fusion is not just go there, you play your stuff, I do mine, we jam at the end.
When L. Shankar was playing for Shakti he knew what John McLaughlin was going to say and vice versa. Now McLaughlin wants to sit on the floor and play with L. Shankar.
Much has been done in the name of fusion which is debatable. But Shakti remains the best example for mutual understanding in fusion music.
When I play a taal vadya cutcheri with Vikkuji, I must know what I am supposed to do, I must understand what that great musician is doing. This is also fusion music.
Fusion has spread Indian music across the world. When Ravi-ji collaborated with the Beatles, they got an idea of what Indian music is all about.
When I play in remote parts of Sweden where it is six months day and six months night, they see the tabla, hear Shankar Mahadevan, they talk to us and want to know more. When I play with Turkish musicians, we create a lot of interest for Indian music in Turkey.
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