Music matters
Numbers game
It is interesting to know how many concerts some well-known musicians have during the season. While most are careful not to accept too many due to the physical and mental stress they could cause, others are forced to do so on public demand.
T.N. Seshagopalan has 24, while Sudha Raghunathan runs close with 22. Bombay Sisters have 15, and in the 20 bracket come Neyveli Santhanagopalan, T.M. Krishna and Sanjay Subramaniam. Aruna Sairam, Priya Sisters, Unnikrishnan and Kadri Gopalnath have accepted 14. Bombay Jayashree has eight and Abhishek Raghuram and Keyboard Satyanarayanan have 12 each.
Shopping spree
It is the time of the year that musical instruments are most sought after. Rain or shine, nothing seems to be a deterrent for hundreds who walk into Sapthaswara Musicals and Sruthilaya in Mylapore.
Mr. Natwarlal of Saptaswara and Lakshmana Goswami of Sruthilaya agree that the electronic sruthi box and tambura have the maximum sales during the season. NRIs flock to these stores for veena, violin, mridangam and tabla too.
While cymbals for bhajans (talams) are also in demand during Margazhi, Christmas has people asking for western drums. Saptaswara has also recently introduced the digital guitar from Suzuki, Japan.
Truncated
During swaraprastharams, the linking line of the song (eduppu) gets so truncated these days that it eventually becomes a meaningless monosyllable.
Here are some examples: "Syamale Sahodhari" curtailed to `Sya,' "Telisirama Chinthanatho" shortened to `Teli,' "Bagayanayya" chopped to `Ba' and "Orajoopu" pathetically pruned to `Ora.'
Solution
The uninitiated want musicians to announce the details of the songs before they start singing. How do we learn otherwise, they ask. And hunting through the raga reckoner when the musician is in full flow is painful.
On the other hand, the connoisseur would rather enjoy some suspense. After all, there is a thrill in trying to figure out the song and the raga.
Nirmala Rajasekar, playing veena for the Nungambakkam Cultural Academy, did something sensible.
At the end of the recital, she quickly went through the items, song-raga-tala et al. It didn't take more than two minutes and everyone was happy.
(Contributed by Ranjani Govind and S. Sivakumar)
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