Dear Rasika, The wonderful thing about Ragas in the Indian Classical music system is that they are unique, and each one of them have something that is typically only associated with them, that which is irreplaceable. It is easy to fool an average listener in a little game of "Identify the raga" in a post-dinner Carnatic music party, and chuckle as he identifies a Sri raga as a Madhyamavati or a Pharas as a Mayamalavagowla..but how many of us self-confessed aficionados of this great system really have a fool-proof method of unambiguously identifying, each time, every time, the raga correctly? I doubt very many of us do, and this includes the smug critic or the know-it-all mama-mami duo next door. Lets face it - there are many factors that go into identifying a raga - the musical intelligence of the person who is playing or singing in the specimen recording, the level of sophistication of the music system, the extent of deafness of the listener or the lack of it, peer pressur...
Hi Ms. Mani,
ReplyDeleteWe had fabulous time listening to you - it was a great performance and thank you for the same. Although I wanted to request you to introduce your accompaniments, I had declined due to number of people asking questions and you had the time crunch. This may be the only kutchery this season for me as I have to fly overseas in the weekend. All the best for the rest of the season, please do respond and update your accompaniments from this concert (9th Dec, @10am at Bharathiya Vidhya Bhavan). My special congratulations to the Mridangist, who was magical.
Best Regards
Shiva - Melbourne, Australia.