Monday, September 07, 2015

yaaradhu sollamal nenjalli povadhu

9 years of Octaves! Despite the overwhelming presence and influence of social media, microblogging, and social music sharing platforms like Soundcloud, good old blogging still feels like home. Shame that I haven't been able to devote much time to it lately, but hope to update this space more regularly in the coming months.

Here's a cover song after a while - the evergreen and lilting yaaradhu sollamal composed by Shankar-Ganesh from the 1983 film Nenjamellam Neeye. The original is by none other than the formidable Vani Jayaram and of course, this doesn't come even close. I'd learnt and recorded this over a decade ago for a few friends, and got reminded of it today when Youtube suggested the video for me. Thankfully I couldn't find my old recording (I don't know if I can bear to revisit it now - it was probably one of my silliest renditions) but decided to put myself through the bitter-sweet experience of attempting it again. Part of me kept wondering if I could do any justice at all to Vaniji's impeccable voice and masterly rendition. Anyway, greed got the better of me and here's the result.



Monday, May 25, 2015

Udayaravichandrika/ Shrotaswini with a Nattai twist

(Dear blog, you've been abandoned for too long now :( Hopefully more posts coming soon.)

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I'd always found an uncanny similarity between Shuddha Dhanyasi and Nattai. The sadharana gandharam in the former, when rendered in certain ways sounded to me like the shatshruthi rishabham of Nattai. Totally unrelatedly (or so I thought), some 10 years ago I discovered this lovely raga called Shrothaswini, thanks to a film song. I learnt that it was Shuddha Dhanyasi, but with kakali nishadham instead of the kaishiki. And then sometime last year I found this absolute gem: www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpUJtEgBS6k Prof SR Janakiraman explains so wonderfully the connection between Shuddha Dhanyasi, Shrotaswini, and Nattai. (And the way he holds the kakali nishadham - "nishcahlam" - is something to die for.) Shrothaswini is even more similar to Nattai than is Shuddha Dhanyasi coz of the former's kakali nishadham! And I also learnt from this video that Shrotaswini is probably just a fancy, new name for an old raga - Dikshitar's own - Udayaravichandrika. (Prof SRJ does not use the name Shrotaswini at all.) Up until this I'd thought that Udayaravichandrika was the same as Shuddha Dhanyasi. I think this is in fact the popular opinion, which Prof SRJ challenges.

Anyway, I was obsessing about this Udayaravichandrika/ Shrothaswini - Nattai connection over the last few days and couldn't help but record this small piece. Hope you like it.