Concert in Chennai

I recently sang a short concert for the very first time during the Chennai Margazhi music season. It was for the organization Hamsadhwani and part of the NRI music and dance festival. Here's a recording of the concert:

Live concert at Bhairavi, Pondicherry

About a month ago, thanks to my father-in-law I sang a live concert at Bhairavi Carnatic Music Sabha in Pondichery. As always I was extremely nervous given that I don't do live concerts very frequently. While I think overall it turned out okay, there's a long list of things I'd do differently if I were to do it again, from the small fixes to the more long term changes: start the varnam at a slightly higher pace; practice a whole lot more so voice and shruthi remain stable throughout; try to reach a state where I can be more relaxed and enjoy the process more and be less tense. Anyway, here it is for you to appraise:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLywv8st08uvQyagIT8NOQ4DP2wxSTVjcr

Concert for Nada Vipanchi

I recently sang a concert for Nada Vipanchi in Raleigh, NC, thanks to my cousins Ashok and Godha. As always, I was extremely nervous before the concert. And as always there's a million flaws, but overall, I think it went fine. I particularly enjoyed singing a pallavi in Bahudari, for which I'd taken the first line from my mom's lyrics for the varnam I had composed eons ago.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6XG7q4FaVQFMtq9X-nUS6_Qef7HGDO-x

Another concert

With my Guru's blessings I performed a concert in her presence in Coimbatore last Sunday. It was doubly special since my parents were also in attendance. Once again, there's a ton I need to work on - most of all, confidence which was especially low after the last experience. But this time it was definitely a lot better - I think it was at least partial redemption. Here's a song I performed there:



Violin: Smt. Brinda Raghunath
Mridangam: Sri Kovai Raghunath

Miles to go...

Post concert reflections

This weekend I performed a Carnatic concert after a very long time - 4.5 years to be precise. Let me get straight to the point of this post. It was a fiasco in my opinion: I'm still reeling from the disappointment and had to vent. I've always been a reluctant performer. Especially lately, I've struggled with my identity as a singer - I identify myself much more easily as a rasika/ connoisseur, and theorist (and more recently, a teacher). Performing is something I've always had to push myself to do - there isn't much of a natural drive. But you know, having a good voice and having trained ever since I can remember, the right thing to do is to sing more, right? Immanuel Kant also contributed to my guilt: according to him it's immoral to not put one's talent to use/ practice. So while singing and performing don't give me the high that listening to, discussing and analyzing music does, I've tried to do it off and on. Sometimes it does make me feel very good, no doubt - but that doesn't happen as frequently as one might hope. Not that my earlier performances were great - I've never been happy after performing a concert - but this time it was nothing like before. I don't know what happened - I was simply not in the right headspace. I faltered big when singing kalpana swaras in one of the pieces in the middle of the concert and from there on it was only downhill. I've been pretty withdrawn and angry and disappointed in myself. I've been going through many phases. First I decided that I should stop performing and stick to what I know best: writing about music (and doing the little teaching that I do). Then I thought I need to perform at least once more to undo the damage, at least for myself. I'm back to shutting down now though. I'm pretty bad at coping with failure. But then again, when I think back, I feel this was bound to happen: what else can I expect after lack of practice (partly because of a very busy work schedule lately, and partly because of a personal lack of motivation to practice), and being completely out of touch with performing? I realize full well that actual singing is far from punditry and philosophizing about music, but sadly don't do much about it. Anyway, you don't have an option but to move on, and that's what I should do. But it's going to take a while.

Nattaikurinji and Kharaharapriya

I recently performed a thematic concert for my cousin Hari Devanath's music school in the Bay Area, Sri Paduka Academy. The theme was melam-janyam and I tried to explore various melam-janyam relationships. To this end, I picked three melam-janyam pairs: Kalyani-Amritabehag where the janyam has little or no resemblance to the melam; Harikambodhi-Nattaikurinji where the janyam has all seven swaras, yet does not qualify as a melam due to its characteristic vakra usages and despite sharing all the swaras with the melam, has a unique identity of itself; and lastly Kharaharapriya-Sriranjani where the janyam conforms to the very conventional understanding we have of janya ragas: its swaras form a subset of those of the melam and the flavor/ feel of the raga is also very similar to that of the parent raga. For lack of time I couldn't take up the interesting class of bhashanga janya ragas but briefly spoke about it. Many thanks to Hari and Vivek Sundarraman - who also teaches at Paduka - for the opportunity. The energy of the kids was infectious.

Here are the Nattaikurinji and the Kharaharapriya pieces. I can't but add disclaimers: there are shruti lapses (which unfortunately I couldn't notice when I sang), and my obstinate voice refuses to go below the middle Sa - I've a long way to go. But this post is mainly for the accompanists: Divya Mohan on the violin and Gopal Ravindran on the mridangam, both all of 16 years, were great. You'll see how Divya's violin carasses the raga - especially Kharaharapriya, and the gait of Gopal's thani is beautiful. I learnt a ton from these folks!

Last but certainly not least, thanks to my Guru for everything.

Here we go. Needless to say, criticisms welcome!




Last edit: July 23 2012 - included the Nattaikurinji recording.

Vijayanaagari

I recently performed a concert at Coimbatore in my Guru's presence. It was a blessing that I got such an opportunity but haven't been very pleased with myself about how it turned out. It certainly wasn't one of my best days and I'd been very sick all day. But there's always a next time, isn't it? Here's an excerpt from one of the better pieces. Let me know what you think!

Concert at Shri Mandir, San Diego

Alapanais need to be more crisp and "tighter"; neraval less restrained, swaras more free flowing... I could go on. Heck, anyway- here are some videos from a concert I did at Shri Mandir, San Diego last month with Radhakrishnan on the flute and Sanath Kumar on the mridangam. Feedback would be much appreciated.

Santhana Gopala: Khamas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DD_WfN66MXY

Sriramachandro: Sriranjani
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeO9kjk7aPg

Dayarani: Mohanam and Sarideno: Vidapi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZLBEE0PrsI

Thillana: Rageshri
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfZy7pXQhe0