Music season 3
I came here for music, and out of everything I’ve seen the music has continued to be by far my primary focus. The music season in Chennai is very impressive, and I feel like I have to do it justice by continuing my recall of all the great concerts before moving on to other things.
On December 30th I saw Bombay Jeshrey for the first time in concert. I’d seen her briefly before in a workshop. My friend Meera is a HUGE fan (to put it lightly) of Jeshrey, so I was looking forward to the concert. It was difficult for me to get seats, and it ended up being my most expensive concert, because there were no cheap seats left. I also didn’t get to sit with Meera. Jeshrey is a star here, and everyone comes to see her. After the concert people clamoured for her autograph outside the vehicle she was being driven away in. Her voice was soft, controlled, much less nasally, and a little lower than the female carnatic voice I am used to. Vocal music is the core of carnatic music, but as a westerner it is the hardest to get used to, because voice is not judged in the same way here. The ideal carnatic voice is very different than the ideal jazz, pop, or western classical voice. I still have no idea what it is. Jeshrey’s voice was closer to a western ideal then anyone I have heard yet. I wonder if this, combined with the influence of western music has led to her popularity. She is also an undeniably competent musician (I hope that would have something to do with it). Unfortunately I didn’t get good pictures at Jeshrey’s concert, but you can see a bunch of people sitting on the stage in the first picture. Many concert halls here have stage seating. The tickets are the same or cheaper than balcony tickets! – very different from how things would be priced in the west. I assume the thinking is that only very devoted fans (true rasikas as they would say here), or dedicated carnatic music students will want to sit that still, and so they deserve cheap seats. I like that thinking! You can see that Jeshrey has very many dedicated rasikas on the stage with her. It’s nice to be that close to the music. There were no more stage seats when I bought my tickets!
On Dec. 31 we saw Alam Khan on sarod (one of the few North Indian programs). We were really excited about this concert, because we had watched his father on u-tube thinking it was him. The concert was a little disappointing, because Alam Khan was not old enough to have the kind of depth that his father had in music. He was a great musician, but we had really high expectations. We were also eager to hear north Indian music since we hadn’t been impressed with anything up until this point. I think that there is a big bias against north Indian music here (maybe because it is more known internationally), and it seems that the acts they have chosen, or the performances given play it very safe to avoid criticism from carnatic die-hards. As a result I didn’t develop an appreciation of north Indian music here. It was a little bit of an uneventful years eveL
New years day was better. Two of our favorites G.J.R Krishnan, and Lalgudi Vijaylakshmi where playing in the morning. We followed these 2 throughout the season, and since they are the son, and daughter of Lalgudi Jayaraman (my inspiration for coming here) David and I started (perhaps inappropriately – since names seem to be important here) the Lalgudi kids. The mridangam player was David’s favorite Trichy Sankaran. The concert wasn’t as awesome as we were hoping. It was too early for us to listen to music (9am). We thought maybe it might have been too early for the musicians too, but maybe it was just our tired ears. Great expectations are always a little disappointing. Carnatic music is like jazz in that it is best heard live, and because great improvisations require great inspiration a lot of amazing players are varying degrees of amazing from one day to the next. The total effect of the concert depends so much on the individual dispositions of all of the members at the time of performance. On the up side, my teacher was there, and he introduced me to G.J.R Krishnan who invited me to his house to meet his dad, Lalgudi Jayaraman! It was a little bit of an embarrassing introduction though. My teacher introduced me as his student, and than G.J.R Krishnan smiled and said to me “Nice to meet you. You should come home.” I was dumbfounded. I thought he didn’t appreciate white women studying carnatic music, and was telling me to go back to Canada. I said nothing for so long that he asked my teacher (quite nicely) if I spoke English. I soon understood that he was inviting me to meet his father. Since then I have noticed that Indians often drop the possessive when talking about their house. It must be normal in tamil to say “come home” when you are inviting someone to your house, instead of “come to my home”. I wish I figured that one out a little sooner! I also met Trichy Sankaran (who is Canadian). He was very nice, and told me to come visit him in Toronto. Fortunately his approach to grammar didn’t leave me looking like a fool.
Another aspect of the music season concerts is the temporary attatched “canteens” that serve awesome traditional, and celebratory food, some of which you can’t eat in the normal restaurants. After the way too early (9am) 3 hour concert David, Shailesh, and I enjoyed a fantastic lunch at the attached canteen.
In the evening we saw U.Srinivasan. U.Srinivasan is the guy who introduced the mandolin to carnatic music. A lot of people had told us to check him out. I think a lot of people thought we would like it because the mandolin is a western instrument, so it would be more familiar to us. U. Srinivasan is a very skilled player, but I didn’t enjoy his playing that much. His sense of time was more surfacy than the players and singers who have blown me away here. Also the way he incorporated the mandolin into carnatic music did make it sound more “western” (or something). It was a little too flashy for me. I think there is also the age thing. He looked quite young. I am really finding, that, minus a few exceptions, carnatic music takes a long time to learn. Even if they have technical prowess the younger players are usually not as deep.
On January 2 I went to see Vittal sir’s niece perform at 4pm. I was really tired of concerts at this point, and was going only out of obligation because I was thinking that because she was only in her early 20’s it would be a little bit amateurish. Not something I wouldn’t normally want to see, but after 3-9 hours of concerts for the past week I could do with out it. I was totally wrong. She was great. Few attended the concert, so I got to sit in the front. The second last song (my favorite) was in Kannada: her (and my teachers native language).
