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The Hindu (Metro
Plus) - Monday, April 2, 2001
Tryst with music
Carnatic musician Vijay Siva
took children on an exciting journey through the realm of music, at "Sa to Sa", organised by Goodbooks,
as part of its music appreciation series. A report.
It
was a surprise to see a five-year-old walk in clutching her
mother's hand. She had come to listen to Carnatic musician Vijay Siva enlighten
children on the intricacies of Carnatic music. It was an evening
of Sa to Sa at Goodbooks on March 24 and there were others like her - the age of the
children gathered ranged from 5 to 15.
Vijay,
accompanied by his brother Manoj on the mridangam and
Chandramouli
on the violin, began by trying to find out how many children had
some exposure to Carnatic music. "How many of you have gone to or heard
cutcheris?" he asked.
In
what was perhaps a telling statement on the reach of film music,
many youngsters came up with the names of
Nithyashree Mahadevan,
P. Unnikrishnan and K.J. Yesudas. A sprinkling spoke of Semmangudi and
M.S. Subbulakshmi.
Those
who had attended the earlier sessions of this programme brought
up
names of Sanjay Subramaniam, Bombay Jaishree and T.M. Ksishna, a
fact that Vijay remarked upon.
After
introducing his accompanists, Vijay asked : "What happens
first at a
cutcheri?" The variety of answers was as surprising as
amusing. One answer
was "tuning the tanpura" leading to an explanation of
the importance of this instrument. Constantly stressing the
point that he was not there to deliver a
lecture and that it was meant to be an interface, Vijay led the
children through what is a kriti, the three parts- pallavi,
anupallavi, charanam, how to identify when each segment begins or ends, what is
gamakam, what is a sangati... demonstrating what he meant by singing and making
sure that he was understood.
Once
this was out of the way, he moved on to the trinity: Thyagaraja,
Muthuswamy Dikshitar and Syama Sastry. The pen names used in
their compositions, how to identify their composition…again
using songs to emphasise what he was saying.
One
amusing moment during the session came when Vijay asked why
gamakams were used. One child said it was to make
music more beautiful. Immediately, Vijay sang "Silent
Night, Holy Night" and remarked "No gamakams but still
beautiful. So why do we sing gamakams?" Pat
came the reply "Because this is Carnatic
music." And what could the singer do but laugh
with the rest of the audience.
The
final five minutes were spent in a question and answer session
with prizes for those who answered and also for those parents who did not
help their children....
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