Amit Chaudhuri was content material with singing songs on his guitar until he heard Govind Prasad Jaipurwale and was struck by his lovely voice as he went by way of bhajans and devotionals his mom wished to be taught. “He was a great voice to listen to – the tone of his voice, and a mastery that made you believe that he could do anything with it he chose to. He sang softly, without insistence, and almost never sang the same phrase twice. His aim, achieved with modesty, was to surprise and be surprised,” Chaudhuri writes in his guide, Finding the Raga, a memoir about music and relationships. Chaudhuri wished to do what he was doing, and thus started an extended journey in Indian classical music. Along the way in which, his writing profession took off with A Strange and Sublime Address and a number of different fiction and non-fiction.
In search of bliss
Chaudhuri would quickly take heed to Bhimsen Joshi. As he started to “explore, in passionate detail, the notes of a thumri,” Chaudhuri felt the urge to copy what he had heard, which appeared near-impossible. “Each encounter — Kishori Amonkar; Bhimsen Joshi; the singer Balgandharva — was a jolt.” Years later he would ask Amonkar what was she trying to find in her music. She mentioned she was searching for ananda (bliss or pleasure), and share it together with her listeners and all people else. In his guide, Chaudhuri traces the historical past of the khayal (Arabic for ‘imagination’; and ‘thought’, ‘idea’, ‘whim’ in Urdu) which entered the Mughal court docket reign of King Jahangir through qawwali singers of the Sufi sect; and the way khayal is a growth on an earlier type known as the dhrupad.
Like Chaudhuri, Namita Devidayal’s The Music Room additionally begins on a private observe on how her mom dragged a reluctant 10-year-old for music classes with Dhondutai in Bombay who had skilled with the legendary Kesarbai Kerkar. In her first lesson, Dhondutai requested her to shut her eyes and take heed to the singer’s “loyal accompanist”, the tanpura. As 4 notes have been performed time and again, Devidayal felt that it created a “constant murmur of serenity.” Her instructor made her sing only one observe, sa, the inspiration, the primary and final observe, the purpose at which the circle begins and ends, until the sound of her sa matched the tanpura’s. “Sa encompasses all the notes, just as pure white light contains all the colours of the rainbow,” Dhondutai instructed the little pupil.
Musicians reside a life devoted to their artwork, and some of the cherished practitioners of the craft is M.S. Subbulakshmi. In his masterful biography, Of Gifted Voice, Keshav Desiraju writes within the preface that she was a classical musician of the very best order, and “it is as such that her life’s work must be assessed.” Apart from the portrayal of the genius of M.S. Subbulakshmi, Desiraju profiles Carnatic music in all its richness, as additionally the social and political milieu that prevailed throughout her lengthy stint. Devidayal’s biography of sitar maestro Vilayat Khan ( The Sixth String of Vilayat Khan) is a wealthy addition to literature on Hindustani classical musicians.
Layering of music
In a various nation like India, musical strands are additionally sure to be layered. As Desiraju writes, “It is commonplace today for the Hindustani and Carnatic systems of music to be regarded as the ‘classical’ music of north and south India; what is undeniable is that two different traditions grew, not all at once, and over a long period, but deriving from the same base material.” Both, for example, are based mostly on raga, however the ragas are “handled differently.”
Many extra biographies or autobiographies must be written on and by Indian music greats. In rock music for instance, Bob Dylan set the bar excessive within the first a part of his memoirs, Chronicles (2004), the place he talks about his early years, his writing block (simply earlier than penning the ‘Oh Mercy’ album) and his influences. A second guide, on the American music custom, The Philosophy of Modern Song, is due for launch this November.
Source: www.thehindu.com
