Springing to life with music

This spring started with attending the local Thyagaraja aradhana at our community center in Cupertino. Can sing only the first two as of now. Joined in and enjoyed the experience thoroughly.

Then came the SIFA spring series of concerts. This year, had volunteered with SIFA. It was a great experience being the official photographer for some of the events as well supporting Anand with his elaborate and meticulous sound setup..

Attended all concerts except the last one yesterday. Was still trying to recover and just dozed off in the afternoon and evening.

The season opener with Saketaraman who celebrated Rama Navami with his theme of songs on Rama and also starting all the songs with the anupallavi’s or charanams.

The next event was three concerts back to back in an all day event. Managed to attend the first two by Dr. Suryaprakash (who brought me visions of Madurai Mani Iyer) and soulful singing by Sankari Krishnan. A voice that transports you in time to and brings back images of eating murukku from your grandma’s hands. Had to leave before the third concert to play photographer at Jaya Vidhyasagar’s bhitek event. Again, the theme was Rama and every song was amazingly rendered.

Then there was Amrutha Venkatesh! Having listened to her Charukesi pada varnam (my guru asked me to use it as the reference video) a few hundred times over the last year, it was a fanboy moment for me. Have been to her concert two years ago. This time I got to listen to her from the side of the stage..

Then we attended was Ranjani Gayathri’s concert. This is outside of the SIFA membership but we had tickets booked well in advance. Going to a concert like this as a large group is always fun. They kept us mesmerized!

This was followed by a violin duo concert by Naagai Muralidharan and Dr. Badri Narayanan. Experts bring class with effortless ease. This is a concert I will remember for a long time.

The next concert was a home Bhitek by Jaya (San’s music teacher). The theme was Adi Shankara. She made it interactive with the audience.

Then came the find of the year! If last years find was NJ Nandhini, this years find was Ramana Balachandran with his Saraswathi veena and occasional vocal. He brought the house down, rocking the veena. Two hindustani songs he sang are still with me.. Naam Japan Kyon chod diya in Charukesi and Tejo nidhi loh gol in Lalit. Going to try and learn both. Ramana is going to be a superstar if he already isn’t one!

The supporting artists in every concert made every concert an amazing experience. The smiles, the embellishments, the knowledge and experience to support the main artists.. just exemplary!

This year the SIFA membership came with an added bonus. A packed box dinner after every concert from Mylapore express. In some concerts I grabbed the box. Sometimes I had to rush out to edit photos and missed it. This is a great initiative and we love it!

Last weekend my health was already not that great with Claritin not doing much and nasal spray giving me a sinus infection and fever. San thought it would be a good idea to visit temples to cheer me up. So we went to the newly kumbabishegamd’d Concord Murugan temple, then the Livermore temple where our friends family was going a concert . We got to listen to the dad, son and daughter take the lead in turns and sing songs penned by Basavanna. Ambu just aced it. It was a treat to watch her sing. Her brother and dad were equally amazing. Had no idea of Basavanna and after reading about his life and teachings was suprised to see the event in a temple. The music was divine! I I can always find divinity in music and art, or naturual landscapes .. or even better in my wife and kids smiles.

Missed Abhishek Raghuram’s concert yesterday. It was the grand finale for SIFA spring season. My friends who attended gave him rave reviews. Next time.. given the crowd he pulls locally, I am sure he will be back soon.

There are no more planned concerts between now and fall. Enough life events to keep us busy!

It has been a great spring season. A big thanks to SIFA for bringing amazing music to our doorsteps!

Looking forward to the music in the second half of the year!

Marghazi singing

Paadarivom Padipparivom has this wonderful idea to give a platform to students to sing one song each during Marghazi season. There is a lot of encouragement from this community for learning Carnatic music as well as Cine music.

Most of the fellow adult classical music students I have talked to, started learning in hopes that the knowledge here will improve their Cine music singing. It has been two years and two months since I started learning Carntic music again after a long break, from Koushik Ramchander.

He has been an epitome of patience!

For a novice like me, the support this group gives is just phenomenal. If there is one place where the Dunning Kruger effect is in full display, it is while learning Carnatic music or singing Tamil movie songs. 

When I started singing, my knowledge was very limited.. not that I could not identify ragas instantly or have a concept of what "right" sounded like. When my own voice was producing the output, my ears somehow selectively decided to be very forgiving when I was off. It takes a lot of "listening", very careful listening to understand that you are off. 

If a song had 600 notes total, I would be off on 400 of them two years go. Today I am off on 40 and going towards 4. My MIL has been my one constant judge and supporter while my mom has been my strongest critic. 

Two weeks ago, they agreed for the first time after hearing me sing a carnatic based movie song. My MIL told me my voice has finally adapted to sing SPB songs. My mom actually said this and I am saving this for posterity! She prefers if I stick to slokas and bhajans instead of movie songs, which is expected. 

My teachers at PP of course gave me honest feedback on every line of that song on where I was off in the notes, pronunciation and execution. The DK effect does play mind tricks, once you know finer details and appreciate what is actually required vs. where you are. You know what has to be done, but it needs a lot more effort to get there and it cannot be done in a week!

Not one for giving up, have been trying impatiently. That is the truth. 

Singing with just a Tanpura in background and your own hand to keep the beat was a lot more challenging than singing along with your teacher or fellow student on Smule with a familier fixed backround track! Almost came to the conculsion that Smule singing isn't singing and was downright depressed two weeks ago. This song is usually sung in the ragam Naatai (for most of the instances you find on Youtube). He taught it to me in Gowlai ragam. Asked my teacher why he thought I could do this and he said "You can do this Sundar! you already sang every line after me very well in class. you just have to do it at a stretch and on your own!"

Thank god for teachers. They tell you to buckle up, keep your head high and get your confidence back, one step at a time. Koushik Sir as I call him has been my music shrink as much as my music teacher. When you start learning at 49, the psychological challenges in learning need to be fixed as much as the skill gap. What he says between singing notes and making me repeat is the other half of the lesson, probably the bigger lesson! After many attempts, voicenotes feedback on whatsapp, he finally gave me the equivalent of the Oliver Cromwell look.. that made my day!

A heartfelt thank you to this platform and the folks who make it great!  

Carnatic music folks (especially family), this will not meet your standards. The good news is that I am okay with where I am today and tomorrow WILL be better than today! 

Thanks again to PP for this experience! It feels good to participate in the Marghazi season remotely!

Plan all you want..

The post on attending the spring concert season is here.. 

This year both SIFA and Sankritilaya had an impressive series of performances lined up. Had planned to go to as many of these as possible, including some "double headers". It is one thing to listen to one 3 or 3 1/2 hour concert. Listening to back to back concerts with only a 30 minute break is a very immersive experience. 

It is like doing a hot yoga double. The first class is the warm up for the second class. You are more flexible in the second class but you don't have the same strength. Something along same lines happens at these double headers. You start to close your eyes and completely enjoy the second concert but you zone out too often. 

Got to hear one vocal concert outside of SIFA and Sankritilaya. It was our friends son's mridangam arangetram. He did us all proud. The vocal for his arangetram was by Ranjani Ravindrabharathy (his guru's daughter). She sang amazingly well. She is going to be a rock star in her own right. We got to attend her guru's daughters concert as well as part of the fall lineup! We hope to see our friends kid keep up his performance as well. 

The concerts I managed to go to this season..

Ashwath Narayanan

Ramakrishnan Murthy

Anahita and Apoorva

Trichur brothers

Vignesh Ishwar

Sriranjani Santhanagopalan

It is not just the main artists but all the supporting artists that were amazing. Charumathi Raghuraman and Vishvesh Chandrasekaran were just amazing! Look forward to them doing violin concerts in the near future. 

There are a few concerts I wanted to go to but missed. Yet again, missed a Sanjay Subramanyan concert. That was scheduled the exact week we had to go drop the kids in SoCal. We did not know that both our kids would end up in quarter system schools with a late start. Missed it.. maybe next year..

There is a concert today as well, but could not go. Hence the "closing post" for concert season. Hope my friends who made it are enjoying it right now.

A few pieces that stuck to my head for a full week before the next concert.. Vignesh did a RTP of Dikshidar's 14 raga masterpiece, Shri vishwanadham bajeham. First time hearing a Thanam for all 14 ragams, live. That was a standout. 

Sriranjani sang Vanchatonuna almost like a haunting melody. 

Ashwath sang a song called Shonaiyum kaathu nal aanaiyum kaathtu. Have never heard this before. The lyrics were just amazing and he sang this ragamalika so well. He also sang Karaharapriya for an hour and it was the best I heard in recent times. 

Thrichur brothers sang an RTP in Jog. Pat myself on the back for boldly guessing it was Jog when my friends were guessing it as closer south Indian popular ragas. All I had was one familiar phrase from Pramadhavanam (from His Highness Adbullah) to go with. Was so happy I guessed right! They also sang Bo Shambo with the audience participating. The crowd was dancing. The bros are on to something. Between them and RaGa, these are artists today that are trying to spread the reach of carnatic music and give it a mass appeal to reach a non technical audience. Sincerely commend their effort!

Anahita and Apoorva sang in Kalavathi. Had never heard this one before. They also sang Kaa vaa vaa extremely well. It stayed in my head..

Ramakrishnan Murthy was outstanding in every piece he sang. He may well and truly be the first US born kid to become a Sangeetha Kalanidhi. What a talent. He sang Chinnanjiru kiliye as a ragamalika, but with a twist. He used different ragams than the ones Bharathiyaar used. Some of us liked it. Everyone has heard that as a kid and the tunes just stick. Swithing to a different ragam and singing it so well is a challenge. It did cause a debate post concert.. especially with the older generation! 

It is good that the bay area gets to see these performances. Next year, plan to take jr. with me to some of these concerts whenever she happens to visit. 

Can't wait to see next year's lineup!