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MEASURING ONE'S MUSICAL MATURITY - HOW TO NAME IT!!!!!!!!

Topic started by Gyan (Devastated by How To Name It for good!!!!) (@ 4.159.244.175) on Tue Jun 15 23:31:27 EDT 2004.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

I think every music lover or composer who thinks they are on a higher musical plane has to ask one thing before they think they are: Can they appreciate the depth and beauty of IR' How To Name It.

Why I say this is, in my young days I used to be "instantly" fascinated by Western Classical Music, thinkin it was the ultimate,and Indian classical all stupid!!! How wrong I am now!!!

I had heard IR' HTNI in 89 and I just couldn't figure it out what the heck it was. Even a decade later, I could not understand how it could be called great or even enjoyable. I've seen only folks who enjoy Carnatic music call it great and that made me dislike Carnatic music even more.

Now, I call HTNI, the FINAL FRONTIER OF MUSIC, Avant-Garde, light years ahead, Masterpiece of all classical albums I've heard, etc... It is also how I now measure a person's depth of music appreciation. Recently, I gave it to an elderly couple who goes to Symphonies. They just returned it saying they could not follow it at all!!!!

So, Western classical music lovers cannot accept HTNI, because it is so profound and not instant jingle bells and also my fascination with Western Classical these days is skin-deep only, nothing mean about it, just that I want deeper music that never cease to bewilder me. I still love Western classical, pop etc... but HTNI is giving me a new understanding of how much complex music can get for the true everlasting beauty that remains to be discovered in it depth!!!!!!

Can I say the same of many TFM dfers other than Carnatic music lovers in this forum - that many could not just understand HTNI for several years initially, but they now see the beauty of it, finally?

Also, those who liked it first time itself, please explain the basis, whether it was Carnatic background or yours or just your own musical perception. Would you consider this as this album as the best measure of a music lover or composer' musical growth or maturity? Or, is there another measure?

My other question is: Is Nothing But Wind also as profound as HTNI? ( I could not enjoy NBW because of muted flute notes at times, but I did not get back to it as I did with HTNI) Did anyone feel it was not fully astounding as HTNI.

Q3: Does "SSSSA" know if IR will come out with more HTNI type albums?!!! That is a legacy for the next 1000 years of music, i feel.

Also, the more intriguing question, do you think HTNI with a full fledged Symphonic Orchestra would've been fulfilling?!!!!!!!! (by the way was L Vaidyanathan the dual violinist with Narasimhan?)

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Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: k (@ 192.138.150.249) on: Mon Jun 21 14:07:09 EDT 2004
  
  Re: carnatic and western classical music.
  
  I think our people have figured out a very basic truth in music universally. The concept of melakartha raagam and deriving janyas out of it + the concept of aarohanam and avarohanam should be considered as major discoveries in natural phenomenon.
  Gyan is right, music tells a lot about a culture. Our music based on raagams must have evolved over a long period of time for people to identify and structure the patterns and classify their effects. Culturally, we have a more holistic approach. To give an example, a westerner might study the effect of a particular food or herb in detail, analysing the actual mechanism which causes/provides a particular benefit/problem. But indian people would observe the effects of various foods and classify them as cold/hot/gaseous/bile-producing etc. Balancing the various foods was needed for good health.
  
  For IR, carnatic music has been the treaure trove for all his innumerable number of film tunes. He has figured out how to spin out a tune using a raagam as base very easily. For him, it is almost formulaic. When he says, music is nothing but, 'sithu vElai with 7 swarangal', he is actually referring to carnatic music. But where does he deviate from carnatic music ? It is the embellishments in carnatic music, which hundreds of musicians have evolved over the years, which he deviates from. If the embellishments in carnatic music are happening 'linearly' along the timescale, in Western music, these are happening 'concurrently'. This is what, I feel, IR does not find contradictory with Western classical. The very basic differentiating character of IR's music is its polyphonic nature and the polyphony is almost contrapuntally arranged. Westerners with their analytic minds have done/identified lot of things about harmony, what goes with what. But they are pretty weak in melody. Standard melodies in their culture have never been codified/classified like the way raagams have been. We have had yazhs tuned for various raagams from time immemorial. Ezhisai is a common term in tholkaappiyam - the tamil names for the seven notes are - kural, thuttham, kaikkilai, uzhai, ili, vilari and thaaram. Originally, the notes were sung using tha na na etc. Only later, with sanskritisation, sa ri ga ma pa da ni came into vogue. Note, that in folk music we still use tha na etc. Probably, one can say IR was trained in carnatic music, even before he learnt it from TVG.
  
  
• From: Kupps (@ 192.76.80.74) on: Mon Jun 21 15:36:33 EDT 2004
  
  hmm...interesting points 1 to 11 from sridharan.
  
  i thought them to be like this:
  
  A flautist lone in woods expresses the environment and his feeling about them with his flute as well as vision.
  
  The forest is pure (only trees, birds, animals). Fully natural beauty.
  
  1) Birds Chirpping & melodious and energetic flute piece indicating the forest is pure as the mother goddess(nature).
  
  2) Some mischevious music, comical type indicating the inhabitants enjoying their life unison with the nature.
  
  3) A Steady Violin and Flute Piece, bringing out the progression of such event (for some time).
  
  4) goes on and on, and a twist, with some comic type indicating unmindful of whats going to happen to them (and their environment) the inhabitants still on same way.
  
  5) All of a sudden, the music stops and plays the same beginning tune, but as a tragedy note indicating "cultured" human has arrived.
  
  6) A train journey sound, A Plane sound indicating the "development" of human culture (i.e. devastation of "nature").
  
  7) Some graveyard feeling sound, with mantrams on the back ground indicating difference in belief/path on knowing the truth/god/nature.
  
  8) beggining note -- finally everyone realises the truth/path which is as expressed in 1.
  
  Perceptions indeed differ.
  
  
• From: sridharan (@ 202.153.37.115) on: Fri Jun 25 09:34:34 EDT 2004
  
  
  I Guess TiS will be something like HTNI.
  
  
  
• From: dubya (@ 210.210.48.187) on: Fri Jun 25 11:07:25 EDT 2004
  
  believe it or not. I need to listen to How to name it atleast once a day like my VishnuShasranaamam. Normally it is during my drive to and fro my Dell office. Could I ask for better destress therapy? Iam doing this for the past 2 yrs. Now every stroke of violin is there in my memory. My most fav is the western classical adornment of the Mayamaalavagowla "thulasi..." song. The last piece in the CD with a solitary violin(the piece similar to the one in aboorva sagotharargal) never fails to move me.
  
  
• From: dubya (@ 210.210.48.187) on: Fri Jun 25 11:09:54 EDT 2004
  
  sorry, it must be solitary flute
  
  
• From: Vj (@ 203.196.170.98) on: Fri Jun 25 22:39:04 EDT 2004
  
  my interpretation of the "Nothing But Wind" track...
  
  guy living in village... happy-go-lucky kinda..with all those ducks,buffaloes in ponds... (imagine Nadodi thendral scenario)...
  then this guy gets kinda bored with the village life and thinks about going to city for greener pastures....then goes to the city (train,airplane sounds etc)...gets used to city life...lives city life in pomp and splendour...(same theme music given in trumphets and drums...thats Ilayaraja for you..!!!)...after sometime, gets cheated by someone whom he trusted...(or gets stuck in a tough situation and goes through a mental hardship)...goes into philosophical thinking... realises that its the village life that gives real peace and happiness.... starts his way back to the village to his roots...(typical hero-walking-in-silhoutte-towards-sunset) climax....a full story told in music...!!!
  
  
• From: Vk (@ 202.153.37.115) on: Tue Jun 29 05:54:20 EDT 2004
  
  
  Sridharan, Kupps, Vj - everyone have given there own
  versions. Ofcourse the song is beautiful, crisp and the tune mesmerizing, with some hidden theme. Can anyone associated with the album, clarify the story please?
  
  
• From: f (@ 203.199.54.131) on: Tue Jun 29 06:53:43 EDT 2004
  
  e
  
  
• From: famato (@ 203.199.54.131) on: Tue Jun 29 06:55:27 EDT 2004
  
  enakku oru pombalaya anubavikkanum. yaravathu broker intha forum-la irukkangala?
  
  
• From: ramki (@ 61.247.246.51) on: Tue Jun 29 09:27:19 EDT 2004
  
  famato naayee!!!!!!!
  there is one new musid director for Machi, rumors are she is ready to be used.
  go and contact her.
  
  
• From: ramki (@ 61.247.246.51) on: Tue Jun 29 09:28:23 EDT 2004
  
  to contact her you must contact her brother.
  you know who he is?
  
  

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