Margaazhi Ragam

This is the first attempt to bring carnatic concerts to the silver screen. Hats off to the creators. Seems to be a very interesting concept and this could certainly help promote carnatic music among the masses. This film features concerts of prominent singers T M Krishna and Bombay Jayashree. Hoping that I would a get a chance to see the film soon. Here is the trailer.

Arabhi..

This is really a very beautiful and a refreshing ragam. It has close resemblance to sama and devagandhari raagams. Below is a song by priya sister's which i listened to recently. Its was indeed very impressive.



Also an old film song in the same ragam

Expression of Love

Been meaning to pen down something for a while. However, i have been driven by nothing else but laziness. This post is about a melodious and a very pleasing ragam Charukesi.. Even though there are songs based on this ragam in Hindustani music it owes to its existence to the carnatic parampara.

The songs based on this ragam are usually composed in situations where there is a requirement to express a desire or love. This ragam usually is set to a pleading tone and is usually intended to create an emotional impact on the listener. There are very famous kritis in this ragam on Lord Rama. Krapuya palaya shaure and thyagaraja's ada modi galathe are among them.

Below is rendering of the song adamodi galathe by M S Subbalakshmi



Coming to film music when we think of Charukesi the first song that comes to our mind is Manmadha Leelai vendral in M K T's enthralling voice from the movie Haridas.



Vasantha mullai pole vandu is also based on charukesi. More recently, there is the song Udhaya Udhaya from the movie Udhaya.

Maiden US Concert

After being deprived of Carnatic Concerts for a couple of years i finally got an opportunity to attend a concert by Sri O.S.Thyagarajan in Austin, Texas.

The concert was on the 27th of April at St. Edwards University.

Accompanied by

B.V.Ragavendra Rao – Violin
Tanjore Murugaboopathi - Mridangam

It indeed felt really good to be part of an event after a long time and i should admit that the kutcheri was par excellence. It lasted for a duration of two and half hours. The kutcheri started on a high with the thodi varnam.The Main raga of the concert was Karaharapriya. The raga alapana was brilliant and the Shri Rao on the violin handled it beautifully. The other raagams rendered were khamas, sankarabharanam, saraswati ..... and finally madhyamavathi.

Probably the crowd might have expected more popular krithis and thukkadas. However, people like me who look forward to pure carnatic music would have had a very enjoyable time.

Trivia : During the concert, Sri. OST had mentioned that entire credit of Karaharapriya goes to Thyagaraja. The other two in the trinity do not have any compositions in this raga. Strange!

Isai Payanam

Isai Payanam, is a weekly program on Jaya TV. Each episode is just 10 mins and its becoming quite popular. Each week renowned singer Charulatha Mani explains about a particular raagam. She talks about popular carnatic Kritis and their cinema counterpart. Here are a couple of episodes from the show.

Raagam : Kamboji



Raagam : Amritavarsini

Non-Tamil Film Songs

Here are a couple of melodious film songs.The first one is from the malayalam movie perumazhakalam, set to ragam sahana.



The second one is from a telegu film Anand.

Ragas-Their medical perspective

Music based therapy for curing various ailments and disorders has gained lot of prominence in the recent past.Sometime back I came across an article in Hindu about a good organization by name Raga Research Center in Chennai.This organization headed by Veteran violinist Kannukudi Vaidyanathan, has two panels comprising of musicians in one and non musicians in the other. Their main focus is on analyzing the music/raga in the context of vedhas, astrology, psychiatry, physics and so on. They believe that every raga has a face and form defined as raga deivatha.Hats off! to Kannukkadi Vaidyanathan and his team mates for having come up with something as wonderful as this. This organization has been there for over 12 years now is funded by the government of Tamilnadu.

Karaharapriya is a very passionate raga which is usually used to express sentiments. According to the raga research center, this raga is a good remedy for distress and neurotic disorders. General Anxiety disorder and a the phobias are classified as neurotic disorders. This simply does not mean if this raga is just playing in the background the disorders can be rectified. In order to truly experience the effect involvement levels must be high and it could be a slow and gradual process.

A very famous keerthanai in this ragam is pakkala nilabadi and below is the link to the song by M.S.Subbalakshmi and that's by far the best Karaharapriya i have listened to so far especially the alapana.




Here's a variety. This piece is by Ganesh Kumaresh from their album Carnatic Chills, a beautiful fusion based on the raga karaharapriya.



Coming to film songs, Madhavi Pon Mayilal is a very famous composition. Mappillaikku Mannan Manusu from Netrikann is also based on the very same raga. Click here to listen to it. Below is a video link for another beautiful song in Karaharapriya.