To begin with, let us have a bird's eye view of the musicological
history. As is known, all that could be mentioned about Laya, Tala,
Vadya and their performance were laid down in Bharatha's Natyasastra
and the Tamil works in Silapppadikiram, Panchamarabu etc. The later
musicological works in Sanskrit and other Northern languages are
mainly the echoes of Bharatha and the Tamil works reflected from
Silappadikaram. There have been mention of the Avanadha Vadya
Kutapam (Percussion Ensemble) in Sangita Ratnakaram itself. Making
the percussion instruments, playing techniques, when, what, how and
which instruments of play have been well defined and specified in
Natyasastra.
But there has been a void between the 13th and 16th
Century in the real art of performing. We hear of the mridangam,
tabla, dholak etc. along with the Naik rulers in the Tanjore and
allied Royal courts and also the Travancore palace. The most
memorable names are that of Narayanaswamy Appa, Azhagan Nambi Pillai,
Nannu Mian Dholak, etc. The contribution of Nadaswaram, Thavil,
Chinna Melam and Periamelam in Tamil Nadu in the realm of percussion
is astounding. Till the turn of the century, percussion was
discussed as a part of music and dance or as contests in the Sadas
of Rajahs and Zamindars. The advent of Sabha Ganam or concert
music and the appearance of great Laya Vadya Exponents created new
revolution in the art of percussion in South India. Starting with
Narayanaswamy Appa who brought a great sense of aesthetics,
sweetness and inspiration by his mridangam accompaniment to his own
vocal music in his Saturday bhajans, the art of mridangam
accompaniment was developed by the mellifluous Azhagan Nambi Pillai
who was famed for his 2-3 minutes short Thanis after each big Kriti.
In the words of the all time mridangam phenomenon and wonder, the
Late Palghat Mani Iyer, the Laya Jnana of Pudukkotai Manpoondia
Pillai and his worthy disciple - Dakshinamoorthy Pillai, made the
contemporary music concerts, occasions to remember and cherish. Also
the schools of percussion bifurcated as the Tanjore bani &
Pudukkotai bani with the school developed by Pazhani Muthiah Pillai
(also a disciple of Manpoondia Pillai) and the great left handed
maestro Pazhani Subramanya Pillai. There were the other schools of
percussion like the Andhra, Mysore and Kerala. The developments in
the last 5 decades and over could be classified as follows:
-
Area of accompaniment
-
Area of Taniavarthanam or Laya vadya
ensemble
-
Area of creative percussion and playing techniques
-
Area of developing the instrument and experimentation
Prior to
Narayanaswamy Appa, the accompanists especially percussion and talam
stood or sat behind the main musicians while performing. Only
because Narayanaswamy Appa sang and accompanied himself on the
mridangam, he used to be allowed to sit along with the main artist.
Later this tradition was acccepted. The percussionist had only a
minor role to play. Just keep the tekka and provide 1/4 avartha or
1/2 avartha aruthis and teermanams during the kriti and at the end.
Tani avarthanams were not a regular feature. With Azhagan Nambi
Pillai, Mylattur Krishna Iyer, Das Swamigal, Manpoondia Pillai,
Tanjavur Vaidyanatha Iyer (the illustrious teacher of Palghat Mani
Iyer and T. K. Murthy) and a host of others, the mridangam rose in
stature and slowly the vocalists and instrumentalists as also the
rasikas began to expect more from the percussionists.
There are a sufficient
number of gramaphone records - for us to have some authentic
material to compare notes with the further developments and also
first hand evidence of people who had the good fortune to hear the
great maestros and who are still performing.
Now let us take up the
different aspects for detailed review:
Area of Accompaniment
The percussion
accompaniment continued to follow the age-old traditions except when
intricate and creative pallavis were sung in competitions where the
percussionists and other accompanists gave good account of
themselves when challenged.
After Narayanaswamy
Appa's advent, mridangam accompaniment became noticeable as he sat
on a par on the right side of the main artist and not behind him or
her. The trend of keeping chouka (slow) kala tekka for the Pallavi,
Madhyama kala sarvalaghu (running patterns) for the Anupallavi/Charana
Pallavi and chouka for Charanam was formulated and perfected by
him.Even today, this has great relevance. Myllattur krishna Iyer and
Pudukkotai Dakshnamurthy Pillai innovated a great deal in these
tekkas. They started the trend of improvising according to
situations and artists individually which in itself added great
colour to the concerts.
Dakshinamoorthy
Pillai was most circumspect and careful when he accompanied and
naturally one could hear superlative music and percussion. Naina
Pillai was a unique vidwan with equal command over Laya, Sahitya,
Raga and the art of performance and a great Upasaka. His concerts
were a veritable battlefield - with many upavadyams thrown into
fray. all this happened at a time when there had been no great
changes in the playing techniques - only few sollus were often used
- few korvais - most korvais and theermanams were common reportoire.
The meteoric rise of
Palghat Mani Iyer in this horizon made a great revolution in the
aspect of accompaniment as also in other aspects. but in the area of
accompaniment he stands the tallest for all times. His acute
awareness of the singers' or the instrumentalists' micro - second
level nuances - his acute sense of the particular situation or
context of a sangathi/sahitya or even a vocal accent, and how he
responded to it with his mridangam play or even very sensible
silence - this heralded a new era of percussion. There were also
other great players who were great accompanists like Vaikom Krishna
Iyer and his disciple Venkappan Pillai from Kerala who had added
similar initiatives in their accompaniments earlier to Mani Iyer but
to a much lesser degree.
The Pudukkotai style
made fine by Pazhani Subamanya Pillai basically followed the tala
and song accompaniment and highlighting mainly the rhythmic flow of
the music and this was immensely pleasing and satisfying for many
performers.
After these great
maestros whom we heard, enjoyed and benefited, there has been a
great improvement in the accompaniment aspects like question -
answer or repeating the main artists' phrasings on percussion
rhythmically and musically. Today's patterns of such rhythmic
phrases and kuraippus are much more intricate, planned and executed
very cleverly.
Thani
Avarthanam - Talavadyam Ensemble
The popularity
of Sabhaganam from the early decades of this century and expanding
areas of public concerts in temples, marriages and festivals of
savants and saints increased the entertainment value of concerts and
the importance of long percussion interludes in four-hour or
five-hour concerts. Another reason was the lack of any other form of
cultural programmes.
In the later era, the
concerts got shortened in time and thanis also naturally suffered in
size. So the percussionists had to be more precise and to the
in the individual forays especially in the Radio etc. Now we have
seperate oppurtunities for Laya Vinyasa or Tala Vadya Katcheris.
Mani Iyer started the trend along with Pazhani Subramanya Pillai
following suit. The earliest Laya Vadya record was given by
T.V.Gopalakrishnan in the name Laya Madhuri with Tiruvanur Nagarajan
on Ganjira and K.M.Vaidyanathan on Ghatam.
Vellore Ramabhadran
gave a mridangam solo and later, others followed suit. But the trend
for Thani Avarthanams in records was started by Chembai Vaidyanatha
Bhagavathar. Thematic korvais and kuraippus became a fashion in the
late fifties and sixties as also experimentations with starting the
Thani straight with Tisra gathi or Khanda gathi, Mohras and korvais
- ornamental and fancy arai aruthis or endings after the eduppu to
the half avarthanam of the tala also were introduced by Mani Iyer
and Pazhani Subramnya Pillai when they played together on mridangam
and ganjira.
Area of Creative
Percussion and Playing Techniques
The expanse of
rhythmic possibilities became limitless with the improved playing
techniques and the increasing influence of musical intellectuals in
organising Laya Vinyasam. Mani Iyer played for the first time Tisra
gathi camaflauged as Chatusram in his Thani - the listeners were
stunned by the impact. He went on to play the Chatusra korvais in
Tisra gathi (still not revealing the Tisra aspect) and the strokes
were landing at odd places in the talam but coming to eduppu. Today
it is a child's play for even novices. Mani Iyer later explained
that if you repeat three times whatever you play will come to eduppu
in Tisram - so one has to adjust the eduppu if it is to be
played once.
The Vilamba, Tisra
and Madhyama kala korvais - tisra, madhyama, tisra korvais, trikala
korvais all were improved upon with more intricate solfa patterns.
The patterns were limited earlier mainly due to lack of application
or use, also because of the playing techniques which gave more
importance to tonal purity and clarity.So the fingers were always
anchored on the skin faces and speed was not relevant. With changing
styles, kutcheri format and fast briga voices, the playing
techniques had to be improved. Fast and superfast patterns were
executed with perfection by changing finger techniques. for the same
solfa patterns involving nam, tharikita - the traditional fingers
were used, the right forefinger for 'namthari', middle and ring
together for 'tha' and forefinger for 'ri' (in some schools it is
kita-thaka) but the fingerings hold good - (left, middle and ring
together for 'ki' and right ring and middle for 'tha') but in the
very fast rendition after 'nam' by forefinger, the middle finger
alone for 'tha' and forefinger for 'ri' and middle finger for 'ki'
and ring finger for 'tha' - this technique was originally used by
Mani Iyer and later on we find that this is a very common way of
playing fast passages in Tabla. But in mridangam this technique
cannot produce audible and clear sound at all unless you have the
perfect hand and finger balance to play hard and soft strokes.
In the same manner
techniques were evolved to use the left handd fingers to get janta
and rpeat strokes on the left side or 'thoppi'. "Guguthari
gugunaka tharikita" - "tharigugu" (repeats) with
gumkaram instead of 'thom' (open) - this technique was easily played
on the tavil with the stick without the hand getting tired, but with
the folded middle and forefinger, one could generate equal volume of
sounds. Mani Iyer, Pazhani Subramanya Pillai and Ramnad
Murugabhoopathy were highly skilled at this and evolved individual
styles. Venkappa Pillai of Alleppy had a perfect technique of using
the left main toe to modulate the Gumkaram and play with the left
fingers like the ganjira.Also Mani Iyer started the musical tone
reproduction on the left like Sa, Pa, Sa etc.
Development of the
Instrument and Experimentation
The mridangam of olden
days (earliest part of the century) were smaller, with bigger
surfaces. On the right 7 to 71/2
inches and on the left also 71/2
to 8 inches in diameter as the Sruthi (pitch) for male and female
singers were almost same 41/2
to 51/2
(black 4 and 5) in the sruthi box or "F sharp" and "G
sharp". Later, the pitches came down to 2, 11/2
and 1 and even less. Naturally the mridangams got bigger and longer
in size but the right and left diameters got smaller.
Dakshinamoorthy Pillai started the trend and later the other
maestros followed suit. Trails with various woods, various skins
continued. Mani Iyer preferred black coloured cow and goat leather
for the right side and spotted goat skin for the left spread.
Instruments were made in Raktha Chandanam, Ebony Rose wood, Maple,
Mahgony, Red Cedar, Konnai and the regular pala or Jackwood and also
the cheap and best wood called Kotukkapuli (a variety of Tamarind
tree) which gives excellent resonance, ideal weight, fine finish and
termite free. Also many ideas for tightening the both sides were
tried, like the hook and spring method originally initiated by
T.V.Gopalakrishnan in 1954 and abandoned as it hurt the fingers and
palm. Karanai was tried on the left from good old days. Nowadays a
special quality accoustic gum is also being used for the left side.
On the aspect of
experimentation in rhythms - the interaction with Tabla maestros Pt.
Kishan Mharaj, Shamtha Prasad and Allah Rakha started in the Mani
Iyer and Pazhani era and also the rare test East-West meets with
Western Jazz musicians like Dave Brubeck and Stan Gage with the
above maestros helped to open up the receptivity of our Rasikas and
musicians. T.V.Gopalakrishnan gave the first conceptual L.P.
"Percussion thro' the ages" - tracing the evolution of
South Indian or Carnatic Percussion with the Talavadya Kutchei
included. Karaikudi Mani also presented an L.P. "Sruti Laya"
and followed it up with concerts of sruti laya. Umayalpuram
Sivaraman has also done many similar laya and music innovations.
All of us still continue
to serve the cause of percussion in our own inimitable ways to
promote and propagate the interest in percussion and the beauty of
percussion in the generations to come
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