New age IR's Raga Choices

[Sureshs65]

Kamal,

There was a sepcific reason why I was saying Sahana and Nattakurunji. These are restrictive in the sense they are vakra ragas and have special prayogas. So whether you like it or not you need to come to those prayogas in order to highlight the raga. If not you will skip into the territory of other ragas. Whereas ragas like Kalyani, MMG and the pentatonic scale ragas (Mohanam, Sudhadhanyasi, Sudhasaveri, Hindolam etc) don't have this restrictions. For example, you will find lot more songs in Madhyamavathi than in Sree Ragam. They both share the same arohana but the Sreeraga avarohana is vakara and that becomes a restriction. You need to keep using that phrase 'snpdn' or 'rigarisa' else the song will sound like Madhyamavathi. These are some technical points why some scale get explored more than others. Another reason why MMG or Kalyani or Keeravani or the pentatonics get explored more is that they are the scales which are often used in Western music.

The raga situation is like the n+1 story they used to tell about NRIs wanting to come back home. Currently the raga base used till now by Raja is 'n'. Now you want say two more ragas. Once Raja does that, the n+2 will become the new n and we will demand he now tune in two more new ragas and so on. As I said, we think the challenge lies in tuning in new ragas, because we see it as a challenge. Maybe Raja sees a challenge in using the same Suddha Dhanyasi scale and coming up with something which you have never heard before, like 'Jagadananda Kaaraka'. Everyone I spoke to felt this was a very fresh song and definitely did not resemble any of the Suddha Dhanyasi he did earlier. Similarly, 'Armuthamayi' did not sound like Kalyani we have heard from him earlier. So my question, why is tuning in a new raga a challenge and not when tuning in the same 'heard a zillion times Kalyani' and yet making it sound absolutely dew fresh? I want to give an example of another famous contemporary composers use of Ananda Bhairavi in slow songs wherein the Ananda Bhairavi sounds the same in all the songs but I refrain because it can lead us somewhere else. So my contention is, we are judging Raja by what challenges we want him to take up rather than understand what challenge he has taken up. Why is 'chandrabimbathin' not a challenge? It is not easy to make out it is Sreeranjani and it gives a totally different flavour to that raga.

Coming to 'Sreeramarajyam', I see the challenge as how to infuse freshness to the 'same old ragas' or 'cliched ragas'. Is this a challenge at all? You bet it is. I had given an example earlier. Added to it you can also hear any of the tunes belted out my MM Keervani to know what a cliche is and how to deal in the same old cliched way with the same old ragas. "Sreeramarajyam' is a mint fresh album. My wife, who doesn't listen to any Raja post 2000 albums (atleast she doesn't like most of them) called up her brother and cousins and adviced them to buy the CD. It was the same with lot of other friends, not all of them fans of Raja's recent work. So the connect happened with the people as far as this album was concerned. I would counter RR's argument by saying that we are more elitist asking for newer ragas when common man is very pleased with the album Raja has taken up Suddha Dhanyasi, Hindolam, Sindhubhairavi and has given them a fairly new color and has kept all of them very fresh. That is indeed a very tough thing to do as we all think these ragas have been used so many times not only by Raja but by so many other music directors.

Coming to a more pertinent point which Vel had mentioned earlier. Raja is indeed working on newer ragas and newer techniques of dealing with ragas but we probably are not understanding it. We want a 'Andhi Mazhai' or 'Pani Vizhum' or 'Vedam Nee', which will slap us on our face and say, "Look, I am so beautiful" Raja instead is experimenting in his own way on various ragas but not holding them up and showing off. Case in point: 'Baba Pugazh Malai'. Here is the album: http://www.raaga.com/channels/tamil/...sp?mid=td01741

While it is nice to now talk about usage of new ragas and all, how many wrote about this album? There are so many new ragas (or not often used ragas) in this album, along with some regularly used ragas. There are sruthi bedam happening and all but except for a handful of people no one wrote about this album. Please do listen to this album again and check out the not oft used ragas used here. While I do love people coming out and asking why Raja is using the same old ragas, it will be nice if people come out with more vigor when he does use newer ragas

In short (after a very long writeup) what I am saying is this. Challenges come in many shapes and sizes. We are thinking of only one challenge (raga challenge) which we want Raja to take. But Raja seems to be taking up other challenges. As a listener we cannot force a composer to take up our challenge Instead we must try and understand what the composer is trying to do.